This Page Will Cry . . . Which Page? Whose Tears?: Słowacki, Yeats, Materiality of the Text and Theory of Representation

In this essay, the author reads a Polish Romantic poem written by Juliusz Słowacki. A close reading of the text leads toward a genetic analysis of its first draft, as well as a meditation on Słowacki’s philosophy of textual representation (which appears to be deeply ambiguous). Inspired by George Bornstein’s conception of textual materiality and by genetic criticism, the author also demonstrates the parallel between Słowacki’s poem and the lyric When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats.