On Cyprian Norwid. Studies and Essays

[I received extensive complaints from the arch-liberal side, but strangely ridiculous: 1° – that it is aristocratic to write so incomprehensibly; that 2° – the whole Church believes to have the monopoly of truth; 3° – in the words: “what we do not ←14 | 15→understand, is [like] Satan to us.” You realise I understood easily what spirit was talking. I cut the page off, and it thus happened that on one side of the letter there was: “Church says: we have the monopoly for truth” etc., an on the other: “what I do not understand, is a Satan and seducer to me.” A curious occurrence! Having thus cut the page and underlined it in red, I sent it back, with those words from the Gospel written on top: “You have said thus.”]

It would be easy to prove that silence or concealment, used as an artistic means, played many more different roles in Norwid’s writing. Irony and ironic parable open such broad perspectives on the works of the poet that learning even just a part of that “art of silence” makes for a quite broad topic. The issue of irony is also important because it introduces the reader to the world of Norwid’s values and criteria in the most important matters for any poet. Catholicism and Christian humility, as well as his completely personal, aristocratic stoicism, all characterised Norwid to the same extent. The “measure of greatness” in Norwid’s works is also his irony. He measured value not only with reverence and humility but also with proud ironic negation. “Nie bronię się więc, ale zaprzeczam ostatecznie” (PWsz VI, 598) [“Thus I do not defend myself, but I definitely deny” ], was one of his characteristic statements. Norwid’s work expresses a whole spectrum of emotions, from curses and sarcasm – from the anger he described in Fulminant, through all shades of irony, up to the sweet smile of a martyr who accepts everything with humility. And on the scale of irony itself, there is also the fluid, intangible line between superhuman, stoic pride and a martyr’s understanding. It is sometimes impossible to differentiate where irony contains that stoic “odejrzenie” [“look-back”], annihilating fatum, as mentioned in the same-titled poem, and where it contains emotion, as expressed in the “tragedy” titled Słodycz [Sweetness]. Hence the motto of this study, taken from Calderon’s drama. It may be a difficult task to define the poet’s intentions at times, for irony is sometimes a form of perfect objectivism in Norwid’s art: when measuring values, the poet was satisfied with a statement, keeping his emotions secret or discreet, sometimes unnoticeably betraying them. In a letter to Trębicka, Norwid denied the truth of the statement that one could rely only on oneself. The stoicism of Norwid, deepened through his Catholicism, often took God as the basis of its stability. Yet that happened only in religious ←15 | 16→states. It was not always felt, for the poet also knew the stoicism of a wise man who relied on himself. Norwid also offered the “nadobnie-bez-zjadliwa ironia” [“handsomely-non-scathing irony”], which (usually unfairly) he attributed to Słowacki in Czarne kwiaty [Black Flowers; DW VII, 50]. He also sometimes presented the crushing irony of absolute aristocratic contempt. The ironist’s objectivism had different senses. For example, describing Lenartowicz’s work with the metaphor “Dant na fujarce” [“Dante on a panpipe”] could be taken for crushing irony if Norwid had not put it in a letter to Lenartowicz with the added word “śliczny” [“pretty”] and in a generally kind and favourable context. The ironist demanded an “ideal listener,” or rather, assumed the existence of one. Or – as Norwid often did – he gave everyone as much truth in his irony as the reader or listener was able to accept and process. “Jest niemało do powiedzenia ludziom, ale czy znieść potrafią?… Będzie im można więcej mówić – lecz wtedy dopiero, skoro oni nauczą się wiedzieć: kiedy się godzi śmiać?… a kiedy płakać?” (DW VII, 190) [“There is much to say to people, but can they bear it…? You can tell them more – but only once they learn to know: when it is fitting to laugh?… and when to cry?”] (Stygmat [Stigma]). Thus, irony is always connected with silence and the “measure of greatness.” Not only because irony is a silent judgement, but also because the author matched it with the reader, giving them precisely as much as they could understand. Without the collaboration of the reader or listener, an ironist cannot fulfil their artistic intentions.

