SOURCE: "Goethe and the Russian and Polish Romantics," in Bits of Table Talk on Pushkin, Mickiewicz, Goethe, Turgenev, and Sienkiewicz, Martinus Nijhoff, 1956, pp. 198-219.

In the following excerpt, Lednicki explores the influence of Goethe on Mickiewicz and Krasiński, focusing on the reasons why Goethe's ideology was ultimately rejected by the Polish Romantics.

There exists in both Russia and Poland a rich literature on Goethe including innumerable special monographs and translations of Werther, the lyrics, Wilhelm Meister, and especially Faust. I may say without exaggeration that in Poland and Russia each generation down to the present has had its own Polish or Russian Faust.

On the Seriousness and Originality of Polish Romantic Poetry:

This literature, more than the existing literature of any people, deserves the attention of serious men; for this, above all other, bears upon itself the stamp of reality. It is serious, earnest, noble;—noble both...