Maria Dąbrowska's dispute with Przybyszewski. On the essay „Piewca niedojrzałości duchowej” (The eulogist of spiritual immaturity)

Maria Dąbrowska is recognized as an outstanding author of short stories, of the novel Nights and Days, and of diaries kept until her death. As an artist, she combined epic forms, in the vein of Homer, with an intimate touch. She is also an author of critical sketches and essays. The main character of the short The eulogist of spiritual immaturity is Stanisław Przybyszewski, Polish modernism’s leading representative and the subject of biographical legend. The text, however, takes the form of a confession. Dąbrowska herself thus becomes the main character, and so does her former - but brief - fascination with the decadent modernist, then her - whilst already a mature writer - dispute with Przybyszewski, and finally her rejection of him. Constructing her self-awareness, Maria Dąbrowska sides with a literature open to the metaphysical truth of being. The modernist Przybyszewski, steeped in phantasms and distant from existential questions, turns out to be a stranger.