Bolesław Leśmian (; 22 January 1877 – 5 November 1937) was a Polish poet, artist, and member of the Polish Academy of Literature, one of the first poets to introduce Symbolism and Expressionism to Polish verse.

Though largely a marginal figure in his lifetime, Leśmian is now considered one of Poland's greatest poets. Leśmian was nephew of the famous poet and writer of the Young Poland movement, Antoni Lange, and the cousin of another notable poet of the epoch, Jan Brzechwa.

Work

Leśmian's style is unique and easily recognizable, intuitively accessible despite its idiosyncrasy. In his poems, in a fantastical, mythical environment—often inhabited with creatures taken from Polish folklore and traditions—Leśmian expounds his life philosophy, revolving around his personal fascinations with God and death. The protagonists of his works are usually "handicapped humans," struggling between Culture and Nature, unable to accept their in-between existence. Leśmian describes the only ones who are able to live with both Culture and Nature simultaneously are poets, the last examples of "the primitive mankind."

Relying heavily on "the vertiginous word-formation potential of Polish," Leśmian's style is especially notable for its numerous neologisms, many of which are still in use in everyday Polish language (as opposed to, say, Cyprian Norwid's similar experiments). Referred to as "leśmianisms" by subsequent scholars, these neologisms are usually the product of the versatile "prefix+verb/noun(+suffix)" formula natural to most Slavic languages, but peculiar to many other languages, rendering Leśmian's poetry "almost untranslatable" into English.

  • Polish literature
  • List of Poles

References

Further reading

  • Mortkowicz-Olczakowa, Hanna (1961). Bunt wspomnień. Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.
  • Alexandra Chciuk-Celt, "Linguistic innovation in Boleslaw Lesmian," translation dissertation with heavily annotated double versions (verse and literal) of 68 poems, City University of New York Graduate Center, 1984.
  • translate 4 poems 1
  • translate 4 poems 2
  • Biography at Culture.pl
  • Bolesław Leśmian at poezja.org
  • The Greatest Poet You'll Never Read at Culture.pl