Franciszek Ksawery Dmochowski

Franciszek Ksawery Dmochowski (1762–1818) was a Polish Romantic novelist, poet, translator, publisher, critic, and satirist.

In 1791, he became the personal secretary and the close assistant of Kołłątaj, together with whom he emigrated to Saxony at the time of the Targowica Confederation to participate in the preparation of Kościuszko Uprising (1794).

Dmochowski was the author of celebratory poems, pamphlets, political leaflets; one of his major achievements was the first full translation of The Iliad into Polish.

His most famous work was Sztuka rymotwórcza (The Art of Rhyming) (published in 1788), an adaptation of L’art poétique by Boileau, inspired by Horace, Diderot and Pope; referring to the dissertation by Golański entitled O wymowie i poezji (On Rhetoric and Poetry) Dmochowski formulated here the canon of Polish literary classicism.

The work was later the subject of a polemic presented by Mickiewicz in the dissertation O krytykach i recenzentach warszawskich (On Warsaw Critics and Reviewers).