Apollo Nałęcz-Korzeniowski as critic and translator

This article examines the literary activities of Joseph Conrad’s father – Apollo Nałęcz-Korzeniowski (1820–1869) – as a critic and translator. It shows that the breadth of Nałęcz-Korzeniowski’s knowledge of various literary conventions was not unconnected with his work as a translator. As well as translating several plays by Shakespeare, he translated into Polish almost all the plays written by Victor Hugo. His best translations are considered to be those of Charles Dickens’s Hard Times and Alfred de Vigny’s Chatterton. Nałęcz-Korzeniowski had a deep and extensive knowledge not only of literature (ancient and modern – Polish and foreign), but also of the political, social and economic issues of his times. In his Enquiry into Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art (Studya nad dramatycznością w utworach Szekspira – 1868) he expressed the view that nineteenth-century playwrights ought to take their inspiration from Shakespeare, whose plays best reflected the complex, tragicomic atmosphere of the modern world.