Collapse or Reunion. Dramatic Poem at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Century

Abstract

The author discusses the presence of the dramatic poem in the Young Poland movement. She juxtaposes this form with another, equally hybrid, genre, i.e. a dramatic fairy tale. This comparison allows the author to see the special significance that both these forms had for the processes of constituting new dramatic forms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author perceives works such as Uczta Herodyady by Jan Kasprowicz, Odwieczna baśń by Stanisław Przybyszewski, Rokita by Andrzej Niemojewski or Zdziczenie obyczajów pośmiertnych by Bolesław Leśmian not only as a vehicle of content combining the works of Young Poland with the Romantic tradition but also as a very capacious form that allows one to look for a new form of the description of reality. The text also draws attention to the ability of new methods of composition, editing, scene arrangement used in the dramatic poem to disrupt the classic stage form.