Norwid was not a mystic, or rather, he was one only inasmuch as mysticism fit within Catholicism, accepted that light related to darkness, and indicated untransparent matters. In a lofty jest, he combined heavenly revolutions – miracles, with earthly miracles – revolutions. Thus, it would be loyal and in the spirit of Norwid to eliminate from research statements to the effect that “Norwid was an epoch unto himself,” a “miracle,” etc. Windelband and Rickert were only partially right when defending themselves against the designs of natural scientific methods by stating that a historian was occupied with historical events in their individual existence. A historian who wishes to understand always looks for connections, but not necessarily causal ones or those of a direct, tangible nature. To know without connections is to understand nothing. Philological research on influences through detailed comparison is useful where, like in old-Polish literature, paraphrase, adaptation, or theft often occur. Here, we have to do the same with a great artist. Differences in dates are unimportant when the relationship to the spirit of an epoch counts, and the principal social and historic conditions remain the same over a longer period of time. The identity of character and similarity of particular features of the art of ←16 | 17→not just one, but several successive generations, sufficiently explain the historical background of Norwid’s activity.

Also, it should be remembered that “epochs” are academic constructs necessary for the awareness of common distinctive features, and despite changes and turning points, there is continuity. With this in mind, we would not exclusively state whether Norwid was a romantic or not, but only gather arguments for and against both sides and define them through negation, instead of giving a positive description of Norwid.2 Trends and epochs are felt when the structural relations of their particular features are understood. The existence of one or a few features or a lack thereof with some writer does not determine whether they belong to a certain trend. As in a description of a character, in the description of an epoch and trends, the most important thing is structure. The same elements in a different context may have a completely different meaning. If the structure of a trend does not match or explain a writer’s aspirations and beliefs sufficiently, there is nothing to achieve by stating their originality or by grasping at particular features common to various trends or people. One must then seek a different structure, in connection with a historic background beyond one generation, with factors more stable than particular movements and schools, or with conditions of more general meaning, such as particular movements and trends, insofar as the trends are individual reactions and transient changes related to symptoms.

From that perspective, the conclusion might be reached that Norwid was no more peculiar than, say, Baudelaire,3 that he was simply a much greater and more powerful human, and – at least after his death – his loneliness may be overcome by finding people like him in spirit and attitude. The greatness of a human does not consist in extraneous and exorbitant phenomenality, but in the extent of the basis of their actions and the broadness of their horizons. Although it is true that men are affected by things they are unaware of, the number of factors shaping them grows together with their broadening awareness. Both that and the fact that Norwid was a traditionalist must be taken into account if one wishes to understand the “genesis” of his work. Norwid cannot truly be understood without ancient and medieval moralists, without Catholicism, Dante, etc. He covered with his spirit the whole of contemporary culture, and his approach towards it was one of the main elements shaping his general attitude. This may be defined in the most ←17 | 18→general terms as a religious organization whose deepest beliefs and desires went contrary to the principles according to which modern civilization developed. Such an attitude of Norwid towards the whole culture was expressed not only in his historiosophical interests but also in his specific view on tragedy, understood as the irony of history in general.

