Ludwik Osiński – profesor-esteta. Próba waloryzacji wykładów literatury porównawczej

Abstract

The article is an attempt to give a broad outline of the profile of Ludwik Osiński as a literature lecturer at the Warsaw University. Over the centuries, the author of Zbiór zabawek wierszem has been accused of: lack of originality in concluding, imitativeness, deficiency of qualifications characteristic for a university lecturer, and finally, disapproval for transformations taking place in literature. The purpose of the article is to answer the question about the Osiński’s position among the scientists of the Congress Kingdom. Moreover, this paper is also an attempt to verify the slightly understated, still taken over and reproduced judgements about unilateral and definitely negative attitude of scientists towards the critical legacy of the author of Zbiór zabawek wierszem. When assessing the aesthetic and literary achievements of Ludwik Osiński, two points of reference were determined; the first one is the heritage of Antique, and the other one – the European literary doctrines developing in the 2nd half of 18th and the beginning of 19th century. In the exemplification, the author of the article subjects a fragment of the Osiński’s course (Wykład literatury porównawczej, czytanej w Uniwersytecie Warszawskim, [The lecture of comparative literature, read at the Warsaw University]) devoted to lyrical poetry to research review. A detailed presentation concerns a few issues, mainly the attitude to the antique tradition and the European literary doctrines, as well as understanding of the rules of evaluating and valuing of literary works.