Juliusza Słowackiego theatrum mortis – wizja negatywna (na przykładzie Kordiana, Balladyny i Beatryks Cenci)

The author’s intention is to present the most important techniques applied by Słowacki intended to evoke a negative projection of death in three dramas written in the pre-mystic period: Kordian, Balladyna and Beatryks Cenci. The excerpted material is analysed semantically and lexically in view of its semantic contexts concerning human death. The basis of the reconstruction of the negative creation of mors, featured in these works, is provided by a description and discussion of the figures of speech and rhetorical devices with a lexical component that belongs to the semantic field ‘death’ (metaphors and personifications in particular), as well as substitute designations for designates that are related to the phenomenon of the passing of time where one’s life is slowly coming to an end. In addition, the author provides a characteristics of the Thanatic semantics of the lexeme blood and derivatives thereof, as well as names for the colour red. Verbal realizations of such conceptual constructions highlight such features of deaths as: mysteriousness, ghastliness, rapaciousness, perversity, brutality and cruelty that imply the feeling of sadness, fear and repulsion. It should be noted, however, that the “theater of death”, presented by Słowacki in the dramas, is of ambivalent nature because the negative manifestations of Thanatos are at the same time supplemented with euphemistic approaches aimed at easing the tension, softening the horror of death and camouflaging its terrifying dimension. These approaches are discussed in the following article: Juliusza Słowackiego “theatrum mortis” na przykładzie “Kordiana”, “Balladyny” i “Beatryks Cenci” – wizja ułagodzona.