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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2017
In four lines of the opening stanza of the Ode to Youth Mickiewicz describes in vivid images the world which he desired, as poet, to espouse. “O Youth!” he says,
… give me wings
And I will soar above the callous earth,
Into the wonder realm of phantoms and chimeras,
Where enthusiasm creates a world of marvels.
Among the factors which impelled Mickiewicz to embrace this world, by no means least in importance was the northern ballad. How did the balladry of the north come to play so large a part in the poet's growth, in what manner did it present itself to his consciousness and how did it become a vital part of his experience? These are the questions which this study will endeavor to answer.
There was probably never a time in Polish literary history when the poet relied less on inner experience and so much on outward reality as the very time when Mickiewicz was born. Reason, not Feeling and the inner life, ruled: poetic models came from France, where the Romantic attitude had not yet become the vogue. Life in general was artificial, brittle, worldly, and there seemed no likelihood that there would shortly be a change of mood.
1 Pan Tadeusz, I, lines 467–469.
2 Polski Słownik Biograficzny, IV, 227.
3 Manorhouse.
4 Beet soup. For an account of the behavior of these refugees, see, Memoirs of the Countess Potocka (New York, 1900), pp. 12–13.
5 Korespondencja Filomatów, V, 241–243, quoted by Stanisław Wasylewski, “Drobiazgi Mickiewiczowskie,” Wiadomości literackie, 1925, No. 3.
6 Clinging to the custom of wearing the old Polish dress, especially the kontusz.
7 When the son asks the father if he does not see the Erlking's daughters, he says, “Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau.”
8 A theme used by Mickiewicz in Switezianka.
9 A theme used by Mickiewicz in “To lubię!
10 A theme used by Mickiewicz in Šwitez.
11 A theme used by Mickiewicz in Dziady, II.
12 Chmielowski, Piotr, Adam Mickiewicz: zarys biograficzno-literachi (Warsaw, 1901) p. 23 Google Scholar.
13 Ibid., p. 24.
14 Jan St. Bystroń, Literati i Grafomani (Warsaw, 1938), p. 8.
15 Ibid., p. 22.
16 Letter of Mickiewicz to Czeczot, Apr. 23, 1823.
17 Letter of Mickiewicz to Niemcewicz, Moscow, Nov. 11 (22), 1827.
18 Or Mickiewicz may have encountered this theme first in W. Chłędowski's Polish reworking of Joseph Ratschky's German ballad about Nicholas and Margaret. Chłędowski's version was entitled Wyrok Bolesława (Bolesław's Verdict) and it appeared in Pamiętnik Iwowski, Dec. 1818, pp. 267–275. Czeczot used this as the basis of a one-act operetta, Małgorzata z Zębocin, which Mickiewicz reviewed for the Filomatians, Dec. 29, 1819.
19 “Die alten Formen. stürzen ein!”
20 Konstanty Gaszyński, in the preface to Kontuszowe pogadanki, Pisma prozaiczne (Leipzig, 1874), pp. 68–69.
21 Franciszek Rawita Gawroński, Zoryan Dołęga Chodakowski [pseudonym of Czarnocki] :jego życie i praca (Lwów, 1898), p. 28.
22 Kobiliński-Ellis, Leo, W. A. Joukowski, seine Persönlichkeit, sein Leben, und sein Werk (Paderborn, 1933), p. 85 Google Scholar.
23 “ O Bürgerze,” Pisma Adama Mickiewicza, ed. Kallenbach, I, p. 132.
24 Here we are following the dating of Chmielowski, which we believe is correct.
25 Leo Kobiliński-Ellis, op. cit. (Note 22), p. 85.
26 Olga appeared in Syn Otečestva, 1816, No. XXIV, pp. 186–192; the article by Gnedich in the same journal, XXVII, 31, p. 3, and the one by Griboyedov, XXX, 81, p. 150.
27 von Strodtmann, Adolf, Briefe von und an Gottfried A. Bürger (Berlin, 1874), I, 167 Google Scholar.
28 In the footnote to “Ucieczka,” Pisma, op. cit. (Note 23) IV, p. 16.
29 A. von Strodtmann, op. cit. (Note 27), p. 164.
30 Ovid, Tristiae, Book IV, I, a poem which Mickiewicz himself translated.
31 A light-headed young lord.
32 “Do przyjaciół,” Pisma, op. cit. (Note 27), I, 127.
33 Letter of Mickiewicz to J. Jeżowski, 8 April, 1820.
34 Letter of Mickiewicz to Jan Czeczot, end of November, 1819.
35 Letter of Mickiewicz to J. Jeżowski, June, 1820.
36 Dzienmk wileński, 1822, 471.
37 Bibliothèque universelle, Vol. VIII, contained Canto I, but we can not be certain Mickiewicz saw either this or Canto II, which appeared in the same volume but later in the year. We know, however, that he saw Cantos III and IV (Vol. VIII, pp. 409–428) for he reviewed them for the Filomatians, Dec. 27, 1818, and Feb. 4, 1819.
38 Nieznane pisma Adama Mickiewicza, ed. Kallenbach (Cracow, 1910), p. 126.
39 Adolf von Strodtmann, op. cit. (Note 27), p. 132. Bürger altered the passage from Hamlet slightly to suit his own purposes, as Mickiewicz did the one he used.
40 Caption to “Romantyczność,” Pisma, op. cit., I, 107.
41 Dziady, IV, Pisma, op. cit., II, 71.
42 Lascelles Abercrombie, Romanticism (London, 1926), p. 129.