Sen, marzenie i zaświaty w kulturze — wprowadzenie do monografii

The study describes selectively and in draft the motives of sleep, dream and the other world in themusic, the painting, the drama and the movie. Proper deliberations are preceded by the state of researchesincluding several only essential works, which try to in the deepened way present motives constituting theobject of interest of the current volume. There are especially many examples of references to the leadingmotives in the art, beginning from the oldest. The illustrations refer to the Holy Bible but also to theMythology and the belle-lettres, creating the concept of dream in the cultural awareness of the followingepochs. The motives of sleep, dream and the other world allow also to cross the barriers of reality inthe drama. To the classic works can be included A Midsummer Night Dream of William Shakespeare,Life is A Dream of Pedro Calderon de la Barca and also accomplishments of Polish 19th century writersAdam Mickiewicz (Dziady), Juliusz Słowacki (The Silver Dream of Salomea) and creating at the turn ofthe 19th and the 20th century Stanisław Wyspiański (The Wedding). The natural consequence of describedmotives’presence in the literature is their transfer to the movie. Sleep, dream were also elements of culturaloffer for children in the literary as well as the form of movie. Another stage of widening fields ofhuman creativity is creating virtual worlds, parallel to real, in which human can detach from reality, existsconsciously in their dream, composes co-created by themselves the other worlds. The last part constitutesthe review of the issues of works comprised in the monograph.