Przedziwna sztuka równowagi. Tren XVII Jana Kochanowskiego
Scales of a Marvellous Balancing: Jan Kochanowski’s Threnody XVII

Summary/Abstract: The paper proposes at the new, detailed reading of Jan Kochanowski’s Threnody XVII. While it does not aim to thoroughly challenge the previous interpretations of the text, it focuses on the significant elements, which have been largely omitted in the existing studies. Despite the fact that researchers usually pointed the presence of Job motives in the poem, they were not analyzed in a systematic way as a concise set of textual allusions, hidden in the whole cycle of lamentations. The close reading of the poem reveals the central position of the image of weighting the reason on the scales, its source being the 6th chapter of The Book of Job. In these following analyses, the image is interpreted as the fulcrum of the chiastic composition of Threnody XVII. Finally, the paper puts forth a working hypothesis that the identified set of Job motives associated with the chiastic composition could be related to the Hebrew concentric structure (inclusio), as examined by Roland Meynet. Arguably, the further, extensive research is needed to confirm such a tempting, yet still highly insecure assumption.

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