Akropolis

by Stanisław Wyspiański

Although he never left his native Kraków except for relatively short periods, Stanisław Wyspiański (1869-1907) achieved worldwide fame, both as a painter, and Poland’s greatest dramatist of the first half of the twentieth century. Acropolis: the Wawel Plays, brings together four of Wyspiański’s most important dramatic works in a new English translation by Charles S. Kraszewski. All of the plays centre on Wawel Hill: the legendary seat of royal and ecclesiastical power in the poet’s native city, the ancient capital of Poland. In these plays, Wyspiański explores the foundational myths of his nation: that of the self-sacrificial Wanda, and the struggle between King Bolesław the Bold and Bishop Stanisław Szczepanowski. In the eponymous play which brings the cycle to an end, Wyspiański carefully considers the value of myth to a nation without political autonomy, soaring in thought into an apocalyptic vision of the future. Richly illustrated with the poet’s artwork, Acropolis: the Wawel Plays also contains Wyspiański’s architectural proposal for the renovation of Wawel Hill, and a detailed critical introduction by the translator. In its plaited presentation of Bolesław the Bold and Skałka, the translation offers, for the first time, the two plays in the unified, composite format that the poet intended, but was prevented from carrying out by his untimely death.

Stanisław Wyspiański

Stanisław Wyspiański (1869—1907) is a poet, dramatist, theatrical director, painter, architectural restorer, furniture designer, and can be called a Renaissance man of the early XX century. Wyspiański is of prime importance to the history of Polish art, as he is to the history of Polish literature. He is the key artist of Modernism in Poland, and the driving force behind the Młoda Polska (Young Poland) period in letters. A student of Jan Matejko, he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in his home city of Kraków. During a period of study in Paris, he came to know, and be influenced by, Gaugin. His artworks are characterised by their decorative qualities and bright colours. He was especially fond of pastels. Many of his works may be seen in Kraków today. Of special importance are his stained glass windows in the Franciscan church. His designs for stained glass windows at Wawel Cathedral, including depictions of St. Stanisław, remained unrealised until the XXI century (when they were incorporated into the Wyspiański Pavilion on Grodzka St.)

He is the author of nearly twenty verse dramas, chief among which is Wesele (The Wedding Feast, 1901), a poetic allegory concerning his contemporary Poland and the inability of his countrymen to act, in a concerted fashion, to win their independence from the partitioning empires of Austria, Russia and Prussia. His collected writings fill fourteen volumes. They include, besides his dramatic works, lyrical and narrative poetry, a strongly-interpreted translation of Corneille’s Le Cid, the first great production of Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve), and a critical consideration of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of its stage realisation in modern Poland.

Charles S. Kraszewski (b. 1962) is a poet, translator and literary critic. He has published three volumes of original verse: Beast (Alexandria, 2013), Diet of Nails (Boston, 2013) and Chanameed (Atlanta, 2015). Among his critical works is Irresolute Heresiarch: Catholicism, Gnosticism and Paganism in the Poetry of Czesław Miłosz (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2012); many of his verse translations are collected in the volume Rossetti’s Armadillo (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2014). His English translation of Forefathers' Eve by Adam Mickiewicz was published by Glagoslav in 2016.

Genres: Polish Literature, Drama, Classics

220 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Polish playwright, painter, poet, interior and furniture designer.

Reviews

[syrinxelite · Rating 4 out of 5]

jestem tu dla mistycyzujacych odklejonych dramatów

[Fuyu · Rating 2 out of 5]

biblia x iliada x lilia weneda x wyzwolenie, did not expect and did not enjoy the mashup

