Ignacy Krasicki in the context of Archbishop of Gniezno

Aleksander Jełowicki (18 December 1804 in Hubnyk - 15 April 1877 in Rome) was a Polish writer, poet, translator and publisher. He was a veteran of the November Uprising, deputy to the Sejm of Congress Poland for the Haisyn powiat and political exile in France, where he was a social activist, superior of the Polish Catholic Mission in Paris and monk.

Among the works he published are the first editions of Adam Mickiewicz's Part III of Dziady (1832) and Pan Tadeusz (1834). Between 1835 and 1838 he was leading partner of the publishing house and printing works, Jełowicki i S-ka in Paris. His list of authors constitutes a major part of Poland's 19th-century literary canon and includes: Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Kazimierz Brodziński, Stefan Witwicki, Wincenty Pol, Antoni Gorecki, Maurycy Mochnacki, Joachim Lelewel, Henryk Rzewuski, Michał Czajkowski, Klementyna Hoffmanowa, Ignacy Krasicki.

Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Esperanto. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama and poetic self-expression than on fiction (dominant in the English speaking world). The reasons were manifold but mostly rested on the historical circumstances of the nation. Polish writers typically have had a more profound range of choices to motivate them to write, including past cataclysms of extraordinary violence that swept Poland (as the crossroads of Europe), but also, Poland's collective incongruities demanding an adequate reaction from the writing communities of any given period.

The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s–40s and peaked in the second half of the 18th century. Leading Polish Enlightenment authors included Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801) and Jan Potocki (1761–1815). Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism elsewhere in Europe, was largely a movement for independence against the foreign occupation. Early Polish Romantics were heavily influenced by other European Romantics. Notable writers included Adam Mickiewicz, Seweryn Goszczyński, Tomasz Zan and Maurycy Mochnacki.

Political fiction employs narrative to comment on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction, such as political novels, often "directly criticize an existing society or present an alternative, even fantastic, reality". The political novel overlaps with the social novel, proletarian novel, and social science fiction.

Plato's Republic, a Socratic dialogue written around 380 BC, has been one of the world's most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically. The Republic is concerned with justice (δικαιοσύνη), the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man. Other influential politically themed works include Thomas More's Utopia (1516), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Voltaire's Candide (1759), and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).