Norwid w Czytelni Polskiej w Paryżu

The aim of the study is to present Norwid’s ‘paper activity’ in Paris in the light of specific rhetorical and diegetic strategies, which were ‘available’ for the poet in the years 1873–1875 and formed his voice of the writer and public speaker. This is how a certain area of the poet’s word arises, which may be called doubly: literary and public. Norwid aims to act with words in an extreme manner quite frequently, which is enchanting on the one hand and evoking mixed feelings on the other. He employs erudition on the edge of extravagance and tests his audience, rather not accustomed to take such kinds of challenges. The years after the Siege of Paris 1870 are of particular importance here, as this is when The Polish Reading Room is becoming the democratic and people’s reading room, whereas Norwid is supporting the idea of the so called natural centralisation of Polish emigrants, which is to happen, most likely, with the mediation of the Reading Room’s Circle.