Poeta w twórczości Norwida

The aim of the article is to show comprehensively the contents that are connected with Norwid's use of the word poet (and its synonyms). His identification of the primitive man with the poet and his belief, typical of Romanticism, that in the future ‘the people will be the greatest poet’ is characteristic, and close to the humanist thought of the 18th century. Norwid especially frequently deals with the problem of poets’ duties and tasks, their ‘service’ over the centuries. In his opinion, in the Christian epoch for many peoples they should be ‘priests of hope’; and struggling for the truth, closely connected with hope, as well as creating the Polish language capable of expressing the new view of the reality should be their important task. In order to fulfill their task, formulated in this way, poets have to (like Byron, who was admired by Norwid) testify to an authentic service to the truth and good with their whole lives. According to Norwid, in his works a poet should show other people’s feelings and sufferings, he should always keep to the reality, and also he should treat the form as ancillary to the contents that are contained in the work. The contents should be rooted in the moral issue and at the same time they should be formulated in a novel way, original in the Norwidian way. Norwid’s writings abound in controversial propositions connected with characteristics of particular poets, in certain one-sidedness in seeing the important features of their work as well as seeing the poet as such, as well as in excessive broadening the meaning of the word poet. Norwid's thought devoted to the poet strikes the reader with its authenticity, nobleness and depth.