Norwid; a landscape of modernity. Around the poet’s Paris

Abstract

The article presents one of the aspects of Norwid’s attitude towards modernity – it is the vision of the city, especially of Paris, in the poet’s works, mainly in his letters. As it turns out, the author only to a slight degree is interested in his contemporary cities, even in the one in which he has come to spend a considerable part of his life, and which was becoming the capital of the modern world at that time. He ignores the phenomena connected with the modernity that is being formed within the town. On the other hand he writes about old cities, he draws the reader’s attention to municipal libraries and art galleries. He thinks about the contemporary city in the moralist religious and historical perspective, criticizing ethical consequences of urbanization, that in his opinion are destructive. Such an attitude reveals the poet’s specific relation towards the processes of modernization – it should be added: the relation close to  Romantics, – that is ambivalence and anxiety connected with experiencing them. It also shouldbe noted that Norwid’s reflection connected with modernity is predominantly concerned with the question of the outlook on the world, and to a lesser degree – with the material experience of modernization.