To present that major, essential factor in Norwid’s ironic attitude to life fully, much space is dedicated here to a certain comparison, which is even more interesting because the writer compared with Norwid was considered more original. “We are at first put out. All is new here: ideas, style, tone, the shape of the phrases, and the very vocabulary”4 – thus H. Taine wrote of him. Ludwik Krzywicki called him the sphinx of the nineteenth century. Those quotations concern Thomas Carlyle. The social character of irony and demonic humour is particularly noticeable in Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus because it is not a satire against one phenomenon or another, but an explosion of protests against the whole culture. The “philosophy of clothes” of that writer would today be termed culture criticism. The exceptional position of that book consists in the fact that it is one of the earliest and strongest warnings. The book is about what Norwid formulated in the postulate of “przepalenie globu sumieniem” [“burning the world through with conscience”]. Just before industrialism and capitalism came to full bloom, Carlyle’s spirit shuddered with dread, almost seeing a vision of the future victory of matter and technology over man. Norwid’s concept of enslavement, consisting of means becoming aims, is matched by Carlyle’s pamphlet on the victory of clothing over men. In his black humour, Carlyle announced: “clothes have made men of us; they are threatening to make clothes-screens of us.”5 The shout of an individual, one ←18 | 19→spirit against the world, would have vanished into the void, like an eruption of despair of a romantic soul. Unable to communicate, Carlyle reached instinctively for a different means: he presented the world as he saw it, in a monstrous, menacing caricature, and then undermined it. That inability of the writer to communicate with the world in everything led not only to a demonic caricature arising from suppressed pathos, not only to an unexpected combination of content which imposed a completely different viewpoint on issues, but also to the need to create an almost completely new language, with odd combinations, merging words into one, emphases, stresses, and graphic innovations. Hence Professor Teufelsdrockh from Sartor Resartus says of himself that “I was like no other” and believes that “in action, speculation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not numerous.”6

And yet, another such loner like no other can be found: Cyprian Norwid. There is probably no other comparison that can throw as much light on the author of Tajemnica Lorda Singelworth [Lord Singelworth’s Secret] and “Rozebrana” [“Disrobed”] than the one with the “clothes-philosopher” and the book Sartor Resartus. The discussion here is not about influences or a mechanical comparison, although when reading Norwid, one may assume he had read that famous book, perhaps in London, on his return from America. The analogy reaches deeper and opens a broader horizon on the same social background. In both cases, a lone individual opposed an entire whole civilization; and it was not the romantic self-against-world protest. Brzozowski owes much to Carlyle7 as a critic of romantic idealism. Norwid’s philosophy of life can also be summarised in Carlyle’s words: “The man is … what he became,”8 which clearly opposed the beliefs of unrealistic “idealists,” who divided their lives into their ideals, wishes, and a course of life different from those.

Since the stances of Carlyle and Norwid in judgement on contemporary culture were very close, it is no wonder that they also showed similarity concerning the consequences of such a stance. What is more, not only were their views on truth, science, or tradition similar, but there were also further analogies in how they viewed silence, secrecy, and mysteriousness. Moreover, similar attitudes to the world sometimes resulted in striking similarities of style, ←19 | 20→broadly understood. As Carlyle unearths the hidden sense of social life in the demonic crosscuts of a humourist, e.g., linking the most diverse phenomena into one causal chain, striking at its truth, as he writes of five million quintals of rags being reshaped into great batteries of social power, i.e., journals, which become more powerful than great royal dynasties,9 Norwid immediately comes to mind.

Norwid is also brought to mind with the deep insight into the sense of culture by giving particularly detailed senses to minor and completely irrelevant and disproportionate facts, which is connected with a more or less apt etymology serving symbolic and historiosophical purposes. Both writers had a similar manner of opening historical perspectives with rhetorical questions (related to that parabolic view on details): “The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur and Charcoal drove monk Schwartz’s pestle through the ceiling: what will the last do?”10 asked Carlyle.

Carlyle’s artistry was heavy, German, and generally minor, if original. Norwid utterly outshone him with his talent. When stating the analogies, a principal difference needs to be indicated: humour. Carlyle was aggressive in his fight and generally didactic. Thus, irony played a minor role, smaller than sarcasm and humour. Carlyle was aptly called by Krzywicki11 “ostatni kaznodzieja średniowiecznego chłopstwa szkockiego” [“the last preacher of medieval Scottish peasants”]. The differences between the mind of the British writer and the refined artistic soul of Norwid, a Catholic, need not be listed. Yet it is against the background of those great differences that similarities are strikingly visible, indicating the same social basis for irony, sarcasm and linguistic oddities, considered with both writers to be fully individual features.

