Felicjan Faleński’s Ancient Dramas in the Context of Cyprian Norwid’s Inspiration

Selected Representations (“Iunius Brutus”, “Sophonisbe”, “Ataulf”)

Abstract

Felicjan Faleński’s ancient dramaturgy requires approaches that could support or at least inspire researchers in the difficult work of classifying this part of his work against the background of the general line of evolution of the so-called ancient drama of the 19th and 20th centuries. It seems that Cyprian Norwid could come to the aid of further detailed research here, but it should be emphasized that the purpose of this study is not to indicate the real influence on Faleński or perhaps: the inspiration of Norwid’s ancient dramas, such as Cleopatra and Caesar or Tyrtheus. The aim is rather to show the parallelism, as well as the analogy of certain explorations – which is also related to the attempts of both poets to oppose Parnassianism – which ultimately results in a very interesting pair of the individual evolutionary schemes for this particular type of genre represented by Polish ancient drama of the second half of the 19th century: Faleński – Norwid.