POLISH WRITERS OF RECENT TIMES The "Young Poland" Group.—During the last decade of the 19th century a whole group of young exuberant talents appeared together in the forefront of Poland's literary life Dissatisfied with the utilitarian character of the art and poetry of the pre ceding period, they organised themselves into an independent body, soon known as "The Young Poland," with the view of work ing out a new theory of art, based on absolute individual freedom in form and matter. True to this principle, practically every one of them tried his best to find his own way of expression. The first among these young poets to gain fame was Kazimierz Tet majer (b. 1865), whose love lyrics are comparable to the best work of the French Parnassians. The modern poetry of France and Belgium found a gifted and congenial interpreter in the person of Zenon Przesmycki, who wrote under the name of "Miriam" (b. 1860. The most forceful individuality of this group was Stanislaw Przybyszewski (1868-1927), who, having spent several years among the young Scandinavian and German writers, came back to Poland in 1898 to become at once the leader of the group and the editor of their organ, a weekly called Zycie (Life). His dramas full of fatalistic terror, and his prose poems, dealing with the mysteries of love and death, became the fashion of the day. The art editor of the new weekly was Stanislaw Wyspianski (1869-1907), a painter of great originality, who became also the foremost Polish dramatic poet of his age His leading idea was to unite in the theatre the arts of painting, of architecture, and of poetic drama. Gradually his attention turned to national sub jects, and especially to the problem of national strength and weak ness, which is the root of the three dramas, Warszawianka (The Song of Warsaw), Lelewel, and Noc Listopadowa (The November Night). The Legion, a play of which the tragedy of Mickiewicz as the leader of Polish romanticism is the subject-matter—links the past with the present. In three powerful dramas—Wesele (The Wedding, 1901), Wyzwolenie (Deliverance), and Akropolis, he deals with Poland's deliverance Jas Kasprowicz (186o-1926) was no doubt the greatest Polish lyrical poet of his day. With him, as with Thomas Hardy, the
problem of evil and human suffering is the predominant subject. This problem finds expression in Chrystus (Christ), Na WzgOrzu .mierci (On the Hill of Death), and finally in the cycle of hymns Gingcemu .wiatu (To the Perishing World). In his later years, the poet attains the wisdom of a resigned sage, which speaks from every line of his last volumes called Ksifga Ubogich (The Book of the Poor) and MOj Swiat (My World).
The mood of spiritual calm is also the dominant note of Leo pold Staff (b. 1878), who started his poetical career with Sny o Potgdze (Dreams of Might) : but struggles with the eternal mysteries are not absent even from his later volumes, e.g. Ucho Igielne (The Eye of the Needle, 1927).
The winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1924, Wlady slaw Stanislaw Reymont (1868-1925) was a born realist. His early ambition was to draw a picture of life in a big industrial city. After a stay at Lodz, he produced a novel called Ziemia Obiecana (The Promised Land, Eng. tr. M. H. Dziewicki, 1927) which caused him to be hailed by critics as "The Polish Zola." Like Zola, but on a larger scale, he afterwards wrote a novel of peasant life : as the result of five years of incessant work there appeared his tetralogy "Chiopi" (The Peasants, Eng. tr. by M. H. Dziewicki, 1924). This great epic novel gives a rich and vivid picture of Polish peasant life especially in the Tatra mountains.