Cyprian Norwid Andrzeja Trzebińskiego

In article I endeavour to bring together Cyprian Norwid’s and Andrzej Trzebiński’s works, like “Quidam”, “Stigma” and “To Pick Up The Rose”. I explore the existential line of Trzebiński’s drama and Norwid’s poem as well as underline that parts that determine them as‚ the intercultural tragedy’, in which being a foreigner or a newcomer leads to dramatic resolutions of the situation in the light of Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialism. Andrzej Trzebiński probably had known “Quidam” thanks to the studying meetings of The Underground University of Warsaw with Tadeusz Makowiecki. Apart from the cultural otherness of Norwid’s and Trzebiński’s fictional existences we can also set the parallels on the floristic representation connected with the peculiar portrait of Róża Pomian (from “Stigma”) and Risa Obliwia from “To Pick Up The Rose” (associated also with Zofia z Knidos from “Quidam”). Last but not least, the meaning of Trzebiński’s drama title recalls the meaningful death of Alexander of Epirus in Forum Boarium in “Quidam”, although the Norwidian phrase “To pick up the rose” was proposed Trzebiński by his friend, Wacław Bojarski. To show the unexpected parallels between Norwid’s world of fate and existentialist’s drama, it’s useful to compare e.g. Norwid’s “Actor” with Sartre’s “Kean”, likewise expose the existentialist’s potential of Norwid’s drama “Zwolon” (which also may be treated as ‘the intercultural tragedy’). In “Krakus” for a change Norwid also exposes ‘sociotechnical’ face of Polish insurrections what may correspond with sceptical and rather antiinsurrectionist’s Trzebiński point of view in “To Pick Up The Rose”. To understand complex associations that may be raised between Norwid and Trzebiński it’s good to build the large intertextual and intellectual background – by comparing their ideas with Maria Dąbrowska, Witold Gombrowicz, Czesław Miłosz etc.