SOURCE: Zantuan, Konstanty. “Mickiewicz' Konrad Wallenrod: An Attempt at Reappraisal.” Comparative Literature Studies VI, no. 2 (June, 1969) 148-66.

In the following essay, Zantuan urges a new interpretation of Konrad Wallenrod.

… I mirror all things most truly. 

A. Mickiewicz

In an interesting study of the influence of literature on the development of opinion, Professor Gillies significantly observes that “comparative literature brings out much more forcibly than literary study … the close relationship between literature and the realities of life.”¹ The statement can be enhanced by application to the relationship in which the ideas of and about literature develop under the influence of the realities of life or, if we go farther, in which both realms mutually interact. Against the background of constant discussion of the definition and scope of the discipline, an inquiry into the ethical aspect of a poem and its long history of reception and interpretation can throw some...