Jezuickie giętkie pióro. Wczesna nowożytność przez pryzmat studiów nad Towarzystwem Jezusowym
Jesuit Flexible Pen. Early Modernity Through the Prism of Studies on the Society of Jesus

Author(s): Robert Aleksander Maryks
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Polish Literature, Sociology of Religion
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: Jesuits; Society of Jesus
Summary/Abstract: The six essays presented in this collection show the development of various genres of Jesuit writing (hence the title of this book – The flexible Jesuit pen) and its importance for the early modem period. Some of these were disseminated widely both inside and outside the Society and were instrumental in influencing the evolving politics of the Jesuits. In this book, most of them appear in the Polish translation for the first time. Since the Society was founded in the mid-sixteenth century, the authors discussed here are good examples of the transition that occurred between the late Middle Ages and the early modem period. The first generation of Jesuits was trained in medieval philosophy and theology but became more and more familiar with the Renaissance tradition. The second and later generations created a culture that combined their Scholastic education with the imitation of the Greco-Latin classics, the Renaissance preference for (especially Ciceronian) rhetoric and epistemic skepticism, and the need to proclaim the Gospel. Without this unique culture, passed down especially in the network of Jesuit schools, there would be no Piotr Skarga (1536–1612), Jakub Wujek (1541–1597), Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595–1640), Franciszek Bohomolec (1720–1784), Marcin Poczobut (1728–1810), Adam Naruszewicz (1733–1796) and Grzegorz Piramowicz (1735–1801). There would be no early modem Polish culture as we know it.

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