Poetyka i łowy : o idei dawnego polowania w literaturze polskiej XIX wieku

The work is an attempt at reading selected works of the Polish literature of the 19"' century that is focused on various relations between the art of hunting and literary art. Texts, where the nostalgic - from the point of view of the passing noble customs - longing for the former hunt, feeling of decadency of the world of great big game hunts, and the observation of irreversible transformations of the civilization and cultural landscape [the beginnings of pro-ecological trend mixed with the romantic Naturphilosophie] find their expression, are the subject of analysis. The idea of the former hunt inscribes perfectly into the romantic tendency of sanctifying everything that is decadent and preserving what is passing from reality. Hunt, through its ritual and super-Polish character, will be a home space fostered with care. Literature acquires the character of a synecdoche of the inaccessible Homeland, a fairylike backwoods and den, or even a reserve, where the chase of hounds and rustle of the Latvian forest is still heard. Each part of the book is an attempt at understanding the other aspect of ‘the last hunt’ and reading of various ‘characters’ of writing, a dialogue with the individual style of five selected authors. For Alexander Fredro, the hunt is primarily of a joyful character; it ends in a lounge [dance, blind man’s buff], Bruno Kiciński establishes his own reserve with hunt game - Poezje myśliwskie [Hunt Poetry], Wincenty Pol discards the hunting tradition - it is both a treasure and a piece of junk. Mickiewicz finds a bear in the Latvian forests, i.e. a walking myth of ‘the former hunt’, and confuses the ways and beguiles the eyes of his shooter. Hunting puts Józef Weyssenhoff into a state of happy unity with ‘the universal life’