It is not through similarity, like in Sartor Resartus, but through theoretical sociological analysis on the origin of irony that much can be drawn from the book of another ironist and poet of silence, the great Danish moralist, Sóren Kierkegaard. In his treatise of 1841, On the Concept of Irony, he wrote of prophetic figures at the turn of epochs, who – unable to instil new concepts of the world in their environment – expressed their negation of the old world through irony. Such a role was also attributed to Socrates in his time.

In order to win, the ironist must become a victim like a tragic protagonist. Analogy in attitude towards an epoch already foreign to them explains Norwid’s ←20 | 21→particular fondness of Socrates, who appeared very often in his writing. Norwid saw in him not so much irony as tragic stoicism. Socrates “kielich dopełnił i na statuę żywą obowiązku zamienił statut pisany” (PWsz VI, 414) [“drank the cup and changed the written statute to the living statue of duty”]. Norwid’s statement from his lecture on Słowacki: “Współczesność albowiem jest dwojaka” [“contemporaneity is always twofold”] clearly expressed that sense of identity. Faith in providence made Norwid accept reality as the expression of God’s will, or at least as an act of God. Yet, on the other hand, that reality denied his Christian moral values, and he could not accept it. That contradiction continuously resulted in stating a lack of adequacy. He overcame the dilemma with thought, explaining that time is not eternity because of the fact that it is time; i.e., reality cannot contain absolute values within itself. He distinguished between apparent and true reality. He used emotion to oppose the circumstances; irony and silence played the role of that opposition in his writings. Feeling unable to present the world in the name of which he negated its surrounding reality, Norwid stated: “Jestem znamię!… / Sam głosu nie mam – Panie” (PWsz I, 136) [“I am a stigma!… / I do not have a voice myself – Lord”]. Characteristically, Norwid wished to change Sophocles’ metaphysical “unfortunately” into a historical “too-late.”12 He spoke very openly of the misunderstanding of individuals who were ahead of the epoch:

jakże albowiem, posuwając społeczeństwo w przyszłość i język uczuć przyszłych mu przynosząc, porozumiewać się jasno z obecnością …. Nie jestże to tak, jak gdyby kto zdawkową monetą płacił wtedy, kiedy ta jeszcze od stempla oderwać się nie może, albo gdy jest gorąca i do czerwoności rozpalona! (PWsz VI, 458)

[how then, moving the society into the future and bringing it the language of future emotion, [can you] communicate clearly with the present …. Is it not as if someone paid a small coin when the coin still cannot come off the stamp, or is yet red-hot!]

It is noteworthy that Kierkegaard started his considerations of irony by opposing the “romantic irony,” completely foreign to the new post-romantic generation. Contrary to the term, it actually had little to do with actual irony and was certainly in no way connected with Norwid’s irony. Even where Norwid ←21 | 22→intentionally travestied romantic irony, as he did in Szczesna, he was more of a satirist than an ironist. The romantic irony was born of the individualist anarchism of the romantics, of the fight against one’s own sentimentalism, of magical idealism – and finally of an internal split. Anyone “kto by Diogenesa poczytywał jedynie za improwizatora dorywczego i za bezkierunkowy jaki humor” (PWsz VI, 224) [“who would take Diogenes only for an occasional improviser and for some un-oriented h umo u r” ] would be very much in error, wrote Norwid in Milczenie [Silence]. That deprecated un-oriented irony, resulting from whim and often from imaginary superiority over the world, agitated despair, boredom, apathy, or scepticism, cannot be found anywhere in Norwid’s works. Norwid did not negate reality as such; neither did he deprecate the common. This differentiated his irony from the irony of romantics, the “disappointed souls” of romantic epigones and the later sceptics of the end of the century. It may be that in his youth, the irony of Norwid and of all the circle of “Warsaw bohemia” was of a typically romantic character and that the ironic stand of “bohemians” had some impact on Norwid’s later attitude towards the milieu.13 Yet the non-disappointed later romantics, like Musset, Heine, or Berwiński, can help explain the character of Norwid’s irony and its relation to the epoch.

