Julian Przyboś and the Literary Genres

Abstract

This article reviews the various ways in which Julian Przyboś dealt with genre conventions in his poetry. He used old forms of prose poetry, reworked the convention of hymn, ode and sonnet, wrote lullabies and rhymes, and, as one of the first poetry writers, brought the non-literary genres into poetry (letter, menu, postcard, note). Przyboś is also a prolific author of articles published in periodicals, prefaces and afterwords in books by other authors, or texts included in joint publications, many of which were forgotten or scattered. Through recalling these mostly concise publications a fuller reconstruction of Przyboś’s attitude to genre conventions is enabled and helps to track the generic evolution of the avant-garde poet. Also, a new perspective is provided by reviewing the poet’s home archive, which has been kept by his wife thus far. The poet paid attention to form consciously constructed structure to his compositions, with precision and scrupulousness, forming complex, though apparently simple constructions. The hesitation accompanying the classification of some of the notes only confirms the innovative character of his poetry, putting forward new forms, which undertake the game with tradition and exploit the richness of modern Polish.