[Clarence · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Akropolis” to dramat nieco pozostający w cieniu innych utworów Stanisława Wyspiańskiego – przede wszystkim znanego wszystkim ze szkolnych lektur „Wesela”, a także „Wyzwolenia”. Trudno jednoznacznie stwierdzić, dlaczego tak jest. Być może wpływa na to fakt, że „Akropolis” to utwór zdecydowanie niełatwy w interpretacji. Mówiąc krótko - to trudny utwór.
Akcja dramatu toczy się na Wawelu, w noc Zmartwychwstania Jezusa. W katedrze dochodzi do niezwykłego zdarzenia – postacie z umieszczonych tam dzieł sztuki ożywają i zaczynają wchodzić ze sobą w interakcję. Dramat podzielony jest na cztery akty, z których każdy skupia się na innej grupie bohaterów – zarówno biblijnych, jak i mitologicznych. Ten motyw szczególnie mnie zaciekawił, głównie ze względu na nietypowe połączenie elementów kultury chrześcijańskiej i starożytnej. Warto również wspomnieć, że utwór ma w dużej mierze kompozycję kolażową – autor często korzysta z cytatów pochodzących z innych dzieł literackich, przede wszystkim z Biblii.
Pod względem ideowym „Akropolis” niestety zainteresowało mnie mniej. Porusza ono bowiem temat, który w polskiej literaturze był już wielokrotnie eksploatowany – temat narodowowyzwoleńczy. Oczywiście, dla współczesnych Wyspiańskiemu czytelników był to wciąż temat aktualny i niezwykle ważny. Jednak dla mnie – jako współczesnego odbiorcy – stał się już nieco nużący. Nawet jeśli częściowo zgadzam się z przesłaniem autora, nie wyniosłem z lektury żadnych nowych przemyśleń.
Zbierając to wszystko razem, „Akropolis” jest dramatem, który pod względem ideowym może nie robić wrażenia na współczesnym czytelniku, jednak na pewno potrafi zachwycić piękną, oryginalną realizacją. I tak było również w moim przypadku.

[blawatekk · Rating 2 out of 5]

ale gówno

[Maggie Lapinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never been a fan of lyrical drama and/or poetical drama, but I had a better time following along to the plot of "Akropolis" than I did when I read "Forefather's Eve" by Mickiewicz. Both are written beautifully, but the semiotics incorporated into "Akropolis" made my toes curl out of joy.

[Nina Toruniewska · Rating 4 out of 5]

co to za cudo metaforyki i alegorii

[Fred Kohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I became aware of the work of Stanisław Wyspiański by reading a collection of plays by Karol Wojtyła. It was noted in that collection that Wojtyła's motif of having statues come to life at the beginning of his play "Jeremiah" was inspired by Wyspiański's use of that same motif in his play "Acropolis." Typically for me, I didn’t have much idea of what was going on in that play upon a first reading, even though it was all explained in the introduction. The introductory material in the Collected Plays of Karol Wojtyła was organized much better, with the introductory material for each play immediately preceding the play in question, rather than them all being lumped together at the beginning of the book the way they were in the Wyspiański collection.

The introductory material and notes suffered by comparison to the Collected Plays of Karol Wojtyła. The Wojtyła collection had excellent footnotes that were lacking in the Wyspiański collection. I spent a lot of time hunting down historical and geographical information, only to find that much of this material had been collected in a glossary at the end of the book. It would have been nice to have known about this information *before* I looked it all up. Nevertheless, there was still a lot of information I would have liked for the translator to have provided that was missing from the glossary. For example, I wish some explanation had been given about the characters Whistle and Afterwhistle. After finding the name of these characters in Polish (Świst and Poświst) I was able to find this info on Poświst on Polish Wikipedia: – a pre-Christian, airborne Slavic demon personifying wind and whirlwinds. Powist chased away storm clouds and dried fields. After Christianization, it transformed into the devil (Google translate).

Ok but really, should a reader have to go through that much work?

Also missing from the glossary was the term Wisłanka which is an important one to know. The glossary did include the important term Rusalka which is a type of water spirit which plays an important part in the first and second plays in this collection. The author did however define Wisłanka in the introduction (a fact I didn’t catch until I read it a second time): Wisłanka, nymph of the river Wisła, also the name of a feminine member of an indigenous people that inhabited the area around Kraków. (It is also important to know that Wisła is the Polish name for the river Vistula. These double names occurred a number of times in the book and should have been footnoted).

The double definition is confusing when in the second play the king asked his lover, Krasawika, "You're a rusalka [a water spirit]?" And she answers, "A Wisłanka." Does this mean that she is a spirit or not? I think so, but it is confusing. Is a Wisłanka a type of rusalka, or a different creature entirely? Maybe we are supposed to be unsure whether she is spirit or human (or maybe a half-breed).

Even though "Acropolis" is Wyspiański's most popular play, it was not my favorite. This was especially true on the first read through, when I didn’t understand that the four angels were animated statues, or why in the second and third acts we were regaled with characters from Troy and the O.T. I didn’t understand the premise of the play until I reread the introduction after my first read-through of the play. Perhaps it is clearer in a stage production that all these characters are either animated statues or characters from tapestries in the Wawel cathedral. Once I understood this, the second read through was much enjoyable! I appreciated the way Wyspiański wove together Trojan and Polish themes in Act ii identifying the Skamander River with the Vistula ("The Skamander reflects from the Vistulan waves") and identifying the Jordan with the Vistula in Act iv.

