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.