Hrabia Zygmunt i „Królowa mórz”. Wenecja w epistolografii Zygmunta Krasińskiego

Abstract

Count Zygmunt and "The Queens of Seas". Venice in the Epistolography of Zygmunt Krasiński

In Zygmunt Krasiński’s correspondence, Italian towns represent a very particular “picture gallery”, characterized by richness of associations and beauty of exemplifications. The most interesting aspect is tracing the development of the poet’s imagination in Venice – a very special emotional and interpretational context for a romantic poet. In accordance with his personal dispositions, Krasiński leads us into “his own Venice”, made up of his feelings and impressions. It is a land suppressed and humiliated, a way of hidden discourse about Poland, her suffering and hope, in the poet’s correspondence, on the one hand, and Serenissima, a place full of “strangeness and sorrow”, mystery and magic, evoking memories of Petersburg and Egypt, on the other hand. Even the apparent idleness experienced in Venice is marked by profound gravity; Venice becomes a personification of a world of spirits and a place of the Last Judgment. The ambivalence of Krasiński’s impressions, filtered through his feelings and experience, allowed the Polish count to paint a very particular and evocative image of Venice, unique even in the context of European romantic travel writing.