"Homo inquietus” – "homo ardens" – "homo viator". On the  Augustan Inspirations in Polish Baroque Cover Image

„Homo inquietus” – „homo ardens” – „homo viator”. Wokół augustyńskich inspiracji poezji polskiego baroku
"Homo inquietus” – "homo ardens" – "homo viator". On the Augustan Inspirations in Polish Baroque

Author(s): Ireneusz Szczukowski
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: "homo inquietus”; "homo ardens"; "homo viator”; Polish Baroque; Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński; Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski; Łukasz Opaliński; Stanisław Witwicki

Summary/Abstract: A fashionable and revealing hermeneutics of Old-Polish texts directed at history of ideas or mentality makes it possible to situate the baroque literature in the context of an interplay of the various intellectual trends. One of them was the Augustan trend, permanently manifested in the culture of old epochs. The aim of the article is to present the anchorage of figures typical of baroque literature: "homo inquietus", "homo ardens" and "homo viator", in the Augustan mode of perceiving the world. It is in Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński’s and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski’s poetry that one finds the vision of a man in a constant anxiety and carried away from the Creator. Similarly, Łukasz Opaliński’s text A New Poet and baroque emblems are open to field of cultural signs having their roots, inter alia, in Augustan thought. The article also evokes Stanisław Witwicki’s Abrys, in which elements of Cartesianism are mingled with the reflection of the Bishop of Hippo.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 17-29
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish