On Cyprian Norwid. Studies and Essays

Nevertheless, there are many concepts in Promethidion that are still not sufficiently explored. Most scholars have been devoted to commenting on Norwid’s views embedded in this work and trying to arrange his poetic statements into a relatively consistent system of judgments which would reflect the entirety of the poet’s aesthetic, philosophical and social beliefs and convictions. Although many are highly insightful, these works outlined Norwid’s views accurately yet mostly unilaterally; they highlighted the aesthetic, religious-philosophical or social assumptions, trying to fully explain them all by using only several of his views.

Apart from this main and most important group of publications, other studies were supplementary or (those that were more extensive and devoted to other issues), by necessity, only briefly mentioned the ideas presented in Promethidion. Some showcased the relationship between the views presented around the time of writing Promethidion as well as earlier or later works by Norwid, while others tried to pinpoint foreign influences (Plato and Platonists, German idealistic philosophy, the Bible, French social utopists, etc.). Finally, there were those that showed the innovative nature of the poet’s theories against related later theoreticians in Poland and abroad. The studies of strictly literary issues, literary properties, and values of this work were marginalised; if mentioned, these publications were always discussed from a general standpoint and reluctantly in almost all instances. However, it is becoming more typical that the ideas in Promethidion are being met with approval and frequently with the greatest enthusiasm.

As the studies of interpreting and systematising the poet’s views have greatly advanced our understanding of Promethidion, we shall skip the issues such as, for example, the relationship between art and work, the connections among various arts, their ties with craftsmanship, criticism of imitation, recognition of the great value of the form-letter, and the project of extending the scope of exhibitions, etc. This article will move on to typical literary issues to hopefully shed more light on the research of Norwid’s views.

There may be various reasons for such a diversified layout of the work. One of them may be the author’s careless haste when of gluing together distinct small units to form a single publication. Another reason might lie in the slow progression of the work, as it was being written for several years and under various circumstances and published later, without changes and deletions out of respect towards the organic development of the entire creation. There is, in all likelihood, that the poet chose two out of dozens of dialogues written between 1847 and 1851, added introductions, footnotes, and an epilogue at the end, thus creating the whole work. Whichever perspective is chosen for the time preceding the publication of Promethidion, the fact remains that, while preparing the work for printing, the poet selected some elements from his personal portfolio, omitted others (numerous dialogues were written in that period), arranged them in a specific and predetermined order, and added introductions, mottos, footnotes, and dedications; in short, he somehow managed to compose his publication. Still, the same question remains: what are the notable compositional features of the work in the form it was originally printed?

They seem to correspond with a certain characteristic of Norwid’s style which transpires in many of his literary works and is extremely important and emblematic to this poet. It consists of coating the heart of a certain matter (an image, a word, a gesture) with rich pulp (descriptions, considerations, side notes, etc.) and husks through which you have to break and bite off before you get to the proper hidden seed, usually simple and mature. It must be noted that this compositional method has nothing to do with the pursuit of an impressive denouement, if only for the straightforward reason that Norwid’s seed is far from glamourous and unique, it is almost always plain and simple.

Furthermore, it is not tied to the method of using other literary resources, such as the attitude frequently employed by some authors who deliberately accumulate motifs and situations to stimulate the curiosity of the reader or listener, to enrich, or to “sensationalise” the simple and uncomplicated content. No, Norwid’s works belong to a completely different compositional type.

The large number of allusions to the main theme is a frequent tendency in various literary works. Although, of course, there are writers moving directly ad rem, or even beginning as if halfway through the main plot, only gradually passing through the hints in the text to reconstruct the introductory parts that were not stated out loud before. Therefore, concluding that Norwid belongs to the first type of writers who foreshadow the main theme of their work in advance is not an entirely trivial assumption.

More important, however, is the second resonant group. The very title serves as an opening. The word Promethidion is dignified, mysterious and serious, portends momentous and rather difficult content, and prepares what is needed – the tone. The same task is even more prominently performed by the dedication to Łubieński: “Tobie – Umarły, te poświęcam pieśni” (DW IV, 94) [To you – Deceased, I devote my songs]. These words intend to, apart from the tribute to a friend, instil the belief in us of the deepest earnestness of the text that follows. It is not governed by even the most sublime whims of imagination, but by the truth and sincerity of intentions under the patronage of the spirit of the deceased. Calling him as if a witness to the stand evidences the validity of the raised issues:

The dialogue itself begins with sociable small talk about Chopin, art, and beauty. From those discussions, jumping from one topic to another, going around in circles, and repeating the same common beliefs, one thing becomes apparent: the understanding of how very difficult the main problem is. This is their compositional role in the resonant series, intended to prepare the listener to comprehend the entire load content of the poet’s claims that will soon be revealed. One of the participants suddenly interrupts the dispute:

And only then, after nearly ten pages of the most diverse yet always indirect ways of preparing the recipient, does the poet consider the moment to be ripe enough so that three ordinary words, which he puts in a short sentence, may be heard with full power: “kształtem jest Miłości” [is the shape of Love]. After this lapidary statement, the poet formulates a long sentence full of enumerations as if he was trying to make up for the previous laconic claim.

Similar poetic resonance means are used by the poet over a dozen verses further in the poem when he defines another concept foundational in his views: work. He again turns to the eternal man in a longer apostrophe, again citing the man’s words instead of his own, after enumerating several words from the realm of the “sublime” (God, sin, beauty, conscience) gives a short summary of what work is, etc. The poet assumed an analogous stance also in the second dialogue, Wiesław.

The enumeration and full inventory of this type of poetic means is not the purpose of the current elaboration; a general characterisation will suffice at the moment. It is important to pay attention to the third group of “poetic amplifiers,” which consists of two types: one includes numerous mottos, the other, even more abundant footnotes (in Promethidion, there are four mottos and eighteen footnotes across nearly forty standard pages of text).

Another frequent element in the poet’s footnotes are “personal” remarks written in the first person e.g. “zwracam uwagę” [I draw attention], “długo, długo myślałem i szukałem, aż przekonałem się” [I have thought and searched for a long, long time until I became convinced], “autor wykładał to już” [the author has explained it already], “tę myśl w zarysie naprzód rzucam” [I signal the sketch of this thought in advance], “że tu wspomnę Tadeusza Brodowskiego” [let me mention Tadeusz Brodowski here], “jaka ogromna szkoda!” [such a great pity!], “nie radbym przechodzić granic laikowi zastrzeżonych, wszakże” [I would not want to cross the boundaries for laymen, but…].

Almost all the footnotes in Promethidion refer to the text of both versed dialogues (Bogumił and Wiesław), not to the author’s introductory or epilogue elaborations, which are written in prose, in the first person, and contain many personal remarks. Apparently, the footnotes for the latter were less necessary. When it comes to the text of the dialogues, already objectified through the very form and given as statements of someone else, the footnotes emotionally bring them closer to the reader. The author’s constant and highly personal remarks in the frequent digressive footnotes undermine the distance from the views given by the characters in the dialogues, views as if only cited by the writer. Conveying the author’s close, vivid association with the judgements, only supposedly reported, is the main compositional task of these footnotes. Of course, the footnotes also perform other, more proper tasks, and above all provide information; Norwid is particularly eager to explain certain words with their etymological analyses (usually remarkable).

Using Promethidion as an example, which belongs to the poet’s early larger works, the compositional distinctiveness of resonant motifs is noticeable, as usual in early works with particular clarity, even glaring. In his later works, Norwid embedded those elements into the main flow of his text more harmoniously and, consequently, made them less graspable. Therefore, knowing Promethidion from this perspective may grant us insight into the very specific and individual compositional properties of Norwid’s works in general.

We see, furthermore, that the variety emphasised at the beginning and so evident in the structure of Promethidion is not a random patchwork, but a structural diversity where specific elements, such as introductions, mottos, footnotes, and accents, etc., perform different functions. The diversity here is surely one thing, differentiation. Certain elements alert the reader in advance, drawing attention to some elements of the text, other elements do the same “bottom-up,” so through footnotes, and there are those that set the “tone” for some of the longer passages; graphic resources additionally highlight the more important places. Further, we may find verses intermixed with prose, and monologues with dialogues, and all of those, with digressions from the author; finally, after lapidary sentences with strictly intellectual judgements, voluminous emotional-mood elements are inserted so everything introduces a certain uneasiness and vibrancy to the main flow of the piece and is full of unexpected twists and shifts of viewpoints. This engaging the reader into the problems discussed in the work and making the reader constantly vigilant and collaborative becomes an increasingly important trait of Norwid’s writing. As we see here, Promethidion is a symptomatic piece. And this restless diversity is especially typical for Norwid’s works written in the period between 1848 and 1865, when, apart from Promethidion, he also wrote Zwolon, Krakus, Wanda, Tyrtej [Tyrtaeus] and Za kulisami [Backstage], and some poems: above all “Chopin’s Grand Piano” and the Vade-mecum series. The later pieces gained more and more features of monumental works.

Let us take a look at one more foreshadowing element of the system. The most dangerous passages of any form of author’s introductions are constantly those which the author tries to summarise the content of his literary work. For the content of a literary work is expressed through its form and any attempts to translate the verses into the language of prose are highly dangerous; this seems to happen in Promethidion as well. In the preface To the Reader, the poet wrote: “W dialogu pierwszym idzie o formę, to jest Piękno. W drugim o treść, to jest o Dobro i o światłość obu, Prawdę” (DW IV, 97) [In the first dialogue, it is about the form, that is Beauty. In the second one, it is about the content, that is Goodness and the light of both, the Truth]. Judging from such foreshadowing, it is possible to assume that the topic of consideration in both dialogues would be to set the interrelation between the three classical and basic philosophical concepts: goodness, beauty, and truth. Norwid devoted two dialogues to these three concepts. The first one is to discuss the form, beauty; the second one is to focus on the content, goodness, and the truth performs the role of a mysterious connector that binds the content with the form. Already at first glance, the layout of the dialogues may seem unclear. This ambiguity will only expand when we examine the subtitles. Dialogue I is provided with the subtitle: “rzecz o sztuce i stanowisku sztuki. JAKO FORMA” (DW IV, 99) [On Art and the Standpoint of Art. AS A FORM]. So, we observe something similar to an internal shift, instead of beauty, there is art, a concept that is close and yet very different. In the second dialogue, which was supposed to focus on goodness (in the light of the preface), a total surprise awaits the reader. The explanation under the title foreshadows: “rzecz o prawdzie, jej promieniach i duchu” (DW IV, 119) [On Truth, its Rays and Spirit]. The problem of goodness is not present in the subtitles of both dialogues at all.

Another phrase is found in fragment IV from the Epilogue where Norwid states that art will develop “przez pojęcia nieco sumienniejsze o formie życia (a więc nie o formie “w ogóle” [remark by T.M.]), to jest o kierunku pięknego, i o treści życia, to jest o kierunku dobra i prawdy” (DW IV, 133) [through concepts more meticulous about the form of life (so not form as such [remark by T.M.]), that is on the course of beautiful and the content of life, meaning the course of goodness and truth]. Here the word “kierunek” [course] means, it is hard to comprehend properly.

III.

Bogumił, as it is known, begins his speech with the definition of Beauty; it is “kształtem miłości” [shape of love]. The very same phrase (“kształtem miłości piękno jest” [the shape of love is beauty]) begins the next passage of the monologue. After this part the paragraph ends with the sentence: “I tak się śpiewa ona pieśń miłości dawna” (DW IV, 107) [and so this ancient song of love is sung]. Further, longer batches of poems devoted to the concept of work are found; after those, often without direct relation to the concept of beauty, the theme of love returns.

In general, it may be concluded that in this monologue Norwid often uses the concepts of “art” and “beauty,” without distinguishing between them and that he further sees beauty (art) from two standpoints. At one moment he raises them out of love, where beauty is supposed to be its shape or, more precisely, its expression; and love, in a way, conditions beauty as its predecessor. The second definition of beauty is laid out by the poet using the concept of work. The work is, in a way, beauty’s successor; beauty (art) delights, inspires a person to work to realise the love in the real world until the moment of resurrection. And the supreme goal of a person is to raise from the dead, stop being a lifeless, passive pawn in the games of fate, and to become aware, as Norwid says elsewhere, the “zwolony” [being freed from captivity because of agreeing with God’s will] co-creator of reality. With only these two concepts, love and work, Norwid uses the words of Bogumił to determine another, the concept of beauty (or art); any other terms that appear in this dialogue are of tertiary importance. Especially “truth” is nearly marginal with the “goodness” being mentioned only once in passing when the poet says that “dobro … na wygodno … zdrobnieje” (DW IV, 108) [goodness … because of comfort … diminishes].

In the second dialogue, Wiesław, the concept of Goodness, to which the entire dialogue was supposed to be devoted, does not appear even once. The Truth is mentioned many times indeed, but, as mentioned, the meaning of the word differs. It is used in a logical sense, as an indication of the correctness of certain truths being derived from others; it is also used in a rather ontological sense, as the suitability of some theses formulated verbally with the external reality, as well as in a metaphysical sense, as the existence of eternal truths, etc.

It is important that Wiesław’s first words are: “co opinii głosem się nazywa, to jest … cóż” (DW IV, 119) [what is called the voice of an opinion is … well]; they take the form of a question formulated similarly to that in the first dialogue where the poet defines the concepts of beauty and love of work. In further parts of his monologue, Wiesław again and again formulates opinions: “Owoż – opinii jeszcze onej cieniem / Jest” (DW IV, 122) [That – a shadow of that opinion / Is]; “Bo ona – głosem Ludu! – głosem Boga” (DW IV, 122) [For it is the voice of the People! – voice of God]; “Opinio! ojczyzn ojczyzno” (DW IV, 123) [Opinion! homeland of homelands]; “Głos czegoś… nie wiem… głos jakiejś Opinii” (DW IV, 127) [A voice of something… I do not know… a voice of an Opinion]; “O Polsko! … tyś córą opinii, / Tyś głosem, który jest to – co głos Boga.” (DW IV, 126, 127) [Oh, Poland! … you are the daughter of opinion / The voice that is – what is the voice of God.].