Planned topics

Epistemology (as a theory of cognition) is primarily associated with the notion of “measure” – empirical, rational, physical or mathematical. It refers to material objects, living and dead. It indicates the ways of examining, comparing, and defining the relations between them, including those of a mental, psychological, and metaphysical nature. We would like to offer a reflection on how the Romantics treated this issue in the perspective of the category of infinity, which they valued and exposed, which in itself suggests that cognition is a doubtful or even impossible thing.

The predecessor and partly the inspirer of the Romantics, Immanuel Kant, considered only phenomena to be knowable. He stated that things in themselves (noumenon) are inaccessible to direct cognition. However, it is possible to prove that they exist on the basis of the phenomena we observe. In this way, he prepared the ground for modern metaphysics. However, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel declared that it is not worth thinking about real knowledge, because it lies far beyond the human world and the possibilities of human perception. Thus, the Romantic longing to discover the spiritual, immaterial, cosmic reality, which could not be measured by Mickiewicz’s “glass and eye,” was paradoxically accompanied by theories proclaiming that epistemology does not solve cognitive problems or, from an anthropocentric point of view, does not exist at all.

The intention of the editors of the issue is to reflect on the literary images of cognition of the unknowable, because they are situated beyond the boundaries of temporality and finiteness. There was hardly a romantic who would not ask the question of what feeling, the absolute, the cosmos, God, spirit, eternity in the immanent and transcendent dimensions are. Mickiewicz’s Konrad searched for the Creator among the stars, Słowacki saw the beginning and the final goal of all beings in God-Spirit (Genesis from the Spirit), Krasiński saw hope for knowledge in gnosis (Gnosis, letters to Delfina Potocka). These are just examples, the most well-known and obvious. When we think about romantic cognition, we want to explore its various methods and forms. It could take place through language, mysticism (illumination), prophecy, imagination, the experience of existence, love, death (often suicidal), and the creation of relationships with the forces of good and evil (the Faustian model).

We also want to discuss the romantic subject of cognition. As Novalis wrote: “The idea of the microcosm is the highest idea for man. (We are also cosmometers).” In this regard, we are interested in the temporal scope of the ideas of Romantic cognition, and how it influenced aesthetic trends such as decadence, expressionism, and the interwar avant-garde.

How literature has dealt with infinity in the face of scientific discoveries (evolutionism, the big bang theory, quantum physics, relativistic physics, etc.).

The indicated issues are not exhaustive. Rather, they are intended to serve as an inspiration for the authors to trace and indicate the richness of epistemological paths and definitions of infinity in the literature and culture of Romanticism and the epochs that followed it.

Deadline for submissions: 10 January 2026.