Juliusz Słowacki's Notebook from His Travels to Greece and the East as a Romantic Open and Syncretic Work. Translating a Journey into Poetry Poetry

Abstract

Juliusz Słowacki (1809 1849), together with Adam Mickiewicz, is one of the most important Polish Romantic poets. After the failure of the November Uprising (1830 1831), he lived in Western Europe as a political émigré. He was politically involved in the cause for Polish i ndependence, while also being a profoundly European Romantic poet. He has been hugely influential on Polish literature, as well as on the national imagination of subsequent generations. This article, resulting from a research and editing project dedicated to Słowacki’s travel notebook ( raptularz ), characterises the complex, syncretic nature of the Romanic oeuvre, unifying travel sketches and poetry writing into a highly personal, open whole. The poetry that comes into being during the poet's travel to Gree ce and the Orient is derived from a holistic experience of places and events. The scholarly work on the manuscript, its material aspect, and the implications of the encounter with the world of which it testifies opens a series of editing and research quest ions. The appreciation of the Romantic travel as an experience that finds a multimodal expression requires a transdisciplinary approach. On the other hand, Słowacki stands apart from other Polish writers of his time, who focused on consolidating the suppor t for the cause of national independence; as arepresentative of a European margin, without an independent homeland, he occupies a distinct position in relation to other Oriental travellers; therefore his work requires a transcultural approach.                                                                                              Keywords: Travel writing Romanticism Polish poetry multimodal expression transcultural dimension