Przybyszewski, Stanislaw

Przybyszewski, Stanisław

(stänēs`läf pshĭbĭshĕf`skē), 1868–1927, Polish novelist, essayist, and dramatist. He studied in Berlin, where his friendship with a socialist led him to prison. Under Scandinavian influence he developed his neoromantic philosophy of medievalism, which repudiates reason and upholds intuition. His works describe the clash of intellect and sexuality. They were more important for the furor their content roused than for literary merit. His best-known works are the dramas For Happiness (1912, tr. 1912) and Snow (1903, tr. 1920), and the novel Homo Sapiens (1898, tr. 1915).

Przybyszewski, Stanisław

 

Born May 7, 1868, in Łojewo, Kujawy; died Nov. 23, 1927, in Jaronty, Kujawy. Polish writer.

Przybyszewski studied architecture and medicine in Berlin in 1889–90. His first literary essays, prose, poems, and symbolist and naturalistic novels were written in German and later translated into Polish. Noteworthy novels of this period include The Requiem Mass (1893; Polish translation, 1901) and The Children of Satan (1897; Polish translation, 1899). In 1898 he moved to Kraków, where he became the leader of the Polish modernist movement, publishing a manifesto of antirealistic and antidemocratic art entitled “Confiteor” in the magazine życie in 1899. Influenced by F. Nietzsche, Przybyszewski’s philosophical and aesthetic program was also expressed in his symbolist dramas For the Sake of Happiness (1900), Guests (1901), The Golden Fleece (1901), and Snow (1903).

WORKS

Wybor pism. Wrocław, 1967.
In Russian translation:
Poln. sobr. soch., vols. 1–10. Moscow, 1905–11.

REFERENCES

Istoriia pol’skoi literatury, vol. 2. Moscow, 1969. Pages 13–17.
Hutnikiewicz, A. “Stanislaw Przybyszewski.” In Obraz literatury polskiej XIX i XX wieku. Warsaw, 1967. Pages 107–52. (With bibliography.)