The stigma that changed everything : marked in N. Hawthorne’s "The scarlet letter"… and not only

In this paper I wanted to discuss the issue of comparing two Romantic works which to a certain extent, it would seem, are based on the same theme - the symbolism of stigma and stigmatization. In reference to to this statement there will appear suc- works among which there can be no mutual influence and interaction, the works of the Romantics from two different parts of the world. Starting from the analysis of the Scarlet Letter I suggest also to look at Balladyna of Juliusz Słowacki. The purpose of this article is to show that by adopting a comparative research perspective we can conclude that in their works both Słowacki and Hawthorne use different means, but they are led to the implementation of the same assumptions. The symbolism of theme of stigma in both literary works (legal and moral in the Scarlet Letter and metaphysical-existential in Balladyna) highlights a model parallelism of these works in the field of allegorical meanings: political and social ones.