Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry is a hymn included in "Gorzkie żale" ("Bitter Lamentations"), a typically Polish Catholic devotion, sung in churches on Sundays during Lent, and familiar to many Poles. Neither Adam Mickiewicz nor Juliusz Słowacki used the classic Sapphic stanza. Słowacki, however, employed its general scheme in his own six-line stanza, discussed below. Cyprian Kamil Norwid, a poet regarded as one of the greatest Polish authors and perhaps the most modern of the poets of the 19th century, used Sapphic stanzas in the poem named "Trzy zwrotki" ("Three strophes"), as well as in many other poems including "Sieroctwo" ("Orphanhood"). Sometimes he implemented the
Eureka: A Prose Poem as a "prose poem" goes against some of his own "rules" of poetry which he laid out in "The Philosophy of Composition" and "The Poetic Principle". In particular, Poe called the ideal poem short, at most 100 lines, and utilizing the "most poetical topic in the world": the death of a beautiful woman. Poe himself suggested that the work be judged only as a work of art, not of science, possibly dismissing the seriousness of "Eureka". Though he is using mathematical and scientific terms, he may really be talking about aesthetics and suggesting there is a close connection between science