Leśmian Bolesław, original surname Lesman (22.01.1877, different dates are also provided, Warsaw - 05.11.1937, Warsaw) - poet, novelist, essayist, literary critic. He came from an assimilated Jewish family. In the first stage of his work he represented the decadent period of Młoda Polska (Young Poland) (close cooperation with Z. Miriam-Przesmycki’s "Chimera"). He made his debut with the volumeSad rozstajny (Bifurcated Orchard)(1912), which is one of the most outstanding Polish manifestations of symbolism. His association with this trend manifests itself even more clearly in more mature volumes: Łąka (The Meadow) (1920), Napój cienisty (Shadowy Drink) (1936), in posthumously published works: in the collection Dziejba leśna (Forest Happenings) (1938), in the book of dramas Skrzypek opętany (The Possessed Violin Player) (ed. R.H. Stone, Warsaw 1985). Leśmian indirectly formulated symbolist ideas in numerous critical works and essays.
In his poetry Leśmian, on the one hand, alluded to a variety of archaic traditions (folk, oriental), on the other hand, created metaphysical poetry that focused on the phenomena of human existence: life, the attitude to nature and death. He is a philosophical poet, consistently avoiding discourse, his philosophy is expressed in the storyline of his ballads, the imagery, and above all, in a variety of linguistic games. Leśmian uses language as if he were creating it in the process of writing. Typically, the emphasis is on his vocabulary, which is full of neologisms, but he also uses a number of archaic and regional expressions. However, individual words are not essential, what is important is the relationship between them - unique phraseology, which brings out new meanings from the existing ones, new semantic tones and unexpected connotations. Leśmian uses traditional Polish versification systems: the syllabic and syllabotonical verse, he rejected free verse. This was not because he was a conservatist, but according to him a characteristic rhythm, which clearly differentiates prose from poetry, is the basic condition of poetry, it is semantic in nature, and allows to extract new possibilities from language and gives it momentum. Highlighting the role of rhythm is one of the manifestations of his fascination with H.Bergson, the philosopher who influenced European symbolism in the late stage of its development. The main problem for Leśmian - apart from issues related to human existence - is the schematic nature and rationality of language that makes the world static, and is not able to express its dynamics, variability, uniqueness. For Leśmian, a poet-thinker, the most important thing is the use of language that would overcome - at least partially - its limitations, as well as the imposed rationalizations. Poems based on a story play an important role in Leśmian’s poetry, and the dominant genre was the ballad, tp which he gave a new form. He did not reject narrative poetry, which was contrary to the commonly accepted notion that the story had lost its meaning in the great poetry of the 20th century. Leśmian’s prose, in addition to several short stories, includes mainly fairy tales, which focus on eastern motifs (the collectionsKlechdy sezamowe (Sezame Tales), Przygody Sindbada Żeglarza (The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor) - both 1913), and Polish folklore (Klechdy polskie (Polish Tales), ed. London, 1956 ed., Polish edition: Warsaw in 1959, Kraków 1999 - ed. W. Lewandowski).
In his lifetime Leśmian was underestimated, although he was a member of the Polish Academy of Literature (Polish: Polska Akademia Literatury, PAL). In the interwar period his work was regarded as an anachronistic remnant of Młoda Polska (Young Poland). His poetry was fully appreciated only after the war, especially in the second half of the 1950s. From that time numerous books concerning his work have been published, and Leśmian’s poems were included in school curricula and still influence the development of Polish poetry.
Z pism, vol. 1-3, ed. J. Trznadel, Warsaw 1959–65.
Poezje zebrane, ed. A. Madyda, 2nd revised and supplemented edition, Toruń 1995.
Studia o Leśmianie, ed. M. Głowiński and J. Sławiński, Warsaw 1971.
D. Ratajczakowa, Teatr artystyczny Bolesława Leśmiana, Wrocław 1979.
M. Głowiński, Zaświat przedstawiony, 2nd ed. Kraków 1998.
P. Łopuszański, Leśmian, Wrocław 2000.
Twórczość Bolesława Leśmiana, ed. T. Cieślak and B. Stelmaszczyk, Kraków 2000.
J. Zięba, Bolesława Leśmiana światopogląd nowoczesny, Kraków 2000.
Głowiński Michał
Entry based on source materials of PWN.
