Polish literature

A vernacular literature that began to emerge in the 14th century and enjoyed a golden age in the 16th and 17th centuries under Renaissance influences, particularly apparent in the poetry of Jan Kochanowski (1530–1584). The tradition revived in the later 18th century, the era of the Enlightenment poet and pioneer novelist Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801), and a Polish national theatre was opened in 1765.

The domination of Poland by Austria, Russia, and Prussia towards the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century, and particularly the failure of the 1830 Polish insurrection, stimulated romantically tragic nationalism in major writers such as Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849), and Zygmunt Krasiński. This theme also affected historical novelists such as Henryk Sienkiewicz. At the end of the 19th century there was a reaction against Naturalism and other orthodoxies in the ‘Young Poland’ movement (1890–1918), in theatre and fiction as well as poetry.

In the 20th century, political independence in the interwar years fostered writers as bewilderingly varied as the exuberant ‘Skamander’ group of poets and the fantastic, pessimistic philosopher and dramatist Stanisław Witkiewicz (1885–1939). Poland's tragic wartime and post-war experiences have given rise to poetry and prose registering social trauma and survival. Important writers include the veteran poet and scholar Czesław Miłosz (Nobel prizewinner), Zbigniew Herbert, Witold Gombrowicz, the poet Tadeusz Rózewicz, and the satirical dramatist Sławomir Mrozek.