The Three Bards (, ) are the national poets of Polish Romantic literature. The term is almost exclusively used to denote Adam Mickiewicz (1798âÂÂ1855), Juliusz Sà Âowacki (1809âÂÂ1849) and Zygmunt Krasià Âski (1812âÂÂ1859). Of the three, Mickiewicz is considered the most influential and Krasià Âski the least.
The Three Bards were thought not only to voice Polish national sentiments but to foresee their nation's future. They lived and worked in exile following the partitions of Poland, which had ended the existence of the independent Polish state. Their tragic poetical plays and epic poetry, written in the aftermath of the 1830 Uprising against Russian rule, revolved around the Polish struggle for independence from the three occupying foreign empires.
The concept of the "Three Bards" emerged in the second half of the 19th century and remains influential among scholars of Polish literature. At the same time, it has been criticized by some as anachronistic. As Krasià Âski's influence waned, some have suggested replacing him in the trinity with Cyprian Norwid, or adding Norwid or Stanisà Âaw Wyspiaà Âski as a fourth bard.
The Polish term "" () is often understood in the history of Polish literature as denoting a "poet-prophet" or "soothsayer". This term, often rendered in English as "bard" (in the "bard" sense of "a poet, especially an exalted national poet"), was an approximation to the ancient Latin ('poet-prophet') â the poet to whom the gods had granted the ability to see the future.
The term "Three Bards" () is applied almost exclusively to Adam Mickiewicz (1798âÂÂ1855), Juliusz Sà Âowacki (1809âÂÂ1849), and Zygmunt Krasià Âski (1812âÂÂ1859), the most celebrated Romantic poets of Poland. Of the three, Mickiewicz is considered the most, Krasià Âski the least, influential.
Of the trio, Mickiewicz â the master of the epic and lyric â has been called the poet of the present; Krasià Âski â the prophet and seer â the poet who foretells the future; Sà Âowacki â the dramatist â the panegyrist of the past. Another scheme portrays Mickiewicz as the "positive voice of history", Sà Âowacki as "the voice of the 'demonic' dark side of the fate of the Polish nation", and Krasià Âski as "the voice of Polish Catholicism".
Imported to Poland around the 16th century along with many other Sarmatisms, the term was initially applied to poets generically, sometimes to foreign ones like Homer, and sometimes to native ones like Jan Kochanowski (sometimes called "the of Czarnolas"). However, with the 19th-century advent of Romanticism, the term began to be applied almost exclusively to the trio of Mickiewicz, Sà Âowacki, and Krasià Âski. Mickiewicz himself endorsed the use of the term, in 1842 calling himself a . Though the three poets did not form a particular poetic group or movement, they all began to be seen as spiritual leaders of a nation deprived of its political freedom (Poland ceased to exist as an independent state in 1795, following the partitions of Poland, and would not reestabilish full sovereignty until 1918). They also often adverted to folklore which linked the expression to folk sages, such as Wernyhora, of legend and folk tale.
The portrayal of Mickiewicz, Sà Âowacki, and Krasià Âski as the three most important poets in Polish history can be traced to the 1860 expanded edition of 's ('Outline of the History of Polish Literature'). This view was popularized in the Great Emigration period by other works on literary history, such as those by Julian Bartoszewicz and Wà Âodzimierz Spasowicz; and by succeeding decades of Polish textbooks, contributing to the establishment of a .
This idea has endured, though at times criticized by scholars (particularly, in the early 20th century, by and ) as anachronistic or otherwise incorrect. There has also been discussion concerning whether one of the Three Bards â particularly Krasià Âski â deserves to be one of the trio, and whether the trio should be expanded to include other poets. Nonetheless, according to literary historian Kazimierz Wyka, since the mid-20th century the trio of Bards â Mickiewicz, Sà Âowacki, Krasià Âski â has been recognized as historical and classic, and as such, immuatable, despite periodic criticisms and challenges.
The early-20th-century rediscovery of the writings of Cyprian Norwid (1821âÂÂ1883) led some to call him a "fourth bard" or to count him among the "four greated poets of Poland". Unlike the writings of the Three Bards, Norwid's were not popular in his lifetime or for several decades thereafter. Consequently, according to Polish literary critics , Tamara Trojanowska, and Joanna Nià ¼yà Âska, his work "remained isolated [and] unnoticed", and was "overshadowed by the three earlier literary 'giants' [Mickiewicz, Sà Âowacki, and Krasià Âski] long celebrated in exile and at home"; hence Norwid failed to influence or affect his contemporaries to the extent that did the Three Bards.
Some literary critics, however, have been so skeptical of the value of Krasià Âski's work as to consider Norwid a third rather than a fourth bard.
Other critics have nominated Stanisà Âaw Wyspiaà Âski (1869âÂÂ1907) as fourth bard. His 1901 play The Wedding () is considered the last great classic of Polish drama, and Rochelle Heller Stone writes that it alone "earned him the title of fourth bard".
Literary historian named Joseph Conrad another bard. Other 19th-century writers who have been called bards include Józef Bohdan Zaleski, Seweryn Goszczyà Âski, Wincenty Pol, and Kornel Ujejski. 20th-century poets who have been called Polish bards include Witold Gombrowicz and Nobel laureate Czesà Âaw Mià Âosz.
In the visual arts, the term has occasionally been applied to Jan Matejko and Artur Grottger as, respectively, the first and second Polish bards of painting, with either Józef Brandt or Henryk Siemiradzki most commonly named a third bard.