A Manuscript Found in Philadelphia, that is about the Autographs of August Antoni Jakubowski in the Simon Gratz Collection

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the manuscripts of August Antoni Jakubowski found by Ewa Modzelewska-Opara, which are the first known materials written by the poet. Until now, only the printed sources or copies made by third parties were known to the scholars. The manuscripts discovered in the collection of Simon Gratz are hold by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The materials consist of two parts (the fair copy and the rough draft), including a total of 5 pages of poems signed with Jakubowski’s name. The discussed manuscripts are a representative example of Jakubowski’s versatile writing skills and poetic diction and show his creative personality in a new light. Not only do they bring a new knowledge about the poet’s oeuvre, his reading interests, sensitivity and effort to adapt in the USA, but they also make it possible to situate his known works in a new research perspective and to recover the lost sense of poems copied by a second hand. Jakubowski’s working notes allow us to “peek into” poetry in statu nascendi, probe into the poet’s creative process and provide new information about his writing skills.