Barbarzyńcy, klasycyści i inni. Spory o młodą poezję w latach 90

Abstract

The publication presents the most important fragments of literary discourse devoted to the NGP (New Generation Poets) in the period from the decline of Communist Poland to the end of the 20th century. Polemics in respect to poetry were one of the most vital phenomena of literary creation and associated cultural fabric of the 1990’s. The introduction outlines the emerging presence and establishment of poetry after 1989 in Polish and Western literature in the 20th century. It also offers a commentary on the crossing of swords among and between poets and literary critics, among others on aesthetics, and the conscious building by the NGP of their own, other tradition, for this poetry. Further, there is a discussion on the provenance and dichotomy (in literary criticism) of rhetoric pertaining to barbarians-classicists, which became a popular matrix for characterising the latest poetry. The polemics thus presented on poetry after 1989 came to be written into the history of Polish modern literature as both a vivid and vital part of its final chapter.