Contrary to the above, Norwid’s irony had one very strongly oriented tendency. It expressed a strongly built and closed individuality, opposing the world in a stoic manner in the name of clearly defined values and concepts. That the uncommon abundance of irony with writers more or less contemporary to Norwid is explained with the disappointment of romantic souls is another matter. The road from romanticism to realism led through irony. The irony of Flaubert’s disappointed soul, and, in particular, his immortal Homais from Madame Bovary, may serve as a signpost for the evolution leading to naturalism. Irony was the only weapon left to those who could do nothing against the world. When the bourgeoisie took over culture, the edge of irony turned against them. The more the “last Mohicans” of romanticism stabbed about with vicious, aristocratic, desperate, and refined irony, the more overpowered and lonely they felt. An example of that can be Contes cruels by Villiers de l’Isle Adam, resembling Norwid’s derision in Ad leones. Hopes lost after the “Spring of Nations” increased the bitterness. While some were dolefully melancholising in seclusion, like Amiel, others were “liberated” from the world with Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy, and still others found solace ←22 | 23→in propagating aristocratic stoicism. The latter can be found in the classicism and aestheticism of the Parnassians, their poêsie objective et impassible. The greater the rift between historical reality and the elites who understood its false or ostensible nature, the greater was the isolation of the elites. The inability to communicate resulted in the instinctive suppression of emotions; romantic pathos was opposed with the pathos of restraint, silence, loftiness, and statue-like demeanour. Such was the learned and aristocratic, static and composed poetry of the Parnassians and of Norwid.

It may seem strange to compare Norwid with Baudelaire because there is a great difference in the artistry of those writers. Baudelaire was conservative and classical in his artistry, while nothing of the kind may be said of Norwid. Baudelaire had more artistic culture as well, but that is not the point here. They are similar if seen from a sociological point of view. What they had in common was the trait of final tragic eccentricity in seclusion and stoic pride both in persistence and in contrariness. Fortunately for Baudelaire’s artistry, his loneliness in the surrounding middle-class atmosphere, his hatred, contempt, and estrangement from the world were expressed in perversion, defiance, and a fancy to surround himself with mystery up to ironic mystification in life, not in art. But those are only different expressions of the same attitude towards the world. Despite all those features of decadence, Baudelaire was not decadent. He was a man with a good backbone, with great, uncommon strength of will. In that strength of will, in that stoicism, the two men had much in common, and likewise with their source – Catholicism. Similar situations resulted in similar features: strength of sarcasm, irony, contempt, and desire for stoicism in art and also in their inner self, which had to survive everything. Neither were intuitive artists – with both of them, art was the result of work, premeditation, and uncommon condensation of the word. “Nie bronię się, lecz ostatecznie zaprzeczam” [“I do not defend myself, but I definitely deny”], one might here repeat after Norwid and Baudelaire. The latter only opposed ugliness with beauty – for he was an aesthete. And therein lies the difference. Baudelaire never looked beyond Paris and art in his thought – he was simply a brilliant writer and poet. He choked and suffocated with Paris and bourgeoisie and lived on dreams and art. Norwid suffered not from a city – he suffered from the whole epoch, he fought practically the entire understanding of the culture of his day, and that vast philosophical and historical horizon of his put him far above Baudelaire. The scope of his thoughts and emotions was incomparably broader and, as a result of the nature of the issues he saw, deeper. Their social role was similar in attitude but not in scope. Leaning on the rock of Catholicism, they maintained was an absolute, unbending negation of the life surrounding them, its weapons ←23 | 24→being sarcasm, mocking irony, contempt. They opposed that life with monumentality – of beauty with Baudelaire, and of inner truth with Norwid.

