HOW TO STUDY EMOTIONS IN THE (POLISH) ENLIGHTENMENT?

Abstract

The affective turn is one of the well-visible so-called twists in contemporary cultural research, which also has clear repercussions for literary research. The literature discussing the phenomenon itself, especially using the methodological solutions introduced by this phrase, is extensive. These methodological solutions are particularly willingly applied to new and newest phenomena, emerging and taking place since the middle of the 20th century. However, contemporary affective research largely grows out of an interest in the emotions of old times, to refer to the works of Barbara Rosenwein. Thus, it seems fully justified to look at the broadly understood emotional phenomena in the 18th century using methods falling within the framework of the affective turn. Of course, the affective turn will not contribute to discovering the existence of new emotions in the Enlightenment Age, because research into the emotionality of this period has a long tradition, especially in the study of sentimentalism. This term prompts reflection on the network of concepts and terms in the field of emotions concerning various cultures and literature of the 18th century. The essential part of this paper is an attempt to answer the questions about what testimonies of Polish 18th-century emotionality are at our disposal today and with what methods they can be interpreted. In other words, it will be an attempt to consider what we can see – thanks to the sensitivity to emotions, also related to the methods of affective turn – in the emotional (mainly textual, but also, for example, iconic) Polish space of the second half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century.