„Przeczuwał o wiele późniejszą teorię Hipolita Taine’a…”? Piotr Chmielowski o postawie krytycznoliterackiej Maurycego Mochnackiego
“He Sensed the Coming of the Much Later Theory of Hippolyte Taine…”? Piotr Chmielowski on Maurycy Mochnacki’s Attitude in his Works of Literary Criticism

Summary/Abstract: Piotr Chmielowski considered Maurycy Mochnacki’s attitude in literarycriticism as an expression of the 19th-century culture viewed as a diverse,dynamic and ever-changing whole which had a number of consistentcharacteristics that helped define it. Mochnacki was incorporated intothe discourse concerning the 19th century, so in a sense on modernityas well, because the experience of modernity was what characterised the rapidly-developing civilisation of the 19th century. For Chmielowski, thismodernity was personified by Hippolyte Taine, a positivist and philos-opher, whose theory was supposedly predicted in one way or anotherby Mochnacki. The point is not about the correctness of Chmielowski’sdiagnosis as it can be questioned, discussed and rejected. It is about the factthat Mochnacki, especially from the point of view of his domestic activity(before the November Uprising) could have been perceived in the 19thcentury and could still be today, as a literary critic and opinion journalistwho was thoroughly modern in his own time.

• Details
• Contents