Paryskie przygody wojewodzica pomorskiego. Relacja z podróży Tomasza Czapskiego wobec przemian piśmiennictwa autobiograficznego czasów saskich

Abstract

This article is a study of the diary (of a unique, hybrid structure), which originated during an overseas journey of the Knyszyn starost, Tomasz Czapski (1711–1784), which began in 1734. The aim of the article is to reveal to what extent the notes of the son of the Pomaranian voivode, Piotr Jan, from his time in Paris, reflect the genre convention preserved in Old Polish literature, and to what extent they constitute a legacy of the changes, which were observed by Hanna Dziechcińska in studies devoted to diaries of the first half of the eighteenth century. She proposed that the autobiographical sources of the era are testament to the intensifying tendency to expose the emotions and feelings of the author, and to the challenging of the attitude geared towards describing the external world. The discussion concentrates on the search for evidence of self-creation performed by the diary-writer, as well as on characterising the way in which the author writes about his romantic adventures with a French lover. This is a dominant topic of many excerpts, which pushes aside the content that would be typical of Old Polish travel reports, undertaken for educational purposes, which proves the theory of Dziechcińska