Arcadia, idyll, eclogue – from the history of the topos in Polish culture (from Romanticism to contemporary times) 4018-WYK86-OG

The lectures (with elements of a seminar) will discuss the Arcadia topos in a broad sense (and the subject of idylls and eclogues) in 19th- and 20th-century Polish culture against a European background: from pre-Romanticism (Brodziński), through Romanticism (Mickiewicz, Słowacki, Norwid), to contemporary times (Miłosz, Vincenz, Herbert, Różewicz). The context for analysing the Polish works will be provided by European texts (including Schiller, Goethe, Herder, Byron) and paintings, films and plays (Guercino, Poussin, the pastoral play as a theatrical genre, Stoppard), and primarily the Mediterranean tradition of Arcadian motifs dating back to antiquity (Theocritus, Virgil).
The seminar participants will focus on notions such as Arcadian and idyllic character and the idyll itself (bucolic, eclogue, skotopaska, pastoral poem), understood in their primary, historical sense as well as metaphorically, as symptoms of a specific vision of the world and human beings.
The background for the issues under discussion will include broader problems of the reception of antiquity in modern European culture as well as contemporary visions of Greece recorded in travels to Greece. Another important issue will be Romantic revisions of the Arcadian myth and contemporary polemics with the Arcadian vision of the world, formulated particularly from the perspective of 20th-century historical experience.

Type of course

general courses

Learning outcomes

Upon completing the course students will:
K_W07 know and understand basic methods of analysing and interpreting products of culture in conjunction with tradition;
K_W13 know basic methods of interpreting literary and philosophical texts and textual historical sources;
K_U01 be able to select and interpret information from different textual, iconographic and electronic sources;
K_U08 know how to give a presentation of the results of their own analysis of research problems in oral, written and multimedia form;
K_U11 be able to perform independent analyses of written and oral academic texts in Polish and in one of the “congress” languages;
K_K02 understand the principles, rules and necessity of group work;
K_K04 be able to organize and work with a group and assume different social roles within it.

Assessment criteria

Attendance, active participation in the seminar part of the classes.

Bibliography

E. Panofsky, Et in Arcadia ego, w: tegoż, Studia z historii sztuki, oprac. J. Białostocki, Warszawa 1971.
Idylla polska, oprac. A. Witkowska, I. Jarosińska, Wrocław 1995.
A. Witkowska, „Sławianie, my lubim sielanki”, Warszawa 1972.
R. Przybylski, Et in Arcadia ego. Esej o tęsknotach poetów, Warszawa 1966.
M. Zaleski, Echa idylli w literaturze polskiej doby nowoczesności i późnej nowoczesności, Kraków 2007.
K. Brodziński, Wybór pism, oprac. A. Witkowska, BN I 191, Wrocław 1966.
M.J. Siemek, Fryderyk Schiller, Warszawa 1970.
R. Poggioli, Wierzbowa fujarka, przeł. F. Jarzyna, „Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich” 1960, t. 3 (21).
M. Kalinowska, wstęp, w: tejże: Juliusza Słowackiego „Podróż do Ziemi Świętej z Neapolu”. Glosy, Gdańsk 2012.
H. Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, The Eve of the Greek Revival. British Travellers’ Perceptions of Early Nineteenth-Century Greece, London and New York 1990.
R. Eisner, Travelers to an Antique Land. The History and Literature of Travel to Greece, Ann Arbor 1991.
F. M. Tsigakou, The Rediscovery of Greece. Travellers and Painters of the Romantic Era, London 1981.

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes:

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

Description of 4018-WYK86-OG in USOSweb