Although many of the landmarks in Act i of "Acropolis" were identified in the glossary it is worth looking them up on the internet for additional information. In this way I got to get a visual of the Cupid at Ankwicz monument and the lyre at Skotnicki monument which play roles in the play.

Wanda was perhaps my favorite play of the three plays in this volume followed closely by "Bishop, King. Bishop." Although Wanda was panned by the critics and not liked by the author himself, I found it the easiest to grasp on a first read through. Perhaps this says something about my unsophisticated tastes in theater! No doubt much of the trouble with Wanda lies in the difficulty in staging it, with its supernatural creatures rising from the water and sinking back into the water. I think my ease in following it as opposed to the other two plays is due to the fact that it is based on a legend, and a rather simple one, rather than the complicated history portrayed in "Bishop, King. Bishop." or the complex plot of "Acropolis".

"Bishop, King. Bishop." was definitely the most interesting of the three plays for me. It is actually a mashup of what was originally two separate plays: "Bolesław Śmiały" [Bolesław the Bold] and "Skałka". Both plays tell the tale of the conflict between king Bolesław the Bold and Bishop (later Saint) Stanisław Szczepanowski. I recommend that when reading this play you keep a finger in the glossary in the back so you can read about the characters as they are introduced in the play. When I did a Google search on Bolesław the Bold I got many results for Bolesław the Brave (also known as the Great), and I initially thought that these were the same individuals. Not at all! Bolesław the Brave is Bolesław I, and Bolesław the Bold is Bolesław II, and the great grandson of Bolesław the Brave. This is explained in the glossary, but again, should a reader have to work that hard? This information would have been handled much better in a footnote. It was also frustrating not to know that the character of Włodzisłav in the first Act of "Skałka" is the same character as the king's brother in "Bolesław Śmiały".

The historical situation portrayed in "Bishop, King. Bishop." is fascinating and rather complex. It involves a conflict between king Bolesław II and Bishop of Kraków Stanisław, whom the king suspects of treasonous collusion with the Czechs. The translator claims in his introduction that there are hints of this in the play, but they are few and far between. There is a brief line where the king claims that the Czech king Vratislav would rejoice at Bolesław's downfall, but that was about it as far as I could tell.

There was one reference in the play that I could not trace down and I wish I knew the meaning of, and that is to a ceremonial cake introduced in Act I. What is the significance of this cake? My guess is that it represents Poland. Later on in the play the king's lover sets fire to the cake (is this really intended to be staged?) perhaps signifying the later dissolution of the Polish State. But this is all my speculation. Did such ceremonial cakes actually exist in medieval Poland? I wish I knew. A Google search did not return much.

Fortunately this volume, unlike the collected plays of Karol Wojtyła, is available at a reasonable price. I can see myself adding it to my library in the near future

[Miku · Rating 3 out of 5]

Według mnie Akropolis to jedno z tych bardziej skomplikowanych dzieł i faktycznie miałam małe trudności podczas czytania.
Cały utwór dzieli się na cztery akty, a akcja dzieje się na Wawelu. W pierwszym akcie czytelnik styka się na początku z rozmową 4 aniołów, a następnie ożywionymi zabytkami takimi jak przykładowo rzeźby i anioły rozmawiają z nimi, a następnie te rzeźby wymieniają myśli między sobą.
W drugim znajduje się silne nawiązanie do Hektora, Parysa oraz Heleny gdzie pożądanie grało pierwsze skrzypce i spowodowało znane nam następstwa z mitologii związane z Troją.
Akt trzeci dotyczy biblijnych postaci: Izaaka oraz jego synów Ezawa i Jakuba. Ten ostatni walczył z boskim posłańcem, który nadał mu imię Izrael.
Czwarty i ostatni akt nawiązuje do wieszczenia na temat przyszłości narodu.
Należy przeczytać przed utworem przygotowany wstęp. Wiem, że to dziwnie brzmi, ale błędem jest w przypadku tego dzieła unikanie wstępu jak to zwykle czytelnicy zrobią gdy chcą przejść od razu do meritum. Dosyć dobrze rozjaśnia co autor miał na myśli, bo bez tego te cztery akty to dosyć specyficzny zlepek rozłożony w szerokim wachlarzu czasowym, który ciężko jest samemu interpretować.

[Tomasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obszerny wstęp (wydanie Biblioteki Narodowej) bardzo ułatwia odczytanie sensów tego niecodziennego utwóru.

[olga_kulinska · Rating 2 out of 5]

😵‍💫 wolę chochoły

[o111cia · Rating 3 out of 5]

wyspiański znowu chyba coś brał

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nie.