[Salomea’s Silver Dream] (1843), a play written in Paris by the émigré Polish poet and playwright Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849), is considered the first Polish tragi-grotesque, its mixture of clashing styles anticipating twentieth-century avant-garde theatre. Due to its title’s direct reference to Słowacki’s mother Salomea (Bècu), the macabre scenes and visionary climax, the relation to Słowacki’s late mystical oeuvre, and the prescient postcolonial message, it is ranked among the most puzzling dramas of Polish romanticism. While Słowacki considered

one of his best works, not only his contemporaries but also literary critics decades after his death were scandalized by it, disregarding both its artistic intricacy and its troubling, polysemic…

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Citation: Skórczewski, Dariusz. "Sen srebrny Salomei". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 November 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38913, accessed 23 November 2024.]