Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz

(1935–2022) – a critic and literary historian, essayist, poet, playwright and translator.

He graduated in Polish literature from the Łódź University and worked at the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Literary Research in Warsaw; in 1994, he became a professor.

He is a representative and theorist of Neo-Classicism in Polish literature, an arts movement drawing from ancient tradition in its broadest definition, extending it to modern art. He outlined his poetry programme in a collection of sketches of 1967, ‘Czym jest klasycyzm’ (What Is Classicism). At the heart of his work was a conviction of the unity and continuity of art and culture (the co-existence of old and modern works), taking from the archetypes, topoi and the myths of Mediterranean culture. He inverts the Romantic imagination, Romantic myths and stereotypes; apart from two volumes from the 1980s, which tie in directly to the Romantic tradition of patriotic lyrics.

The Baroque was a basic source of inspiration, particularly the metaphysical and devotional poetry of the time, culminating in the work of Father Józef Baka. Rymkiewicz was interested in spiritual life, especially its posthumous, ‘otherworldly’ aspect, which explains the frequent motifs of the macabre and demonism in his work, which are given a very sober, not unhumorous treatment. Death and decay are the thema regium, the theme to which he devotes countless variations and counterpoints. Another subject that pervades his work is music, seen as an incomparable model, closest to the world of pure essence. The poet often strikes up a dialogue with philosophical tradition, his favourite ‘adversary’ being Edmund Husserl. A formal touchstone of Rymkiewicz’s poetry is the evenly rhymed Polish Alexandrine – a favourite of both the Polish Baroque poets and Adam Mickiewicz.

In his prose, Rymkiewicz rendered the moods of Polish intellectuals in the post-war era (‘Rozmowy polskie latem roku 1983’ [Polish Conversations in the Summer of 1983], 1984), and described the highly dramatic liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II (Umschlagplatz, 1988).

He was the co-author of encyclopedias of the life and work of Adam Mickiewicz (Mickiewicz. Encyklopedia, 2001), Bolesław Leśmian (Leśmian. Encyklopedia, 2001) and Juliusz Słowacki (Słowacki. Encyklopedia, 2004). He also published numerous historical sketches (such as ‘Wielki Książę z dodaniem rozważań o istocie i przymiotach ducha polskiego’ [The Great Prince with Added Thoughts on the Essence and Attributes of the Polish Spirit], 1983) and literary-historical ones (such as ‘Adam Mickiewicz odjeżdża na żółtym rowerze’ [Adam Mickiewicz Rides off on a Yellow Bicycle], 2018). He translated chiefly Anglo-American (T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, W. Stevens) and Spanish (F. G. Lorca, P. Calderón de la Barca) poetry.

He won many awards, including: the Kościelski Foundation in Geneva (1967), the S. Vincenz in Krakow (1985), the Z. Hertz Literary Award given by Paris’s Kultura (1987). In 1989, he received the ZaiKS literary award for translators. He was a finalist for the Nike Literary Award 2000 for ‘Znak niejasny, baśń półżywa’ [Vague Sign, Half-Dead Tale], was nominated for the award in 2002, 2005 and 2011, and in 2003 won for the poetry collection ‘Zachód słońca w Milanówku’ (Sundown in Milanówek). In 2008, he received the Józef Mackiewicz Literary Award for ‘Wieszanie’ (Hanging). For the same book, he was nominated for the Gdynia Literary Award 2008, and again in 2011 for Samuel Zborowski. In 2010, he was given the Gold Medal Gloria Artis for Merit to Culture. In April 2015, he won the City of Warsaw Literary Award in the Warsaw Artist category (for lifetime achievement), but he refused the prize (100,000 zł), which was given, under the circumstances, to scholarships for young writers. He was an Orpheus Poetry Award finalist in 2015 for ‘Pastuszek Chełmońskiego’ (Chełmoński’s Shepherd), and won the prize in 2016 for ‘Koniec lata w zdziczałym ogrodzie’ (Summer’s End in a Wild Garden). He won the Julian Tuwim Literary Award in 2015 for lifetime achievement, as well as the Yearly Minister of Culture and National Heritage Award for lifetime achievement.