The traditions of that monumental pessimistic stoicism, the tendencies for the pathos of restraint, silence, loftiness, and statue-like demeanour could already be found with typical romantics. From the darkness, inspired by old-Scandinavian poetry, there emerged the statue of the unfaltering Iridion. Classical attitudes, combined with the dark, self-focused, stoic poetry by Alfred de Vigny, was manifested by Chasseriau’s Venus,14 which is an ideal, if unintended, illustration of that poetry. The increasing intellectualism and scepticism favoured a scientific and historical treatment of religion (Renan). Aestheticism, a symptom of detachment from life, used archaeological, historical, and mythological research as material for aristocratic, learned, and intellectualist poetry, delighting in egotism. Thus, was the art of Leconte de Lisle, who was contemptuous of the masses, and thus was the art of other Parnassians. The interests of writers detached from life turned to the far future in seeking kindred souls, in striving for a moral anchor and an explanation of the matters of culture. For Louis Menard, a Parnassian poet, moralist and philosopher of culture, absence from life also had an adverse effect on drama, giving it a static nature foreign to its essence. In that respect, Norwid’s dramas resembled the dramas by Leconte de Lisle and Flaubert’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony. The ten-act drama by Ibsen on Julian the Apostate, devoid of poetry and a historical sense, is typical of the mid-nineteenth century in its reflectiveness and topic (revision of culture), and through its pursuit of an Apollo-Christ synthesis.

Kiedy to, co miewałeś blisko osobistym, połamie ci nagle przed oczyma fatalny wicher i kiedy on co osobowego nadweręży lub z kurzawą popiołu precz odmiecie, pozostawają ci poglądy i poczucia ogólne, ludzkościowe, historyczne… Lecz pozostawają może jako upajający męt na dnie kielicha… lecz otwierają się one może przed twymi oczyma jak “Egipska umarłych księga” (DW VII, 193)

[When that which you had close and personal, is suddenly broken by violent wind before your eyes and when it damages something personal, or wipes it away with a storm of ash, you are left with views and sensations which are general to all people ←24 | 25→and history… But maybe they stay as intoxicating dregs on the bottom of the glass… but maybe they open before your eyes like the “Egyptian book of the Dead”]

Norwid’s cult of Socrates, already mentioned here, may serve as a guide into that interest in the past belonging to Norwid and kindred-spirit poets, which is of particular interest due to its connection with irony. The latter finds its closest ally in sarcasm, as will be seen below. The wisdom of ancient stoics often fed old-Polish writers as well and was popular in the time of the motto of perseverance (Orzeszkowa, Świętochowski). It is understandable why Norwid also sought comfort in it and why stoicism was a very common motif with the poets of his time.15 The advice given by Norwid to the nation in Niewola [Enslavement] to make use of suffering applied to the whole society in the same way as the thought was applied by Seneca to an individual. In the foreword to Niewola, Norwid wrote:

Nie mogę tu albowiem zapomnieć wzoru Sokratesa, który obrażenie od kajdan wytłoczone na nodze uważał za treść i za przykład popierający rzecz o bólu i stosunku bólu do żywota, panując wyraźnie tym sposobem nad fatalnością położenia, owszem, rosnąc w wolności nie do pokonania pewnej siebie. (DW IV, 42)

[For I cannot forget here the model of Socrates, who considered the injury chains had impressed on his leg to be the content and an example to support the lesson on pain and its relation to life, prevailing distinctly in that manner over the fatality of his situation, and even growing in freedom of invincible confidence.]

