Antywzór sarmackiej rycerskości. Coś nowego Łukasza Opalińskiego
The Anti‑Standard of Sarmatian Chivalry. Coś nowego (Something New) by Łukasz Opaliński

Author(s): Teresa Banaś-Korniak
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Studies of Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Mennippean satire; Łukasz Opaliński; 17th century; battle of Piławce
Summary/Abstract: The article examines the debasement of the Sarmatian ideal of a knight, which wasshown in the satire Coś nowego (Something New) written by Łukasz Opaliński – a 17th‑century erudite and aristocratic writer. Purposely refering to various literary traditions,styles and genres, Opaliński mocks not only specific individuals but also various phenomenataking place in the 17th‑century Polish political and social reality. He is focused on ridiculingand unmasking the political and military chaos. Literary resources of ridicule vary from the picaresque style with its poetics of parody, absurd, play on words, use of vulgarities and augmentative forms, to the lofty or even bombastic style (which features elaborate metaphors, epithets, refined irony and hyperbole). In creating this stylistically varied literary form, which is parallel with the tradition of the so‑called Mennippean structure („somethingnew” in Polish literature of that period), the author does not abandon the position of an insightful and aristocratic writer who not only aptly comments on the world that he is describing, but who consciously juggles words, moving freely within various literary conventions.

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