Abstract

The article discusses the issue of the return of the forgotten poets as a function of the literary paradigm subjected to changes at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the light of such a view, the crisis in the development of poetry would be one of the factors letting the forgotten poets’ voice be heard. Another one seems to be the alienation of late 19th-century authors seeking or involuntarily finding partners for a dialogue in tradition, not in contemporary times. The text raises the subject of the sacredness of the poetic word, referring it both to the socio-literary realities of the turn of the centuries and to the broadly defined tradition. In the paper, the author focuses on Cyprian Norwid (and his reader, Zenon Przesmycki) and Stefan George (for whom Stephane Mallarmé turns out to be an important poetic reference).