O czytaniu (tysiąca i jednej) Sycylii. Przestrzenie krańca świata w „Dzienniku sycylijskim” Zygmunta Krasińskiego

Among all Polish romantic writers Zygmunt Krasiński was the one whom southern Italian landscape enticed the most. His experiences from Italian voyage were written down in his correspondence, especially in the letters to Delfina Potocka – for her Krasiński dedicated Sicilian diary, the collection of never-sent letters intended as a romantic gift for the lady. On the one hand the Diary is a conventional romantic work, but on the other it breaks the convention – because the journey to Sicily is the journey to the end of the (European) culture, civilisation and world. Sicily, the land of finis terrae, the place of different turns, is a fascinating lecture demanding the response from those who encounter it. It is the New World in which one must find the way to one’s heart and identity – and, in the end, it is terrestrial Paradise, exotic country of One thousand and one nights: in short – the land of thousand views, thousand perspectives and thousand readings. The main purpose of the paper is to present romantic lecture of Sicily – its landscape, architecture and character – taken by Krasiński in correspondence to Delfina, and to look into writer’s attitude towards this “sophisticated land”, which is revealed in the dialogues with reality, poetic self-aggrandizement and arrangement of the presented world