%0 Journal Article
%T “The Melancholic Complaints of the Non-adult Child.” Słowacki’s “Failed” Heroes
%A Siwiec, Magdalena
%J Wielogłos
%V 2024
%R 10.4467/2084395XWI.24.018.20083
%N Issue 3 (61) 2024
%P 1-24
%K Juliusz Słowacki, Søren Kierkegaard, Kordian, Lambro, mal du siècle
%@ 1897-1962
%D 2024
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/wieloglos/article/melancholiczne-skargi-dziecka-niedoroslego-nieudani-bohaterowie-slowackiego
%X The article presents Słowacki’s protagonists, Lambro and Kordian, whom the author himself connected with each other closely through intertextual associations as “failed” heroes. “Failed” here means: deliberately constructed as flawed heroes, incapable of action, weak subjects. Failed also because they are people of their time born to greatness but unable to use their potential. The context of the Romantic Child of the age is mentioned. However, the most important context of reading both characters is the context of Søren Kierkegaard’s stages of existence presented in Either/Or and the category of choice, which was fundamental for Kierkegaard. The author puts forward a thesis that Lambro and Kordian represent the aesthetic stage, which is associated with the sense of futility, boredom, lack of fulfilment, uselessness, lack of purpose, dreaming, escaping into illusion, trying on potential roles, irony, and especially with melancholy and illusory choices. Analysing the attitude of the protagonists, the author demonstrates that their choices condemn the individual to existential emptiness, to an empty “I” devoid of content, which is open to the vastness of possibilities.