Przestrzeń rustykalna w "Listach o wsi" Cypriana Godebskiego – propozycja lektury

Abstract
The article is a consideration of the functionalisation of rustic space in "Listy o wsi" [Letters on the Country] by Cyprian Godebski. The text, written in 1805, brings praise to the condition of the landed gentry, typical for Polish literature of the first decades of the nineteenth century. Ascribing a therapeutic function to nature does not, however, exhaust the question of the subject positioning themselves against the natural surroundings. Already at first reading, one can identify an imaginary aspect of space, constructed thanks to the reference to ancient tradition and landed gentry poetry. This is because the project of the ‘peaceful countryside’ drafted in "Listy o wsi" is founded not only on the conventionalised ways of literary portrayal. Tendencies solidified in the Enlightenment, among which the ideal of authenticity plays a special role, are just as important. The sincerity manifested by the narrator, apparent in (among other things) the declaration of distance towards the poetic idealisation of the countryside, appears to be a paradoxical phenomenon. This is especially true if juxtaposed with elements of the nobility’s Arcadia used by Godebski.
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Citation
Bąkowska, Patrycja (2021). Przestrzeń rustykalna w "Listach o wsi" Cypriana Godebskiego – propozycja lektury. Napis, XXVII, s. 75-92. http://doi.org/10.18318/napis.2021.1.6
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