Stoicism, restraint, static quality, the cult of silence, and irony remained interconnected, and every now and again, one of those elements appeared with the Parnassians or other writers of the epoch. Symptomatic in that respect was, e.g., the subtle, lofty comedy by Théodore de Banville, titled Socrate et sa femme. With stoic irony, Socrates admired Xanthippe in the drama because, with her conduct, she reminded him of earthly matters and thus helped his spirit maintain a perfect balance between the world of ideas and earth. In Mademoiselle de Maupin, Théophile Gautier praised the unsaid inner content of the work as being the most perfect. A Catholic thinker, Ernest Hello, saw God’s irony in Napoleon’s life, and, speaking of the whole nineteenth century, he said: “Qu’estce donc le dixneuvième siècle? Une certaine ironie semble avoir obtenu la présidence de ses destinées.”

That contradiction of precision and ambiguity of understatement, as an artistic style, must be learned from example – especially as it characterised the whole of the writing of that artist and thinker. That dualism of tendencies is best shown in a poetic description of a sculpture by Norwid, which combines succinct compactness and distinctness of the shape with shades and elusiveness ←26 | 27→of expression, opening up the possibility of a subjective view. Norwid spoke beautifully of that in a sonnet to Marcel Gujski:

The mutual permeation of the empire, classicist style, and neo-Baroque tendencies, or the coexistence of such trends in the early nineteenth century in France formed the background with which Norwid’s dualism was in harmony.16 Besides the constant classical tendencies appearing in France in each epoch, Correggio’s influences can also be seen. Next to Ingres’ art, there was the demonic Baroque (Daumier). The somewhat earlier painter Prud’hon – freeing himself from the classicism of David – the creator of the famous The Abduction of Psyche by Zephyrus in the Louvre, in whose painting the chiaroscuro played a significant role, is an important example here. These distant analogies are given here simply to indicate the compatibility of the artistry of irony with the whole spirit of Norwid’s works and the artistry of the epoch. With Leonardo, the elusiveness of Mona Lisa’s smile lies in the precision of the representation – and such is the case of irony’s artistry with Norwid. A statement contains precision of terms and matter-of-factness, and the elusiveness is only in the continuation, which was how Norwid saw silence or understatement. It is in the merely suggested but never articulated lyricism of an ironically stated fact. That kind of intellectualism and classicist precision in intention provided a striking contrast between Norwid’s artistry as an ironist from romantic irony with its whimsical Ariostic smile, profuse lyricism, and subjectivism.

Since Norwid’s theories explain little, the next step is to turn to consider the factors which evoked that attitude in him and favoured the development of artistic skill in irony.17

What swordplay in the sophist school was for Socrates, the salon was for the worldly Norwid. Irony was an invaluable asset in social situations in that it allowed him to oppose without making the fight open, without pedantry and seriousness. Rather, he isolated himself aristocratically in the form of a game, ←28 | 29→which made him original and pleasant – un homme spirituel. It gave him a hidden sense of superiority and elevated him over the company, even as he associated with them. Irony requires subtlety both from the one who uses it and the one who listens; it both hides and uncovers an intention – it is grasped in an instant. It is a guardian of closed and shy souls and yet can serve as coquetry, or a discreet disclosure of one’s superiority. Hence the social irony of Norwid was sometimes similar to a slight brush, barely noticeable, and sometimes sharp but still clothed in the appearance of a compliment, as when Norwid stated, for example, that women were like angels, for they have never known work. Such playful superiority of Norwid as a man of the world can be found, e.g., in a letter in which he recounted a conversation with young Delaroche. When Norwid was amazed at his fluent Polish, the Frenchman explained he had learned the language so that he might understand another Christian literature. Surprised at that, Norwid could at first find no words. “‘Jak to?… czy pan zdania tego nie podziela?’ ” [“What is it?… do you not share this opinion?”], asked Delaroche, and Norwid replied, “z przewrotnością patrycjalną, do jakiej wielokrotnie nakłania obywateli obowiązek: ‘Owszem, szlachetny panie!… owszem… oczekiwałem tylko, ażeby słowa te zaszczytne usłyszeć po polsku iz ust cudzoziemca’ ” (PWsz VI, 259) [“with patrician contrariness, to which duty often induces a citizen: ‘Yes, sir, I do!… the only thing I have waited for was to hear such noble words in Polish and from a foreigner’ ”]. Later, in the years of poverty, bitterness, and oversensitivity, refined words and irony were a sharp weapon to him, which he used to gain proud social independence.

