Jan Kasprowicz (12 December 1860 – 1 August 1926) was a poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland.

Kasprowicz was born in the village of Szymborze (now part of Inowrocław) within the Province of Posen, to an illiterate peasant family.

Stanisław Lem wrote of him: "He had in his bearing the originality of a gypsy and the hustle of a journalist, which, over time, allowed him to earn the money he needed, gave him the good humour of a friend, and - even then - a professorial gravity.

In 1911, he was married again, this time to the much younger Maria Bunin, a Russian girl whom he met on a train from Rome to Naples while on one of his artistic travels.

[4] In his Diary, Witold Gombrowicz characterized Kasprowicz as follows: "wholemeal bread, a pigeon's soul, a sincere singer...