Abstract

The Parade is a selection of excerpts from political, historical, linguistic works, and oriental apologues by Count Jan Potocki. The fragments of Potocki’s writings were especially translated from French into Polish. Abundant notes, accompanying the translation, present particular words and concepts, biographical details, socio-cultural context and half-forgotten links between Europe and oriental cultures. The form of these notes vaguely reminds of the Arabic, classical, literary adab.The Parade is a reading exercise which permits to conceptually notice the almost evanescent spot between enlightenment and romanticism, where Potocki’s irony celebrates the Spirit of European culture and the principle of apparently free associations, the key to all Poetry