Comment On Henryk Sienkiewicz's Historical Novels

Henryk Sienkiewicz, the Polish writer, is a renowned historical novelist in Western literature history as well as the epitome of patriotic literary creation. His outstanding achievements in historical novels acquire a reputation in the international literary world and have a great influence on the innovation and development in this genre creation. Starting from the analysis of the period of the writer and his inheritance of the European novel creation, the thesis explores the origin, the value of thought and art, and the significance of religion morality in Sienkiewicz's historical novels so as to give a holistic and dialectic illustration and evaluation.Including an introduction and a conclusion, the thesis falls into five parts. In the introduction, the life, literary creation and research on him at home and abroad are introduced. Sienkiewicz started to publish the literary works in his college period. Due to dissatisfaction with the dark reality, he had begun to turn to the creation of historical novels which transcended the realistic subjects since 1880s. By his works, he hoped to find the force to regain the independence of Poland, to inspire the countrymen to unite, and to fight the independence and freedom of their motherland.Chapter One discusses the background of Sienkiewicz's historical novel creation. Social politics, thoughts and culture, esthetic ideas and deep foundation or inspiration resources of the literary trends of his historical literary creation are explored. The necessary conditions and the rich nourishment of his historical novel creation, which are the bases on which Sienkiewicz's historical novel creation is understood and illustrated, are delineated longitudinally and traversal by emphatically analyzing its relationships with historical reality of Poland, Western poetic tradition originated from Ancient Greece, the realism as European literary mainstream in 1900s, and the art experience of writers in Britain, French and Russia. Chapter Two explores the national historical novels of Sienkiewicz. According to their nature, Sienkiewicz's historical novels can be classified into two types, namely, one expressing the nation history and the other religion history. This chapter is devoted to the former. Drawing from the history of Poland, the nation history novels consist of"The Trilogy of Defense"and Crusade Knights. Here the author of the thesis emphatically analyzes the narrative strategy by which the historical reality is perfectly combined with art imagination, vivid creation of Characters and profuse manifestations of the social historical life scenes. By doing so, the author of the thesis generalizes the features of thought and art and esthetic value in Sienkiewicz's historical novels, highlights two immortal art models, namely, Sagloba and Besia, and shows the profound and rich connotations of national historical novels from one point to the whole.Chapter three elaborates on the religion historical novels of Sienkiewicz. His religion historical novel refers to the monumental work Quo Vadis, which won him the Nobel Literature prize. This chapter interprets the thought value of this masterpiece from the following three aspects: the theme level expresses the extremely genuine Christian love and religion feelings; the internal essence level aims to carry forward the forceful strength of Christian belief; the"multiple-voice"level of content shows the deep-rooted original influence of the classic culture spirit of ancient Greece and Roman on the Western thought system by the character Roman courtier Peterlonus. In a word, as an epic of Christianity, it is sacred. Mixing with the classic humanity elements, it shows the distinct features of Western culture nourished by the ancient Greek-Roman and Hebrew- Christian civilization.Conclusion summarizes the whole thesis, pointing out that the powerful value of the deep historical deposits and religion meanings in Sienkiewicz's historical novels. The value is that by the perfect art form, Sienkiewicz displays the features of the times and the trend of historical development, shows people's complicated spiritual world and staunch spiritual power, especially the dream of the Polish people enslaved by the alien nation for a long time to build a strong country standing erect in the world: tough and persistent as Christ.