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The Three Bards (Polish: trzej wieszcze) are the three national poets of Polish literature. Wieszcz means prophet or soothsayer, as the poets included in the group by the literary critics and general population were thought to not only describe the national feelings of the Polish society, but also foresee the nation's future.
As such the concept was a Polish approximation of the Ancient Latin term poeta vates, denoting a poet to whom the gods granted the ability to foresee the future. Imported to Poland in 16th century along with many other Sarmatist ideas, initially the term wieszcz was used to denote various poets. However, with the advent of Romanticism in 19th century, the term started to be applied almost exclusively to denote Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849) and Zygmunt Krasiński (1812-1859). Though the poets did not form a particular poetic group or movement (in fact they did not even meet each other), all of them started to be seen as moral leaders of a nation, deprived of political freedom. They also often used the local folk tradition, which somehow linked the term wieszcz with folk wisemen, often found in legends and folk tales.
After the failed January Uprising, and especially in 1870's, the term was used almost exclusively to denote the three poets. However, in early 20th century the rediscovery of the works of Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883) gained him the name of the fourth bard. Modern literary critics are often skeptical as to the value of Krasiński's work and consider Norwid to be the Third bard instead of Fourth. Some literary critics of the period between the World Wars claimed Stanisław Wyspiański to be the fourth. However, the group referred to as bards or wieszcze almost always consists of only three out of five candidates.
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