SOURCE: "Polish Romantic Literature: Romanticism and Its Character," in A History of Polish Literature, translated by Doris Ronowicz, PWN-Polish Scientific Publishers, 1978, pp. 220-33.

In the following excerpt from a work first published in Polish in 1972, Krzyż anowski surveys the historical, social, and cultural forces that shaped Polish Romantic literature.

The powerful trend known as Romanticism, which emerged in the literature of all Europe and also of North America in the first half of the 19th century, had its source in the political and social relations prevailing generally because of the French Revolution and its consequences. True, the revolutionaries were not victorious anywhere, but their watchwords took deep root in the minds of social groups and classes and even in the consciousness of many peoples; they matured and gave forth shoots all through the 19th century, to produce their harvest in the first quarter of our century. The ferment...