Pagina 4 di 788

December 9, 1916.

INTRODUCTION

"No European nation of our day has such an epic as Pan Tadeusz.

In it Don Quixote has been fused with the Iliad. The poet stood

on the border line between a vanishing generation and our own.

Before they died, he had seen them; but now they are no more.

That is precisely the epic point of view. Mickiewicz has

performed his task with a master's hand; he has made immortal a

dead generation, which now will never pass away. ... Pan Tadeusz

is a true epic. No more can be said or need be said."(1)