Midway between the classicists and the romantics stands the Curious figure of Casimir Brodzinski (1791-1835). His verse idyl Wieslaw, in which the manners of the peasants of the dis trict of Cracow are portrayed, is classical in style and diction, but romantic in sentiment. His essay on Classicism and Roman ticism and on The Spirit of Polish Poetry (1818) proclaimed the importance of national tradition and popular elements for liter ature, and in his lecture On Polish Nationality (1831) he partly anticipated the notion, fully developed by the great romantics, of Poland as a "chosen people." The boldness of new ideas was combined with supreme power of poetic achievement in Adam Mickiewicz (q.v.) (1798-1855), who soon became the acknowl edged leader of the Romantic Movement.
Juljusz Slowacki is in many ways more represent ative of the essence of Romanticism than Mickiewicz. His genius develops under the influence of Byron. Podroz ma W schod (A Voyage to the East), is a poem in the manner of Childe Harold. Slowacki's fantastic verse play Kordjan combines reminiscences of a Warsaw conspiracy against the tsar in 1829 with the influence of Manfred and of Hamlet. Mickiewicz's Ksiegi Pielgrzymstwa (Books of Pilgrimage), written in biblical prose for the comfort of Polish exiles in France, are paralleled by Slowacki's Anhelli, in which the Polish emigrant community in western Europe is represented under the allegorical disguise of a body of exiles in Siberia. It is, however, under the direct influence of Shakespeare that Slowacki attained his supreme poetic triumphs in drama.
His verse tragedies, Balladyna and Lilla-W eneda are placed in a legendary, pre-historic Poland : Mazepa takes place at the court of a Polish noble of the r2th century. The Polish world of the r2th and 18th centuries is the scene of two further plays of Juljusz Slowacki, Horsztyiiski and Zlota Czaszka (The Golden Skull), both unfortunately incomplete. The influence of Victor Hugo gives a sensational tinge to Beatrix Cenci. From Shakespeare and Victor Hugo, Slowacki passes under the influence of Calderon: he deals in Calderonian style with events from r8th century Polish history in his dramas Ksiadz Marek (Father Mark) and Sen Srebrny Salomei (The Silver Dream of Salomea). The last years of Slowacki's short life were spent among the Polish emi grants in Paris. The political and religious doctrines, the illusions, disillusionments and quarrels which agitated that little world, are mirrored in Slowacki's satirical epic Beniowski, which occupies, in his career, the place of Don Juan in Byron's. The mystical
creed, which possessed the poet entirely in his latest years, in spired one of his most sublime works, the unfinished epic Kr& Duch (The Spirit King). The poet's complete spiritual philos ophy of the mystical period is embodied in a prose treatise Genesis z Ducha (The Genesis from the Spirit), which curiously antici pates, in some of its ideas, the theory of evolution.
Zygmunt Krasinski (1812-1859)', long considered the equal of Mickiewicz and Slowacki, rose to an extraordinarily high level in his precocious early work. He became absorbed in medita tions on the social revolution which after 1830 seemed to be threatening all Europe, and he put his vision of it, at the age of 21, into a drama Nieboska Komedja (The Un-Divine Comedy) (Eng. tr. Kennedy and Uminska, 1923). Krasinski's second work, the drama Iridion (Eng. tr. Noyes, 1927), placed in Rome in the second century of our era, has for its subject an attempted revolt of the Greeks against the Roman Empire. The attitude of the Christians, who refuse to fight, is the cause of failure. Kra sinski links up his subject with philosophical speculations on the historical mystery of Poland's sufferings. His creed in this matter is embodied in a visionary poem called Przediwit (The Dawn), in which he extols the passive heroism of his oppressed country as the earnest of victory in the ideal sphere. These ideas are repeated in several didactic lyrics called Psalmy PrzyszloSci (Psalms of the Future). Krasiriski's waning talent spent itself on political, religious and philosophical pamphlets and lyrics.
All the three great Romantic poets had come, for a time under the spell of an emigrant thinker named Andrzej Towianski 1878) who had woven religious and patriotic mysticism together into the creed of a new sect, making of Poland a "messiah among nations." Krasiriski's thought, in particular, also shows close relation to that of August Cieszkowski (1814-1894), the most distinguished and independent of a group of Polish philosophers who were disciples of Hegel. ("Our Father," selections in English by Dr. W. Rose, 1924.) It is only in the 2oth century that another Polish metaphysi cian of the Romantic period, Joseph Maria Hoene-Wronski (1778– 1853), who wrote mainly in French, has won an increasing amount of international recognition.