Gnostic Elements in Juliusz Slowacki’s Genesian Thought

Abstract

So-called “Genesian works” written in the second half of the 1840s by Juliusz Słowacki, as well as his correspondence from this period, have been a subject of interest of Romanticism literature researchers for many years. They analyse this part of the creative heritage of the poet in dependence on the ideological and artistic “key”. Therefore, many different opinions about a given motif or the wri- ter’s thoughts are often proposed. This article is an attempt to understand Slowacki’s legacy, above all “The Genesis of the Spirit”, “The Spirit-King” and some letters, from the Gnostic perspective. His universe of ideas in that particular period can be seen in the context of Gnosticism; however, this kind of interpretative is certainly open to criticism. The Gnostic cognitive process or, precisely speaking, the theistic mystical Gnosis is an expression of experience of the poet himself. It is a description of the psychic structure and existence. On the other hand, in the ontological order, the psychic existence appears as a “copied” structure and existence of the Spirit or even the Divinity. It turns out to be a world of manifestations of the same Spirit. One should not rationalise that “whole” as the given content exceeds – due to its form and its object – the capacity of a philosophical discourse.