Koneczny o dramatach Wyspiańskiego

Abstract

Feliks Koneczny, a Slavic historian, in the years 1896-1905 in Przegląd Polski, reviewed Cracovian performances of the following dramas by Stanisław Wyspiański: Warszawianka, Lelewel, Wesele, Wyzwolenie, Protesilas i Laodamia, Bolesław Śmiały. As a supporter of the scholarly criticism and traditional genealogy, he had many reservations about them, primarily considering the plot. However, he considered Wyspiański an outstanding writer, and he wrote about Wesele (Wedding) that “it will not only remain in memory for long, but forever”. A reference point of the discussed plays were their dramatic properties: “literary value” (aesthetic tonę, expectancy of precise ideas and morał messages), “texture” (composition and form of the message), “scenie value” (theatrical “craft”). With reference to the discussed works Koneczny, the rationalist, took on programme and subject attitude. First, he summarised the analysed works, then researched how the foregoing categories were present in them. A particular attention was given to the function of new Wesele texture, which enabled the creation of the realistic and fantasy world. If he traced any aberration from the normative axiology, such as apparent gaps in the arrangement of subject theme (Lelewel), or inconvincing, according to him, combination of plots (Bolesław Śmiały), he practised critiąue as analysis of faults simultaneously indicating a way to eradicate those “deficiencies”.