The Surplus of Meaning: Translating Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz

Adam Mickiewicz’s long poem Pan Tadeusz (1834) has had an almost sacrosanct status in Polish culture as the national epic and pinnacle of poetic expression in the language. This elevated position is not reflected in its standing outside the country. In his own time, Mickiewicz was a minor celebrity in exile, especially in France and Russia. But he has not entered the European canon in an enduring way as a national champion on the level of Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, or even his Russian friend Alexander Pushkin.