Works
Ignacy Krasicki was the leading literary representative of the Polish Enlightenment—a prose writer and poet highly esteemed by his contemporaries, who admired his works for their wit, imagination and fluid style.
Krasicki's literary writings lent splendor to the reign of Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski, while not directly advocating the King's political program.
Krasicki, the leading representative of Polish classicism, debuted as a poet with the strophe-hymn, "Święta miłości kochanej ojczyzny" ("O Sacred Love of the Beloved Country"). He was then nearing forty. It was thus a late debut that brought the extraordinary success of this strophe, which Krasicki would incorporate as part of song IX in his mock-heroic poem, Myszeida (Mouseiad, 1775). In "O Sacred Love," Krasicki formulated a universal idea of patriotism, expressed in high style and elevated tone. The strophe would later, for many years, serve as a national anthem and see many translations, including three into French.
The Prince Bishop of Warmia gave excellent Polish form to all the genres of European classicism. He also blazed paths for new genres. Prominent among these was the first modern Polish novel, Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki (The Adventures of Nicholas Experience, 1776), a synthesis of all the varieties of the Enlightenment novel: the social-satirical, the adventure (à la Robinson Crusoe), the Utopian and the didactic.
Tradition has it that Krasicki's mock-heroic poem, Monachomachia (War of the Monks, 1778), was inspired by a conversation with Frederick II at the palace of Sanssouci, where Krasicki was staying in an apartment that had once been used by Voltaire. At the time, the poem's publication caused a public scandal.
The most enduring literary monument of the Polish Enlightenment is Krasicki's fables: Bajki i Przypowieści (Fables and Parables, 1779) and Bajki nowe (New Fables, published posthumously in 1802). The poet also set down his trenchant observations of the world and human nature in Satyry (Satires, 1779).
Other works by Krasicki include the novels, Pan Podstoli (Lord High Steward, published in three parts, 1778, 1784 and posthumously 1803), which would help inspire works by Mickiewicz, and Historia (History, 1779); the epic, Wojna chocimska (The Chocim War, 1780, about the Khotyn War); and numerous others, in homiletics, theology and heraldry.
Krasicki also published, in 1781, a two-volume encyclopedia, Zbiór potrzebniejszych wiadomości (A Collection of Needful Knowledge), the second Polish general encyclopedia after Benedykt Chmielowski's Nowe Ateny (The New Athens, 1745–46).
Krasicki wrote Listy o ogrodach (Letters about Gardens) and articles in the Monitor, which he had co-founded, and in his own newspaper, Co Tydzień (Each Week).
Krasicki translated, into Polish, Plutarch, Ossian, fragments of Dante's Divine Comedy, and works by Anacreon, Boileau, Hesiod and Theocritus. He wrote a 1772 essay "On the Translation of Books" ("O przekładaniu ksiąg") and another, published posthumously in 1803, "On Translating Books" ("O tłumaczeniu ksiąg").
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 5:15,16.
“There is a great deal of self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that keeps the earth sweet; that saves on superfluities, and spends on essentials; that goes rusty, and educates the boy; that sells the horse, but builds the school; works early and late, takes two looms in the factory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the paternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.”
—Paul Valéry (1871–1945)