Relics of Slavic folklore in Syrokomla’s poetry

Abstract

The paper discusses two models of reading the works by Władysław Syrokomla – one from the era of Positivism, the other – from the era of Young Poland. It displays the canvas of Polish dualism in the author’s poetry. The paper explains its lineage in terms of ethnogenesis. It shows the genesis as the evocation of primeval religious substance of Pre-Slavic origin. The paper refers to the findings of cultural anthropology and religious studies. It shows how adequate the interdisciplinary methodology combining cultural anthropology, religious studies and literature studies is with regard to Syrokomla’s works. It proves that the methodology designed in such a way allows to provide the depth of collective oblivion to the motifs of theological, cosmological and anthopological dualism – with particular regard to spirit and body. The paper proves that the statement on the loss of Pre-Slavic substance of collective mental life in Polish culture is untrue. It shows that the poetry by
Syrokomla is a medium to bring this substance out to the surface of consciousness.