Paweł Hertz. Praise of the 19th-century-ness

Abstract

This article shows the output of Paweł Hertz – a poet, translator, editor, publicist as an example of current today Polish literature from the 19th century viewed in both domestic context and on the background of well-known European literature. Arguments supporting the thesis are the fact that he showed the output of the 19th-century writers as a uniform entity without division into particular epochs (contemporary career of the 19th-century-ness), ahistorical understanding of esthetic categories (e.g. classicism) practising reading in anthropological categories (as experience), pointing at the emotional reaction between the reader and the work, activist understanding of culture, revalorization of literature of various circulations, exceeding strictly national categories in thinking about literature, signals of material feedback in humanist science, humanism. The mentioned elements of the project of reading Paweł Hertz indicate current character and raise the attractiveness of his writings.