The tools of Norwid’s moralizing. Sublimity, pàthos, and paideia in Wielkie słowa (Great words) and Modlitwa (Prayer) (transl. by Tadeusz Karłowicz)

Abstract

The aim of the analyses presented in the article is an attempt to prove that Norwid's moralizing may be explained by his conscious referring to the ancient categories of pàthos, éthos, paideia and to the category of sublimity that had been reinterpreted for centuries. According to the principles of rhetoric a sudden emotion, that is pàthos, that is revealed during a speech, was supposed to ensure the public that the speaker was earnest. In Great words Norwid explicitly indicates that he speaks for idealistic reasons. In this way he behaves like an orator: he exposes an idea, and not himself; he does not appear as a master, a prophet, someone who is initiated into something; he also does not pronounce himself to be the discoverer of that idea. A bombastic emotionality of an utterance indicates involvement of the orator who considers himself a guard or defender of everlasting values coming from the Absolute. The speaker's personal éthos is tantamount to a universal law. Defined in this way pàthos is given a moral sanction.

Norwid's moralizing approach may also be explained by paideia – the ancient idea of spiritual and emotional development of an individual. Origen, transferring this category into the area of Christianity, recognized it as a concept describing the way of the Christian spirit in time. The development of civilization and culture was to be the trace of this passage. In the tradition of paideia reflections concerning the role of writing in education occupied an important place. Because of the fact that it conveyed and constructed personal models, literature was perceived as a form of paideia. Reference to the written culture in the poem was supposed to lead Norwid's contemporaries to this trace.

In ancient times pàthos i éthos were connected with sublimity understood as an experience of the absolute or an attempt to “show” transcendence, “an inexpressible expression”, and speaking “for idealistic reasons”. Interest in sublimity in the period of European Romanticism also helped to remind the categories that supported it. Sublime became popular in the last quarter of the 18^th century and proved to be exceptionally long-lived. The inspiring power of this category was to a large extent due to Immanuel Kant's reflections. The Author of the article looked for arguments supporting the suggested interpretation of Great words in such opinions voiced by Kant in which he connected sublimity with ethics (although the Author remarked that the Königsberg thinker was attracted by amorality of sublimity). Among others, because of the influence of Kant's conception sublimity was significantly reinterpreted in the third quarter of the 19^th century, especially by Mallarmé.

The article is first of all an attempt at indicating the causes of Norwid's moralizing approach and at describing the tools he used for it. Interpretations conducted along these lines also reveal the analysis of the way the poet used the convention of sublimity and they give a reconstruction of his own original formulas of sublimity. For this reason the Author subjected to analysis its diametrically opposed definitions. Great words are an example of one of them; the Author explains its persuasive emphasis by its connections of sublimity with pàthos, éthos and paideia. The intimate, subjective sublimity of Modlitwa that is rather close to its modernistic version, is an example of the other one.