It is clear now what the social ground of Norwid’s irony was. That inability to communicate with contemporary culture was accompanied by incomprehension in his own community. Norwid’s confession from a letter to Konstancja Górska: “jestem tak wieloracznie nieszczęsny i utrapiony, że mogę tylko milczeć albo żartować – mógłbym jeszcze ipić , ale to szkodzi i następstwa posiada niedobre” (PWsz IX, 305) [“I am in such manifold misery and distress that I can only be silent, or make jokes – I could also drink , but that is harmful and has bad consequences”] has the significance of a psychological document. To indicate the connection of that sense of loneliness with the character of Norwid’s writings, one more psychological term ought to be specified here. According to Bleuler, ambitendency is the principle stating that each tendency to action is accompanied by a reverse reflex: restraint. In the conditions in which Norwid lived, all the masculine power he had turned inwards. Sometimes this suppressed instinct exploded in a curse, sarcasm, or anger, but only for a moment. Power not expressed in expansion transformed into the power of restraint. Objectivism, monumentality, and static character bear the traits of restrained power, thus oriented. Distance from reality allows one to see life as a parable. This often bordered on a habit of seeing it everywhere, like in the very characteristic fragment from the poem “Nerwy” (PWsz ←30 | 31→II, 135) [“Nerves”], where a minor occurrence on the stairs evoked a tragic and ironic concept.

Of the cross ! …)]18

It is rare, on the other hand – the poem “Ruszaj z Bogiem” [“Godspeed”] is likely the only example – that Norwid linked irony with an image of some vengeful tendency of God. Irony played an immense role not only in Norwid’s lyrical works but was also the point of all his short stories, without exception. The plot served only as a foundation for that ironic sense, and irony recurred within the story numerous times. Cywilizacja [Civilization] is an ironic allegory of modern civilization that turns at places into a grim memento, like in the image of the board of people of trust who start a session at the moment when ice blocks crush the ship’s wheel. Tajemnica Lorda Singelworth [Lord Singelworth’s Secret] is a humorous and ironic allegory of the author’s own attitude to the surrounding world. Ad leones is an ironic presentation of the role of art in a capitalist society. The author’s irony is so transparent in those works that it needs no comment. Quite the opposite: he could be accused of excessive mockery and over-saturation with irony. The poem “Czemu” [“Why”] is an ironic point of that tragicomic story of human souls passing each other, never to meet due to stigmas. The longest poem, Quidam, smuggles in the thought of the irony of history – and so it continues. The irony “że nie z dziejów te dzieje z ich monarchą treflowym” [“that the history with their monarch of clubs is not from history”] is also contained in the drama Zwolon, spiced up at times with a caustic remark like this one (DW V, 73):

A później człowiek bardzo się zadziwi,

Że taki wielki Pan, i tak szczęśliwi

Poddani kiedyś byli – ci nieżywi!

And Turk takes the coiled hookah to his lip!…)]19

Norwid’s originality and power in that demonic irony (as shown here) cannot be compared with the expression of another artist because, with him, social emotions were always accompanied by such a broad horizon of history, which gave his irony a vast resonance. That category of irony includes poems like “Słowianin” [“The Slav”], “Rozebrana” [“Disrobed”], “Święty-pokój” [“Blessed-Peace”], etc.

Contempt for the surrounding historical reality, inertia, and stagnancy, a ridiculous parody of history, evoked in him a yearning for that primary history of people which, unaware of itself, was an epos: