Antoni Lange
Encyclopedia
Antoni Lange was a Polish
poet
, philosopher
, polyglot
(15 languages), writer
, novelist, science-writer, reporter and translator
. A representative of Polish Parnassianism and symbolism
, he is also regarded as belonging to the Decadent movement
. He was an expert on Romanticism
, French literature
and a popularizer of culture of Eastern cultures.
He is famous for his novel Miranda
.
He translated English
, French
, Hungarian
, Italian
, Spanish
, India
n, American
, Serbian
, Egypt
ian and Oriental writers into Polish
and Polish poets
into French
and English
. He was also one of the most original poets of the Young Poland
movement. His work is often compared to Stéphane Mallarmé
and Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle.
Lange was an uncle of the poet Bolesław Leśmian.
. Young Antoni studied at Warsaw University but he was expelled for his patriotic activity by the Tsarist Russian
authorities who ruled Poland at the time. For this reason he decided to study in Paris where he encountered new trends in literature, philosophy and art. In France he became familiar with the theories of Jean Martin Charcot, as well as Spiritualism, parapsychology
, the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer
and Friedrich Nietzsche
, oriental religions, European and Eastern literature and modern literary criticism
. He took part in the literary meetings of Stéphane Mallarmé
.
He soon returned to his homeland, having become a dandy
, and he became one of the best known members of Polish Bohemian life. Bolesław Prus, Julian Ochorowicz
and Lange were the first Polish spiritists. In the 1890s he lived in Nowy Świat Street
together with Władysław Reymont, a Polish writer and the winner of the Nobel Prize
of 1924. Stanisław Brzozowski called Lange a real and not frequently European mind and Julian Tuwim
called him a master of reflective poetry. During this time Lange was a member of the Polish Academy of Literature. However, with the sharp growth of his popularity as a poet his poems became more sceptical, pessimistic and hermetic. The main theme of the poems of this period was the feeling of being isolated and misunderstood by the crowd.
At the beginning of the 20th century he withdrew from public life and became lonely and forgotten. He collected his last poems in notebooks and never allowed anyone to publish them.
Lange's prestige as a writer was undermined by a new generation of avant-gardists
. He died in isolation, destitution and obscurity in Warsaw
in 1929. He never married and had no children.
Antoni Lange was a friend of Stéphane Mallarmé
, Jan Kasprowicz
and Stanisław Przybyszewski.
There are only two portraits of Lange, one of them was painted by Stanisław Wyspiański in 1890.
s (Miranda
), short stories
(Zbrodnia, Amor i Faun), drama
s (Malczewski, Wenedzi), essay
s and poems. Lange's poetry is contemplative and erudite. It connects the traditions of European culture with Buddhism
. The overriding theme of Lange's existential
concerns was 'extremity' and the 'cycle' of death. In order to form of the poetry Lange connect to contradictory points of impressionism
, romantic sentimentality and experimentary theories of Stéphane Mallarmé
. Lange was fond of rare poetic forms: acrostic
s, dactyl
s, pantoum
s, praeludium
s, scherzo
s, canticle
s and triolet
s. He was also the author of many pastoral
s concerning the metaphysical
side of village life; historiosophical
songs inspired by the genesis philosophy of Juliusz Słowacki
; and exotic genesis mythologies from all over the world (from Mexico to Japan).
Lange was also the author of many lyrical essays presenting original views about the relationship between poet and reader concerning eschatological
issues (Thoughts, The Grave).
In the first phase of his writing he was a lover of esthetism, formal innovation and the theories of Stéphane Mallarmé. However, later he faced to primitivism
, anonymity, writings of folk poets and 16th century poets and blank verse
.
Both Lange and Jerzy Żuławski are often referred to as "The Pioneers of Polish Science-Fiction". Lange's short stories from the book W czwartym wymiarze (In the Fourth Dimension, 1912) such as Babunia (Grandma), Rozaura, Lenora, Rebus (Puzzle), Nowe mieszkanie (The New House) and Memoriał doktora Czang-Fu-Li (Dr. Chang Fu Li's Report) are regarded as early examples of science fiction
and weird fiction
in Poland. The main themes of the stories are: hypnosis
, the elixir of youth, eternal love and the materialization of phantoms. On a different note, Dr. Chang Fu Li's eponymous report, "written in Paris in 2652", is concerned with the climate change
brought about by the re-routing of the Gulf Stream
and the subsequent freezing over of Europe
, with China
taking over as the leading civilization.
Lange's works influenced many poets of the next generation, for example: Bolesław Leśmian, Antoni Słonimski, Julian Tuwim
, Julian Przyboś
, Jan Lechoń
, Leopold Staff
. Paradoxically, most of these poets criticized Lange for his anachronism
, eccentricity and overintellectualism.
Lange was also a left wing journalist
. He wrote for many important Polish newspapers such as Pobudka, Tygodnik Illustrowany or Przegląd tygodniowy. He created an original way of cultural assimilation
for Jews via mixed marriage.
Lange's numerous translations of classic 19th century literature from all over the world are still highly regarded. His translations of The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
and poems by Charles Baudelaire
, Edgar Allan Poe
and George Gordon Byron are masterpieces of Polish translation. He also edited many anthologies
of his own translations of Egyptian, Syrian, Persian, Arabian, Indian and Hebrew poems.
His main sources of inspiration were: the poetry of the Three Bards
,; the theories of Stéphane Mallarmé; the writings of Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle
; Sanskrit
epic
s of ancient India such as Mahabharata
or Savitri
; and the poetry of the Polish Baroque
era, especially metaphysical poets
such as Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński and Józef Baka
because of their obsession with death.
, suicide, mare tenebrarum and the life of an artist, but the main theme of the poem is death and searching for understanding from others.
Other love poems by Lange, for example Vita Nova (A New Life) written in 1898, present an original vision of a decadent and melancholy poet who momentarily becomes an Übermensch
thanks to the illusion of requited love. Unfortunately, there is always a conflict between the vision of ideal love and its realisation. Lange takes also notes the "painful impossibility" of the absolute and eternal union of lovers' souls; he creates a pesimistic vision of the relationship between man and woman, which is always burdened by the certainty that complete fulfilment is impossible.
In Lange's verses love always makes the subject feel as if he has been exiled from and deprived of a latent part of his own existence, but simultaneously he believes that lovers can communicate and feel the same by transmitting their pain and the power of their affection in defiance of metaphorical distance.
ism and Buddhism
.
Written in 1887, the cycle of seven sonnets entitled The Sonnets of Veda shows the seven stages of human existence on its way to Nirvana
.
The writing similar to Sonnets of Veda in order to form is Logos. It is a cycle of ten sonnets which discuss with ten points of view on logos
of history by ten outstanding representatives of historiosophy of Polish Romanticism. The poems are strongly influenced by ideas of messianism
.
The Hour written in 1894 was the first prose of Lange, but the short symbolic
novel was published in 1895 in the first volume of Poems. It is a story of Artemis
and Auora
, the two ancient goddess
es who descends to Earth
to bear witness to problems of human life. In some points The Hour is similar to the drama
A Dream Play
written by August Strindberg
in 1901 and The Woman without a Shadow
written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
in 1919. The novel contains many mystical fragments stylized on some kind of religious text
s, psalms
, manifesto
, the greek tragedy and the ode
. It also connects prose with elements of poetry
and drama.
One of the most representative Lange's writing is Deuteronomion, a mystical occult
ic poem written in Paris
in 1902. It is very hermetic and hard to interpret because of its many allusions to the Bible
, Kabbalah
, Sanscrit and ancient Slavic legends. The poem tells about a person of a Poet who travels within his soul to hammer out a great initiation of himself and the universe. It is meaningful that Deuteronomion begins with the Epilogue to myself and ends with the Prologue to the unknown god.
and the end of the history in connection to legends of primitive folks of New Zealand
, Mexico
, Guatemala
and Polynesia
. The poem takes a look on the main irresolutions of decadent in way of exotic mithologies.
Other exotic poem of Lange is The Book of Prophets which contains six chapters: Unity or the book of Moses, Greatness or the book of Brahma, Fight or the book of Zoroaster, Love or the book of Jesus, Determinity or the book of Muhammad and Manumission or the book of Buddha.
, a form which was unprecedented in Polish literature. This species of poetry was mainly used in Romanticism (for example, by George Gordon Byron or Adam Mickiewicz
) and in late 19th century went out of use. Therefore, Lange was probably the last and only poet who wrote narrative poems in Poland. There are:
Lange wrote also A Song of Płanetnik, a narrative poem referred to a character of Płanetnik. Płanetnik is a little Slavic
ghost from the legends of pagans who lived from the earliest historical times to the Middle Ages
on Polish territories. He was a guardian of clouds and a lonely dreamer who predicted the weather. It was supposed that Płanetniks were stray souls of suicide
rs and victims of murder. One would call them by sprinkling flour
to the wind or fire. A Song of Płanetnik by Lange tells the story of a young sensitive man who lost contact with reality and set off on a solitary existence.
and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
.
Lange was interested in spiritualism
and parapsychology
to contain his own philosophy.
in modern poetry. In 1924 he founded Astrea, a science-magazine and the first forum about the Polish and European romanticism. Lange rejected romantic illumination
and brainwave. In his view theological truth is within the reach only of erudition
, intellect and afterthought. Lange criticized also the importance of individualism
and the authorial personality. Placing the poem as an artwork at the center, as an eidos
of poetry, he affirmed the poem's own existence and a clear idea of creation, therefore he disagreed with the cult of individualism.
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Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, polyglot
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
(15 languages), writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, novelist, science-writer, reporter and translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
. A representative of Polish Parnassianism and symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
, he is also regarded as belonging to the Decadent movement
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
. He was an expert on Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
and a popularizer of culture of Eastern cultures.
He is famous for his novel Miranda
Miranda (novel)
Miranda is a novel written by Antoni Lange in 1924. It was the last great work of Lange before he died , and his most famous book today. It is said that Miranda is an "occultic fiction" and a "romance ranked to a philosophical treaty". The novel is also known as "novelty writing" which conciliates...
.
He translated English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n, American
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian and Oriental writers into Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
and Polish poets
Polish literature
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages, used in Poland over the centuries, have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and...
into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. He was also one of the most original poets of the Young Poland
Young Poland
Young Poland is a modernist period in Polish visual arts, literature and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was a result of strong aesthetic opposition to the ideas of Positivism...
movement. His work is often compared to Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
and Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle.
Lange was an uncle of the poet Bolesław Leśmian.
Life
Little is known about Lange's personal life, even the date of his birth is doubtful. He was born into a strongly patriotic Jewish family who were influenced by the ideals of Romanticism. His father Henri Lange took part in the November UprisingNovember Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
. Young Antoni studied at Warsaw University but he was expelled for his patriotic activity by the Tsarist Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
authorities who ruled Poland at the time. For this reason he decided to study in Paris where he encountered new trends in literature, philosophy and art. In France he became familiar with the theories of Jean Martin Charcot, as well as Spiritualism, parapsychology
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
, the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
and Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, oriental religions, European and Eastern literature and modern literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
. He took part in the literary meetings of Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
.
He soon returned to his homeland, having become a dandy
Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...
, and he became one of the best known members of Polish Bohemian life. Bolesław Prus, Julian Ochorowicz
Julian Ochorowicz
Julian Leopold Ochorowicz was a Polish philosopher, psychologist, inventor , poet, publicist and leading exponent of Polish Positivism.-Life:Julian Ochorowicz was the son of Julian and Jadwiga, née...
and Lange were the first Polish spiritists. In the 1890s he lived in Nowy Świat Street
Nowy Swiat Street
Ulica Nowy Świat is one of the main historic thoroughfares of Warsaw.It comprises part of the Royal Route that runs from Warsaw's Royal Castle and Old Town, south to King Jan III Sobieski's 17th-century royal residence at Wilanów....
together with Władysław Reymont, a Polish writer and the winner of the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
of 1924. Stanisław Brzozowski called Lange a real and not frequently European mind and Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim , sometimes used pseudonym "Oldlen" when writing song lyrics. He was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, of Jewish parents, and educated in Łódź and Warsaw where he studied law and philosophy at Warsaw University...
called him a master of reflective poetry. During this time Lange was a member of the Polish Academy of Literature. However, with the sharp growth of his popularity as a poet his poems became more sceptical, pessimistic and hermetic. The main theme of the poems of this period was the feeling of being isolated and misunderstood by the crowd.
Przychodzę do was z daleka... |
I come to you from far away |
|
|
At the beginning of the 20th century he withdrew from public life and became lonely and forgotten. He collected his last poems in notebooks and never allowed anyone to publish them.
Lange's prestige as a writer was undermined by a new generation of avant-gardists
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
. He died in isolation, destitution and obscurity in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
in 1929. He never married and had no children.
Antoni Lange was a friend of Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
, Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz was a poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland.-Life:...
and Stanisław Przybyszewski.
There are only two portraits of Lange, one of them was painted by Stanisław Wyspiański in 1890.
Writing
Lange was a prolific and versatile writer. He wrote many novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s (Miranda
Miranda (novel)
Miranda is a novel written by Antoni Lange in 1924. It was the last great work of Lange before he died , and his most famous book today. It is said that Miranda is an "occultic fiction" and a "romance ranked to a philosophical treaty". The novel is also known as "novelty writing" which conciliates...
), short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
(Zbrodnia, Amor i Faun), drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
s (Malczewski, Wenedzi), essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s and poems. Lange's poetry is contemplative and erudite. It connects the traditions of European culture with Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. The overriding theme of Lange's existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
concerns was 'extremity' and the 'cycle' of death. In order to form of the poetry Lange connect to contradictory points of impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, romantic sentimentality and experimentary theories of Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
. Lange was fond of rare poetic forms: acrostic
Acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...
s, dactyl
Dactyl (poetry)
A dactyl is a foot in meter in poetry. In quantitative verse, such as Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight...
s, pantoum
Pantoum
The pantoum is a form of poetry similar to a villanelle in that there are repeating lines throughout the poem. It is composed of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next. This pattern continues for any number of stanzas,...
s, praeludium
Prelude (short story)
Prelude is a 1918 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published by the Hogarth Press in July 1918, and later reprinted in Bliss and Other Stories.-Plot summary:I...
s, scherzo
Scherzo
A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
s, canticle
Canticle
A canticle is a hymn taken from the Bible. The term is often expanded to include ancient non-biblical hymns such as the Te Deum and certain psalms used liturgically.-Roman Catholic Church:From the Old Testament, the Roman Breviary takes seven canticles for use at Lauds, as follows:*...
s and triolet
Triolet
A triolet is a three stanza poem of eight lines. Its rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB and often all lines are in iambic tetrameter: the first, fourth and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines, thereby making the initial and final couplets identical as well.-Examples:The form...
s. He was also the author of many pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
s concerning the metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
side of village life; historiosophical
Philosophy of history
The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history...
songs inspired by the genesis philosophy of Juliusz Słowacki
Juliusz Slowacki
Juliusz Słowacki was a Polish Romantic poet. He is considered one of the "Three Bards" of Polish literature — a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of modern Polish drama. His works often feature elements of Slavic pagan traditions, Polish history, mysticism and orientalism....
; and exotic genesis mythologies from all over the world (from Mexico to Japan).
Lange was also the author of many lyrical essays presenting original views about the relationship between poet and reader concerning eschatological
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
issues (Thoughts, The Grave).
In the first phase of his writing he was a lover of esthetism, formal innovation and the theories of Stéphane Mallarmé. However, later he faced to primitivism
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
, anonymity, writings of folk poets and 16th century poets and blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
.
Both Lange and Jerzy Żuławski are often referred to as "The Pioneers of Polish Science-Fiction". Lange's short stories from the book W czwartym wymiarze (In the Fourth Dimension, 1912) such as Babunia (Grandma), Rozaura, Lenora, Rebus (Puzzle), Nowe mieszkanie (The New House) and Memoriał doktora Czang-Fu-Li (Dr. Chang Fu Li's Report) are regarded as early examples of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and weird fiction
Weird fiction
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction written in the late 19th and early 20th century. It can be said to encompass the ghost story and other tales of the macabre. Weird fiction is distinguished from horror and fantasy in that it predates the niche marketing of genre fiction...
in Poland. The main themes of the stories are: hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
, the elixir of youth, eternal love and the materialization of phantoms. On a different note, Dr. Chang Fu Li's eponymous report, "written in Paris in 2652", is concerned with the climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
brought about by the re-routing of the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean...
and the subsequent freezing over of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, with China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
taking over as the leading civilization.
Lange's works influenced many poets of the next generation, for example: Bolesław Leśmian, Antoni Słonimski, Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim , sometimes used pseudonym "Oldlen" when writing song lyrics. He was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, of Jewish parents, and educated in Łódź and Warsaw where he studied law and philosophy at Warsaw University...
, Julian Przyboś
Julian Przybos
Julian Przyboś was a Polish poet, essayist and translator, one of the most important poets of Kraków Avantgarde....
, Jan Lechoń
Jan Lechon
Leszek Józef Serafinowicz was a Polish poet, literary and theater critic, diplomat, and co-founder of the Skamander literary movement and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America.-Life:Lechoń studied Polish language and literature at Warsaw University, by...
, Leopold Staff
Leopold Staff
Leopold Staff was a Polish poet and one of the greatest artists of European modernism honored two times by honorary degrees . He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
. Paradoxically, most of these poets criticized Lange for his anachronism
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
, eccentricity and overintellectualism.
Lange was also a left wing journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
. He wrote for many important Polish newspapers such as Pobudka, Tygodnik Illustrowany or Przegląd tygodniowy. He created an original way of cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
for Jews via mixed marriage.
Lange's numerous translations of classic 19th century literature from all over the world are still highly regarded. His translations of The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
Gustav Meyrink
Gustav Meyrink was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, storyteller, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel The Golem.-Childhood:...
and poems by Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
and George Gordon Byron are masterpieces of Polish translation. He also edited many anthologies
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
of his own translations of Egyptian, Syrian, Persian, Arabian, Indian and Hebrew poems.
His main sources of inspiration were: the poetry of the Three Bards
Three Bards
The Three Bards are the national poets of Polish Romantic literature. They lived and worked in exile during the partitions of Poland which ended the existence of the Polish sovereign state...
,; the theories of Stéphane Mallarmé; the writings of Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle
Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle
Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle was a French poet of the Parnassian movement.-Life:Leconte de Lisle was born on the island of Réunion. His father, an army surgeon, who brought him up with great severity, sent him to travel in the East Indies with a view to preparing him for a commercial life...
; Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
epic
Indian epic poetry
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called Kavya . The Ramayana and Mahabharata, originally composed in Sanskrit and translated thereafter into many other Indian languages, are some of the oldest surviving epic poems on earth and form part of...
s of ancient India such as Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
or Savitri
Savitri (book)
Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol is an epic poem in blank verse by Sri Aurobindo, based upon a myth from the Mahabharata. Its central theme revolves around the transcendence of man as the consummation of terrestrial evolution, and the immergence of an immortal supramental gnostic race upon earth...
; and the poetry of the Polish Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
era, especially metaphysical poets
Metaphysical poets
The metaphysical poets is a term coined by the poet and critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them, and whose work was characterized by inventiveness of metaphor...
such as Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński and Józef Baka
Józef Baka
Józef Baka was a late Baroque poet, Jesuit priest and missionary. Born in March of either 1706 or 1707, probably in Nowogrodek, Baka is regarded as one of the most prominent poets of the 18th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.-Early years:Little is known about early days of his life,...
because of their obsession with death.
Thoughts
In many critics' view Thoughts is Lange's key work. It is a long poem in two volumes: the first, Thoughts, was published as a cycle of fifty-six poems in 1906; it was followed by The New Series of Thoughts, written in 1928. Thoughts is a work about the loneliness and alienation of the artist whose existence has been alternating between a sense of the absurdity of life and a belief in an ideal world since the moment he was born. The poem ends with a mysterious and disturbing vision of the artist's contact with the other world ("There stands some strange Chimera upon me") and consoling reflections about life and death, good and evil while sitting in the garden at evening. Thoughts explores the subjects of NirvanaNirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
, suicide, mare tenebrarum and the life of an artist, but the main theme of the poem is death and searching for understanding from others.
Vita Nova and other love poems
Lange was the author of many love poems influenced by Romanticism, spiritualism and Indian mythology.Gdzie ty jesteś, bogini? |
Where are you goddess? |
|
|
Other love poems by Lange, for example Vita Nova (A New Life) written in 1898, present an original vision of a decadent and melancholy poet who momentarily becomes an Übermensch
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
thanks to the illusion of requited love. Unfortunately, there is always a conflict between the vision of ideal love and its realisation. Lange takes also notes the "painful impossibility" of the absolute and eternal union of lovers' souls; he creates a pesimistic vision of the relationship between man and woman, which is always burdened by the certainty that complete fulfilment is impossible.
Deuteronomion, The Hour, Logos and Sonnets of Veda
The most characteristic feature of Lange's writings is the strong influence of Eastern traditions, religions and philosophies such as Veda, BrahminBrahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
ism and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
.
Written in 1887, the cycle of seven sonnets entitled The Sonnets of Veda shows the seven stages of human existence on its way to Nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
.
The writing similar to Sonnets of Veda in order to form is Logos. It is a cycle of ten sonnets which discuss with ten points of view on logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
of history by ten outstanding representatives of historiosophy of Polish Romanticism. The poems are strongly influenced by ideas of messianism
Messianism
Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...
.
The Hour written in 1894 was the first prose of Lange, but the short symbolic
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
novel was published in 1895 in the first volume of Poems. It is a story of Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
and Auora
Aurora (mythology)
Aurora is the Latin word for dawn, the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry.Like Greek Eos and Rigvedic Ushas , Aurora continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, *Hausos....
, the two ancient goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
es who descends to Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
to bear witness to problems of human life. In some points The Hour is similar to the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
A Dream Play
A Dream Play
A Dream Play was written in 1901 by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It was first performed in Stockholm on 17 April 1907. It remains one of Strindberg's most admired and influential dramas, seen as an important precursor to both dramatic Expressionism and Surrealism.-Plot:The primary...
written by August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
in 1901 and The Woman without a Shadow
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
in 1919. The novel contains many mystical fragments stylized on some kind of religious text
Religious text
Religious texts, also known as scripture, scriptures, holy writ, or holy books, are the texts which various religious traditions consider to be sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition...
s, psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
, manifesto
Manifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
, the greek tragedy and the ode
Ode
Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...
. It also connects prose with elements of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and drama.
One of the most representative Lange's writing is Deuteronomion, a mystical occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ic poem written in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1902. It is very hermetic and hard to interpret because of its many allusions to the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, Sanscrit and ancient Slavic legends. The poem tells about a person of a Poet who travels within his soul to hammer out a great initiation of himself and the universe. It is meaningful that Deuteronomion begins with the Epilogue to myself and ends with the Prologue to the unknown god.
Exotica and The Book of Prophets
Lange is also an author of Exotica, an original epic poem which tells about the beginning of the other world, creation of womanWoman
A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...
and the end of the history in connection to legends of primitive folks of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
. The poem takes a look on the main irresolutions of decadent in way of exotic mithologies.
Other exotic poem of Lange is The Book of Prophets which contains six chapters: Unity or the book of Moses, Greatness or the book of Brahma, Fight or the book of Zoroaster, Love or the book of Jesus, Determinity or the book of Muhammad and Manumission or the book of Buddha.
Narrative poems
Lange inaugurated a return to narrative poetryNarrative poetry
Narrative poetry is poetry that has a plot. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex. It is usually nondramatic, with objective regular scheme and meter. Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls and lays.Some narrative...
, a form which was unprecedented in Polish literature. This species of poetry was mainly used in Romanticism (for example, by George Gordon Byron or Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
) and in late 19th century went out of use. Therefore, Lange was probably the last and only poet who wrote narrative poems in Poland. There are:
- The Oracle, a poem based on an Indian legend
- Ilya Muromets, a poem inspired by bylinaBylinaBylina or Bylyna is a traditional Russian oral epic narrative poem. Byliny singers loosely utilize historical fact greatly embellished with fantasy or hyperbole to create their songs...
- The Vision of Catherine of Alexandria
Lange wrote also A Song of Płanetnik, a narrative poem referred to a character of Płanetnik. Płanetnik is a little Slavic
Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs before Christianisation.The religion possesses many common traits with other religions descended from the Proto-Indo-European religion....
ghost from the legends of pagans who lived from the earliest historical times to the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
on Polish territories. He was a guardian of clouds and a lonely dreamer who predicted the weather. It was supposed that Płanetniks were stray souls of suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
rs and victims of murder. One would call them by sprinkling flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
to the wind or fire. A Song of Płanetnik by Lange tells the story of a young sensitive man who lost contact with reality and set off on a solitary existence.
|
Dziwożona Dziwożona is a female swamp demon in Slavic mythology known for being malicious and dangerous.-Behaviour:Dziwożona was said to live in thickets near rivers, streams and lakes. According to some, she took the form of an ugly, old woman with a hairy body, long straight hair and breasts so huge that... ! |
Philosophy
In Lange's cosmogony-philosophy, he announced that evolution of the soul is parallel to evolution of a nation. Capitalism is the enemy of this principle because it acts against individualism, so capitalism is the ideology of the anonymous crowd. If there is no individualism among the people, then there is also not a problem of "bad" versus "good". Then the world comes to disturb its own logic. According to Lange, a world that 'was being born' from ideal space, is still coming to the highest stage of evolution; sometime, it will return to its primary stage. Every step to evolution is a step to the ideal primary. An exception of this "rule of time-line" is the person of genius, who is between the times. In Lange's philosophy he referred to Giambattista VicoGiambattista Vico
Giovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
.
Lange was interested in spiritualism
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
and parapsychology
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
to contain his own philosophy.
Critic of Romanticism
An important part of Lange's writing was the criticism of legacy of romanticismRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
in modern poetry. In 1924 he founded Astrea, a science-magazine and the first forum about the Polish and European romanticism. Lange rejected romantic illumination
Enlightenment (spiritual)
Enlightenment in a secular context often means the "full comprehension of a situation", but in spiritual terms the word alludes to a spiritual revelation or deep insight into the meaning and purpose of all things, communication with or understanding of the mind of God, profound spiritual...
and brainwave. In his view theological truth is within the reach only of erudition
Erudition
The word erudition came into Middle English from Latin. A scholar is erudite when instruction and reading followed by digestion and contemplation have effaced all rudeness , that is to say smoothed away all raw, untrained incivility...
, intellect and afterthought. Lange criticized also the importance of individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
and the authorial personality. Placing the poem as an artwork at the center, as an eidos
Theory of Forms
Plato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas asserts that non-material abstract forms , and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. When used in this sense, the word form is often capitalized...
of poetry, he affirmed the poem's own existence and a clear idea of creation, therefore he disagreed with the cult of individualism.
Literary theories
Lange's original literary speculations were collected in books such as Rzuty ("Projections"), O poezji współczesnej ("On Contemporary Poetry") and Studia i wrażenia ("Studies and Impressions").Other works
- Vox Posthuma - a philosophical treatise about an archetypical enfant du siècle
- Godzina ("The Hour") - an occult novel about the connections between the ideal and the material world, estheticism in poetry and real life etc.
- Pogrzeb Shelleya ("The Funeral of Shelley") - an odeOdeOde is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...
to Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron... - Księgi proroków ("Books of the Prophets") - a collection of cosmogonicalCosmogonyCosmogony, or cosmogeny, is any scientific theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be. The word comes from the Greek κοσμογονία , from κόσμος "cosmos, the world", and the root of γίνομαι / γέγονα "to be born, come about"...
poetry referred to BuddhismBuddhismBuddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, ZoroastrianismZoroastrianismZoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
and IslamIslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~... - Exotica - an historiosophical poem about the genesis of the world, God, Man and Woman
- Pogrobowcy ("Posthumous Verses") - a collection of early poems strongly influenced by positivismPositivismPositivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
- Rozmyślania ("Contemplations" or "Thoughts") - a philosophical poem about the dead, strongly influenced by RomanticismRomanticismRomanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, BaroqueBaroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
poetry and decadentismDecadentismDecadentism was an Italian artistic style based mainly on the Decadent movement in the arts in France and England around the end of the 19th century. The main authors associated with decadentism were Antonio Fogazzaro, Italo Svevo, Giovanni Pascoli and Gabriele D'Annunzio... - Ballady pijackie ("Drunken Ballads") - a lyrical essay about the drugs and alcohol enjoyed by decadent poets
- Stypa ("Meeting") - a frame storyFrame storyA frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
about the suicide of young man after a tragic love affair - Widzenie świętej Katarzyny ("The Vision of Saint Catherine of Alexandria") - a lyrical story about the social and metaphysical consequences of the death of God
- W czwartym wymiarze ("In the Fourth Dimension") - one of the first science-fiction books in Polish literature
- MirandaMiranda (novel)Miranda is a novel written by Antoni Lange in 1924. It was the last great work of Lange before he died , and his most famous book today. It is said that Miranda is an "occultic fiction" and a "romance ranked to a philosophical treaty". The novel is also known as "novelty writing" which conciliates...
- an occult novel about tragic love and the vision of an ideal woman in an ideal civilisation of BrahminBrahminBrahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
s - Róża polna ("The Wild Rose")
- Atylla ("Attila")
- Malczewski - a play about the life of the Polish Romantic poet Antoni MalczewskiAntoni MalczewskiAntoni Malczewski was an influential Polish romantic poet, known for his only work, "a narrative poem of dire pessimism", Maria ....
- Vita Nova - a cycle of 11 philosophical poems about an ideal vision of love, pain and loneliness
- Pieśni dla przyjaciół ("Odes to Friends") - a collection of odes to Polish poets such as Jan KasprowiczJan KasprowiczJan Kasprowicz was a poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland.-Life:...
and Zenon Przesmycki
Selected translations
- English (poems from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, poems of Lord Byron, Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, short-stories of Herbert George Wells, Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
of John MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, Novum OrganumNovum OrganumThe Novum Organum, full original title Novum Organum Scientiarum, is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, written in Latin and published in 1620. The title translates as new instrument, i.e. new instrument of science. This is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on...
of Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
) - French (poems of Charles-Marie-René Leconte de LisleCharles-Marie-René Leconte de LisleCharles Marie René Leconte de Lisle was a French poet of the Parnassian movement.-Life:Leconte de Lisle was born on the island of Réunion. His father, an army surgeon, who brought him up with great severity, sent him to travel in the East Indies with a view to preparing him for a commercial life...
, Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, Théodore de BanvilleThéodore de BanvilleThéodore Faullain de Banville was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood, by his own account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the...
, selected works of Gustave FlaubertGustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
, poetry by Maurice MaeterlinckMaurice MaeterlinckMaurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
) - Italian (works of Giovanni Pico della MirandolaGiovanni Pico della MirandolaCount Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of...
, New Science of Giambattista VicoGiambattista VicoGiovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
) - German (works of Arthur SchopenhauerArthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
and Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
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Poems
- Sonety wedyckie (1887)
- Pogrzeb Shelleya (1890)
- Wenus żebracza (1890)
- Ballady pijackie (1895)
- Księgi proroków (1895)
- LogosLogos' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
(1895) - Poezje (I – 1895; II – 1898)
- Pogrobowcom (1901)
- Świat (1901)
- Fragmenta. Poezje wybrane (1901)
- Pocałunki (1902)
- Deuteronomion (1902)
- Akteon (1903)
- Księgi bogów (1903)
- Rozmyślania (1906)
- Pierwszy dzień stworzenia (1907)
- XXVII sonetów (1914)
- Ilia Muromiec (1916)
- Trzeci dzień (1925)
- Groteski. Wiersze ironiczne (1927)
- Rozmyślania. Z nowej serii (1928)
- Gdziekolwiek jesteś (1931)
- Ostatni zbiór poezji (1931)
Novels and short stories
- Godzina (1894)
- Elfryda: nowele i fantazje(1895)
- Zbrodnia (1907)
- Dwie bajki (1910)
- Czterdzieści cztery (1910)
- Stypa (1911)
- W czwartym wymiarze (1912)
- MirandaMiranda (novel)Miranda is a novel written by Antoni Lange in 1924. It was the last great work of Lange before he died , and his most famous book today. It is said that Miranda is an "occultic fiction" and a "romance ranked to a philosophical treaty". The novel is also known as "novelty writing" which conciliates...
(1924) - Nowy Tarzan (1925)
- Róża polna (1926)
- Michałki (1926)
Essays
- O sprzeczności sprawy żydowskiej (1890)
- Analfabetyzm i walka z ciemnotą w Królestwie Polskim (1892)
- O poezji współczesnej (1895)
- Studia z literatury francuskiej (1897)
- Studia i wrażenia (1900)
- Lord Byron (1905)
- Rzuty (1905)
- Panteon literatury wszechświatowej (1921)
- Pochodnie w mroku (1927)