Z czego Janek psom szył buty w "Kordianie" Juliusza Słowackiego
What has Janek made shoes for dogs of in Słowacki's "Kordian"?

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the text is to find an answer to the question of what purpose the fable about Janek who made shoes for dogs serves in the context of “Kordian”. The author analyses the type and genealogy of the literary elements that this fable has been made of, as well as different contexts, intertextual references and deconstruction of artistic conventions. It leads to discovering Słowacki's romantic rejection of classic rules and his tendency to contaminate the literary genres. The fable inscribed in the drama serves the same purpose as ballades inscribed in romantic tales. It is worth considering why a fable appears here as such incrustation though it is a genre associated with classic literature and unlike ballade is not characteristic for a new epoch. It is however a fable au rebours. Słowacki uses here some transformed proverbs and deconstructs stereotypes on which they were founded. He intends to destroy the belief in common knowledge expressed in such way as well as to destroy a common image of a romantic hero.

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