Early Poems of Cyprian Norwid Contrary to Gothic Fiction Convention

Abstract

Romantic poets generally in the first phase of their work expressed a fascination with Gothic fiction (understood as the world presented in the work and specific anthropology). In his early works Cyprian Norwid also referred to the aesthetics and poetics of Gothic fiction, but treated it as a convention which mainly was building up a literary communication. So he created evocative strictly romantic poems which stand out as his very efficient mastery of poetic workshop, he dazzled there the poetic images of Gothic provenance (often with the stories about the bottomless anguish of a hero during the night and storm). Poems such as Wieczór w pustkach [Evening in voids], Noc [Night], Marzenie [Dream], Pożegnanie [Farewell] despite of using the gothic props (as imagery, mood, climate, character design) are essentially a pastiche of the style of the first phase of Romanticism. Early poetry of Norwid as a kind of romantic writing exercises became the basis to crystallize the concept of mature poetry which is—largely—denial of gothic-romantic convention.