The appearance of Adam Mickiewicz’s first collection of poetry in 1822 reconfigured Polish literature irreversibly. With practically every work that followed—individual poems, poetic cycles, poetic tales, dramas, and an epic, which in the most recent edition of his works together amount to no more than 1500 pages of print—Mickiewicz pushed the limits of this reconfiguration, transforming not only the literary sensibility of his contemporaries, but the very discourse of Polish national consciousness at a critical moment of the nation’s existence. To subsequent generations of Poles engaged in a struggle against foreign oppression and then in the process of reconstituting a state, he was the
wieszcz, Poland’s national bard,
at once poet and prophet and “charismatic leader, the…
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Citation: Koropeckyj, Roman. "Adam Mickiewicz". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 July 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3106, accessed 22 November 2024.]
