Literary and Graphic Visions of Death in 19th-century Illustrated Editions of the Polish Fictional Literature

The article is particularly concerned with the visions of death in 19th-century illustrated editions of
the Polish fictional literature. The choice of conducting such research resulted from my interest in book
as an item which is produced as the effect of cooperation of many people: author, illustrator, editor and
printer. I treat the book as a whole, in which coexist both: the text and its graphic visualization.
The investigation into the relations between iconic signs, on the one hand, and literary narration on
the other, emphasized the necessity of taking into account the relevant aspects of illustration as a specific
way of communicating. The problems included, inter alia: how visual arts interpret the description of
literary scenes and characters; in what way illustration explains, supplements as well as modifies the
text and intensifies its effects; why some literary scenes deserved to be graphically emphasized and the
other ones did not; finally why the situation of illustration perversely “decoding” a message given by text
occurred. The “points of junction” of the literary and icon elements, the meaningful role of the latter, the
reinterpretation of one work by another were also treated as the vital problems. The article consists of five parts which exemplify the main problem on selected examples. The
first part deals with general questions relating to the role of illustrations in 19th century. The second
part is devoted specifically to the scene of death of main heroine in Maria, the 19th-century a poem
by A. Malczewski, the most popular literary work among Polish artist at that time. The third part is
concerned with three examples of ars bene moriendi in Polish literature (H. Sienkiewicz Ogniem i mieczem,
W. Pol Mohort and K. Suffczyński Zawsze oni). The last to be discussed in the fourth part are the scenes
of cruel deaths (H. Sienkiewicz Pan Wołodyjowski, J. I. Kraszewski Stara baśń). The last part focuses on
the final conclusions.
My research provided me with useful insights into the problem. The comparison between literary
narration with the way of the telling the same story by means of pictures unveiled the fact, that the
illustrations established and codified ideological visions of the Polish history for many years. They were
a critical instrument of building cultural code as well as national identity in the period of the partitions
of Poland. On the other hand, the conclusion deals with the problem of the text being “betrayed” by
the illustration as the visual representation modified the elements of the literary message. This situation
occurred very often in 19th century against common conviction of critics and researchers.