Piotr Chmielowski (9 February 1848 in Zawadyn'ci,

Volhynia Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. The ...

– 22 April 1904 in Lwów) was a Polish philosopher, literary historian and critic.

Life

After studying at

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

's Main School in

Russian Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

and at

Leipzig University Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...

(to 1874), Chmielowski taught till 1898 in Warsaw private schools. From 1903 he was a professor at

Lwów University The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

in Austrian Poland. He wrote for many periodicals. In 1881–97 he edited the ''Ateneum''. From 1893 he was a member of the

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

-based

Academy of Learning Academy of Learning ( pl, Akademia Umiejętności; AU) was a primary Polish scientific institution during the annexation of Poland established in 1871. It was founded in Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the ol ...

. Chmielowski was the outstanding student and critic of literature during Poland's Positivist period. He advocated social

utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different chara ...

in literature, and the realistic treatment of social reality. As a historian he was influenced by the philosophical and esthetic concepts of the French critic

Hippolyte Taine Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (, 21 April 1828 – 5 March 1893) was a French historian, critic and philosopher. He was the chief theoretical influence on French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practition ...

, and studied the relations between writers' works and their social and cultural

milieu The social environment, social context, sociocultural context or milieu refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educate ...

x, seeking the expressions of those relations chiefly in the works' ideological concerns. Chmielowski died on 22 April 1904 in Lwów and was interred at the Łyczakowski Cemetery.

Works

*''Zarys literatury polskiej z ostatnich lat szesnastu'' (An Outline of Polish Literature of the Last Sixteen Years, 1881, 4th ed. 1898) *''Liberalizm i obskurantyzm na Litwie i Rusi'' (Liberalism and Obscurantism in Lithuania and Rus, 1883) *''Złota przędza'' (The Golden Thread, vols. 1–4, 1884–87) *''Nasi powieściopisarze'' (Our Novelists, 1887–95) *''Nasza literatura dramatyczna'' (Our Dramatic Literature, 2 vols., 1898) *''Historia literatury polskiej'' (A History of Polish Literature, vols. 1–6, 1899–1900) *''Najnowsze prądy w poezji naszej '' (The Newest Currents in Our Poetry, 1901) *''Dramat polski...'' (Polish Drama..., 1902) *''Dzieje krytyki literackiej w Polsce'' (The History of Literary Criticism in Poland, 1902) *''Pisma krytyczno-literackie'' (Critical-Literary Writings, 2 vols., 1961) *''Prace z metodyki literatury i stylistyki'' (Works in the Methodology of Literature and Stylistics, 1961)."Chmielowski, Piotr," ''Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN'', vol. 1, p. 452.

Notes

References

*''Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN'' (PWN Universal Encyclopedia),

Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN (''Polish Scientific Publishers PWN''; until 1991 ''Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe'' - ''National Scientific Publishers PWN'', PWN) is a Polish book publisher, founded in 1951, when it split from the Wydawnictwa Szkolne i P ...

, vol. 1, 1973. *"Chmielowski, Piotr," ''Encyklopedia Polski'' (Encyclopedia of Poland),

, Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 1996, , p. 96. 1848 births 1904 deaths Polish literary critics Polish literary historians 19th-century Polish philosophers Leipzig University alumni Academic staff of the University of Lviv {{Poland-bio-stub

Life

Works

See also

Notes

References