User:OnBeyondZebrax/sandbox/Polish literature

There are almost no examples of Polish literature from before the country's Christianization in 966. Most notable early medieval Polish works in Latin and the Old Polish language include the oldest extant manuscript of fine prose in the Polish language are from the 14th century. Most early texts in Polish vernacular were influenced by the Latin sacred literature. In the early 1470s, one of the first printing houses in Poland was set up in Kraków. With the advent of the Renaissance, the Polish language was finally accepted on an equal footing with Latin. Polish culture and art flourished and many foreign poets and writers settled in Poland. The first book written entirely in the Polish language appeared in this period, a prayer-book. The literature in the period of Polish Baroque (between 1620 and 1764) wasninfluenced by the popularization of Jesuit high schools. Influential authors included Piotr Kochanowski (1566–1620), Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn (1621–1693), and Wacław Potocki.

The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s–40s and peaked in the second half of the 18th century. One of the leading Polish Enlightenment authors included Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801) and Jan Potocki (1761–1815). Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism elsewhere in Europe, was largely a movement for independence against the foreign occupation. Early Polish Romantics were heavily influenced by other European Romantics. Notable writers included Adam Mickiewicz, Seweryn Goszczyński, Tomasz Zan and Maurycy Mochnacki. In the second period, many Polish Romantics worked abroad. Influential poets included Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński.

In the aftermath of the failed January Uprising, the new period of Polish Positivism began to advocate skepticism and the exercise of reason. The modernist period known as the Young Poland movement in visual arts, literature and music, came into being around 1890, and concluded with the Poland's return to independence (1918). Notable authors included Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Stanisław Przybyszewski and Jan Kasprowicz. The neo-Romantic era was exemplified by the works of Stefan Żeromski, Władysław Reymont, Gabriela Zapolska, and Stanisław Wyspiański. In 1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz received a Nobel Prize in literature for his patriotic Trilogy inspiring a new sense of hope. Literature of the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) encompasses a short, though exceptionally dynamic period in Polish literary consciousness. The socio-political reality has changed radically with Poland's return to independence. New avant-garde writers included Tuwim, Witkacy, Gombrowicz, Miłosz, Dąbrowska and Nałkowska.

In the years of German and Soviet occupation of Poland, all artistic life was dramatically compromised. Cultural institutions were lost. Out of 1,500 clandestine publications in Poland, about 200 were devoted to literature. Much of Polish literature written during the Occupation of Poland appeared in print only after the conclussion of World War II, including books by Nałkowska, Rudnicki, Borowski and others. The situation began to worsen dramatically around 1949–1950 with the introduction of the Stalinist doctrine by minister Sokorski. Poland had three Nobel Prize winning authors in the later 20th century: Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978), Czesław Miłosz (1980) and Wisława Szymborska (1996).