Praxis and Logos. The Archetype of Human Transformation in Słowacki and Norwid

Abstract

Post-Hegelian philosophy and French utopian socialism find a point of convergence in the so-called ‘philosophy of action’ that was devised in Poland. Its implications were both original and fruitful, and represent the underlying doctrinal theory of the poetics of several writers of Polish literary romanticism. This article analyzes the presence of some instances of the philosophical system of August von Cieszkowski in the poetics of C.K. Norwid and J. Słowacki. Special emphasis is placed on some affinities between these two writers, concerning the figure of Christ-Truth-Love, eternal Logos, that resolves the contradiction between the immanent and the transcendent, and the asymmetric relationship with God, an absolute mystery. Christ is the truth revealed and the reason for salvation ‘here and now’, either when man should follow him with his cross, as Norwid would contend, or when he should imitate him through martyrdom, as put forth by Słowacki, for example in The Constant Prince.