The Baroque Crisis of the Third Polish Republic. System Transformation, Sarmatian Traditions and Krzysztof Koehler’s Classicism

Abstrakt

The article takes up reflection on the concept of classicism as formulated by Krzysztof Koehler, a representative of the “bruLion” generation. Accord ing to the young poet, contemporary classicism cannot be separated from extra literary reality; on the contrary – it is to document its condition already at the level of its form. Therefore, for a poem to be able to articulate the system crisis as recognized by Koehler in the beginning of the 1990s, far-reaching formal changes turn out to be indispensable. Lyrical poetry must be de-formed so radically that it will be possible for it to be in tune with extra-literary instability even on the level of the form. An unexpected inspiration for such a diagnostic endeavor turns out to lie in Baroque traditions, especially the traditions of Polish Sarmatian po etry. Sarmatian poetics provides the “bruLion” writer with a repertoire of means that he consistently uses in his poetic project that “recognizes the crisis”, so as to grasp the drastic nature of changes taking place in the beginnings of the Third Polish Republic.