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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Problematyczne potomstwo "Pana Tadeusza" : wokół pewnego tekstu rocznicowego

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Progeny of “Sir Thaddeus” (1897), a less known essay by literary critic Cezary Jellenta [Napoleon Hirszband], presents an interesting attempt to discern and estimate novels of the 19th century Polish realists as originated from the great Mickiewicz’s poem. According to Jellenta, there are several social, national or aesthetic parallels existing between this famous epic work – a kind of architext and paradigm of Polish culture in general – and the well-known texts by Prus, Orzeszkowa, Sienkiewicz, Konopnicka or Witkiewicz, as well the unknown novel of Galician writer Alfred Nossig. Jellenta’s discourse and his often vague argumentation are involved both in traditional apology for Mickiewicz’s work and stereotypic image of Homeric epic, as in the ideological, subjective convictions and changing aesthetic opinions of the very critic. Despite the fact, that Jellenta could not consider the later eminent prose works, also hypothetically due to the great romantic poem, his article seems to have value as probably the latest testimony of the Sir Thaddeus cult, typical for Polish culture of the 19th century.