On the new edition of Collected works by Zygmunt Krasiński

Abstract

The new edition of collected works by Zygmunt Krasiński, published in 2017, includes his all known literary works, as well as the poet’s other writings grouped into categories according to type and genre, within which chronological order was adopted (with respect to the date of writing a given text). The structure of particular volumes involves the following components: 1) an introductory article which provides general information on the volume’s content; 2) presentation of the volume’s content; 3) rules of edition and modernization; 4) list of abbreviations (divided according to the type of abbreviation); 5) selected source and subject bibliography; 6) the main text with abridged editorial notes, containing predominantly information about the autograph, the date of writing the work, and the adopted text basis; 7) factual explanations. Each composition has been treated as a separate entity, and the explanations were provided directly after a given text. Both the sturcture of subsequent volumes and their content is a new study, which in many aspects departs from the traditional manner of publishing collective editions of works by Krasiński. In the new edition, no traditional division between Polish and French texts was respected, as Krasiński wrote equally valuable compositions in both languages. The long-employed division of works into ones written at the young and mature age was also abandoned, as it was usually unnecessary. In addition, since it is impossible to draw a clear thematic line between Krasiński’s various philosophical, political and religious articles, it was decided that they would be collectively referred to as „discoursive texts”. The term itself lacks precision, yet it is broad enough to accomodate Krasiński’s elaborations and journalistic writing on those topics, which have so far been called in various manners.