In Rome, Krasiński received news about the November Uprising and broke off his trip with the intention of returning to Poland to fight, but in the end, did not participate.

The Undivine Comedy and another major work, Irydion (1834), explore the concept of class struggle, contemplating social revolution, and predicting the destruction of the nobility.

[1] Over the years, their "intimate and difficult" relationship would be very influential on Zygmunt, whom Victor Erlich described as "weak and hypersensitive", compared to his "affectionate but domineering" father.

On 9 March 1829 an incident occurred, stemming from Krasiński's attendance at classes instead of at a patriotic demonstration during the funeral of Marshal Piotr Bieliński [pl].

Krasiński had boycotted the funeral at the urging of his father, who the previous year had clashed politically with Bieliński, who was widely seen as a national hero.

On 14 March 1829 he was publicly criticized by a fellow student, Leon Łubieński [pl]; this led to an altercation serious enough to involve the university administration and to eventuate in Krasiński's expulsion.

[1] Soon after arrival in Geneva, at the beginning of November 1829, Krasiński met Henry Reeve, a physician's son who was in Switzerland to study philosophy and literature.

He had been finishing a historical novel, Agaj-Han [pl], recounting the story of Tsaritsa and warlord Marina Mniszech, considered his most significant work of that period.

In May 1832 he set out for Poland, on the way again visiting Italy (Milan, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice), then Innsbruck and Vienna, finally by mid-August 1832 arriving in Warsaw.

During that trip, in Venice, he consulted with ophthalmologist Friedrich Jäger regarding his surfacing eye disease, which would continue over the years to come, becoming one of the reasons for his growing introspection.

The elder Krasiński tried to arrange a diplomatic career for his son with the Russian Empire, but Zygmunt was not interested and was content to travel abroad again.

[1] For over a decade, Krasiński's muse was Countess Delfina Potocka (likewise a friend of composer Frédéric Chopin), with whom he conducted a romance from 1838 to 1848.

[6] Key themes in his writings include conservatism, Messianist Christianity, the necessity of sacrifice and suffering to moral progress, and providentialism.

Political scientist Stephen Bronner argues that the Comedy is probably "the first work in which a Jewish conspiracy against a Christian society figured as the prominent theme".

For Krasiński, the future held little hope for a better, new world, though his later works suggested the possibility of salvation – and of restoration of Polish independence – through a return to conservative Christian values.

[7] Krasiński's early works, particularly his historical novels, such as Agaj-Han, were influenced by Walter Scott and Lord Byron[8] and extolled medieval chivalry.

[11] This gloomy atmosphere is visible in Krasiński's best-known work, the drama Nie-boska komedia (The Undivine Comedy), which he wrote around 1835, when he was in his early twenties.

[1][5][7][11][12] In the 19th century, a greater Polish Romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz, discussed The Undivine Comedy in his Collège de France lectures, calling it "the highest achievement of the Slavic theater".

[1][5] It contemplated social revolution, predicted the destruction of the nobility, and commented on societal changes wrought by western Europe's burgeoning capitalism.

[8][14] He condemned the excesses of revolutionary movements, arguing that motives such as retribution had no place in the Christian ethic; many contemporaries, however, saw the play as an endorsement of militant struggle for Poland's independence, while Krasiński's intent was to advocate for organic work as a means to society's advancement.

[1] His later writings more clearly showed his opposition to romantic militant ventures and his advocacy of peaceful, organic educational work; this was particularly so in his Psalms of the Future, which expressly criticized the concept of revolution.

[6][15] More memorable are his "treatises in the philosophy of history", especially Predawn and Psalms of the Future, influenced by philosophers including Georg Hegel, Friedrich Schelling, August Cieszkowski, and Bronisław Trentowski.

[18] Theater critic Jan Kott referred to the series of letters written by Krasiński to Potocka as "the greatest (yet unwritten) novel of the Polish Romantic period".

[1][5][20][21][22] Due to his decision to publish anonymously, to the end of his life he was able to travel freely between his family manor in Russian-controlled lands and centers of Polish emigré life in Western Europe (the Great Emigration), while others, including Mickiewicz and Słowacki, were forced to remain in exile in the West, banned from returning to Polish lands by the occupying powers.

[24] Miłosz wrote that Krasiński, popular in the mid-19th century, remains an important figure in the history of Polish literature but is not on a par with Mickiewicz and Słowacki.

[7][25] Polish historian of literature, Mieczysław Giergielewicz [pl], observes the contradiction regarding Krasiński's dramas and poems, the former which gained popularity with the critics, but not the public, while for the later, a reverse was true.

[25] Segel likewise agreed that both Krasiński's poetry, as early as during the turn-of-the-century Young Poland period, came to be criticized as "vehicles for [an] embarrassing messianism" and as "amateur and shallow Romantic philosophizing".

Krasiński's popularity further waned under the People's Republic of Poland, when his conservative religious themes met with disapproval by the communist authorities; new editions of his works were not published in the 1940s and 1950s.