Genesis from the Spirit, or subjectivity and nature in Juliusz Słowacki

This article presents a new approach to the interpretation of Juliusz Słowacki's Genesis from the Spirit (1844) from the perspective of the groundbreaking philosophical discourse of modernity. What it actually suggests is that the mystical Form of Słowacki's cosmic vision, believed to be an emanation of the Absolute or a vestige of Creation, has a historical and materialist core. This claim is based on a series of comparisons with passages from Hegel and the premises of the philosophy of Friedrich Schlegel. By following closely the spontaneous movement of inner tensions in Słowacki's poetic discourse this study demonstrates that it is driven his own philosophical project and less so by the discourse of mysticism.