Metafora i piękno w Iliadzie Homera

Author(s): Wacław Grzybowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

The Illiad, traditionally attributed to Homer, is a multilayered story about the heroic past of the Achaean aristocracy. Though engaged in an unjust war and plunder, thus contaminated by guilt, ate, the Achaeans strive for the very model of virtue, arete – courage and wisdom paired with respect shown towards the defeted enemy. The glory of arete is compromised on both sides of the conflict, the Acheans (Achilles and Agamemnon) and the Trojans (Paris and Hector). Their guilt, born of temptation which they – as mortals – cannot resist, paradoxically makes them responsible for the evil they have no power to contain. Their punishment thus becomes their atonement for their wrongdoing and their chance to redeem their discredited heroism and virtue. All these ideas are conveyed by the metaphors employed by Homer throughout his complex masterpiece. His way of presenting the protagonists and narrating their stories creates a brilliant composition of meanings and harmony, which the European scholastics many centuries later described as the constituent elements of beauty: proportio, integritas and claritas. The Illiad marks an enormously important stage in the development of the ancient search of the true goodness and beauty, kalokagathia (Ancient Greek: nobility, goodness, from kalos: beautiful, kai: and, agathos: good).

Epyllion w badaniach naukowych – antyczne genus mixtum?

Author(s): Natalia Cichoń / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4 (41)/2016

In this paper, the author attempts to answer the question whether epyllion (miniature epic poem) was regarded a coherent genre in antiquity or if this attribution is an invention of modern scholars. Today, the term is commonly used by philologists and theoreticians of literature in various languages, but a scholar who does not know its provenience is unable to fully comprehend the character of this genre. As a genre, epyllion occurred in literary studies and in the vocabulary of literary criticism as late as in the 19th century in Germany, gradually spreading to other countries. During the Renaissance, it appeared sporadically and usually referred to contemporary texts. In antiquity, however, it was used only a few times: and while it appeared in a literary context, it never meant short epic poem. Today’s understanding of this term is then significantly different from that used by the ancients. Nonetheless, epyllion is commonly regarded an antique literary genre that emerged in the Hellenistic period as a reaction to and spinoff from the long heroic epic. The author demonstrates that classical texts are often interpreted by use of modern methods, which classify them differently from how it was done in the antiquity. In the first part of the paper, she presents the notion of epyllion as it was understood according to the antique theory of literature. Next, different accounts on using this term over the course of time are discussed: from the antiquity, through the late Byzantium and Renaissance, to the modern times. The analysis of research concerning this genre leads the author to the conclusion that epyllion did not emerge from the genologic theory of classical authors but rather from the modern concept of literature. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that certain poems written when the “antique” miniature epos drew the attention of German scholars resembled some of ancient Greek works, which in turn were soon referred to in similar terms. This coincidence can hardly be considered accidental.

Funkcje pamięci o sporze Benedykta Herbesta z Jakubem Górskim i arbitrażu Stanisława Orzechowskiego („Wawrzyńca z Sieradza”)

Author(s): Aleksander Sroczyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4 (41)/2016

The author set himself two aims. First, to demonstrate how the most important poet of the Polish Renaissance, Jan Kochanowski (1530–1584), participated in the propaganda campaign led by the chancery of the Polish King, Stephen Báthory, during the Livonian War in the year fought in the years 1577–1582. Second, to attempt to discover the sources and textual inspirations for the Ode on the Capture of Polatsk or Ode 12 (Warsaw 1580), a Latin propaganda work commissioned from the poet by the Chancellor of Poland, Jan Zamoyski. To this end, the author placed the ode in a broad context of sources from the epoch, such as poems, pamphlets, maps, letters, etc.

Źródła, konteksty i okoliczności powstania Ody o zdobyciu Połocka Jana Kochanowskiego

Author(s): Jakub Niedźwiedź / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4 (41)/2016

The author set himself two aims. First, to demonstrate how the most important poet of the Polish Renaissance, Jan Kochanowski (1530–1584), participated in the propaganda campaign led by the chancery of the Polish King, Stephen Báthory, during the Livonian War in the year fought in the years 1577–1582. Second, to attempt to discover the sources and textual inspirations for the Ode on the Capture of Polatsk or Ode 12 (Warsaw 1580), a Latin propaganda work commissioned from the poet by the Chancellor of Poland, Jan Zamoyski. To this end, the author placed the ode in a broad context of sources from the epoch, such as poems, pamphlets, maps, letters, etc.In the first part of the paper, the circumstances that accompanied the writing of the ode are discussed. The author explains the relations between Kochanowski and Zamoyski and reminds the pressure exerted by the Chancellor on the poet, so that he quickly finishes texts that are supposed to praise the victory over Muscovites.Kochanowski’s writing technique is also discussed. The author notes that the poet’s work resembled that of a philologist: preparing for writing a poem or a cycle of poems, Kochanowski made himself familiar with many various authorities. Thus he worked on the paraphrase of Psałterz (Psaltar 1579) and Treny (Laments 1580). According to the author, this was also Kochanowski’s modus operandi when he was writing Ode 12 and other texts on the war with Muscovy. In this part of the paper, all his works related to this subject are briefly discussed.In further parts, the author presents the sources that Kochanowski consulted when writing Ode 12. These include, first of all, previous poetic works, such as Horace’s odes and Latin poems written after the victory in the Battle of Orsha (1514). The author demonstrates that Kochanowski drew inspiration e.g. from Carmen de victoria Sigismundi by Joannes Dantiscus. Another significant sources used by the poet were chronicles and chorographies of Muscovy (Herberstein, Gwagnin), as well as drawings and maps depicting the capture of Polatsk. He was probably provided with iconographic accounts by Zamoyski’s messengers in January 1580. The author mentions that maps constituted a significant element of the chancery’s propaganda strategy. In this part, he observes that the same sources were used by Kochanowski for his Jezda do Moskwy (The Ride to Muscovy 1583) and by Gerard Mercator for his map Russiae pars amplificata (1595).The most important authorities consulted by Kochanowski included the accounts of the capture of Polatsk that he obtained directly from the royal chancery. In the last part of the study, the author compares several narrative sources with the ode. He arrives at the conclusion that the narration in Ode 12 basically reflects the description of the siege present in other sources and that it is very detailed for a lyrical work. He also shows the rhetoric means used by Kochanowski to intensify the propaganda effect.At the end, the author places Ode 12 in the context of other renaissance utterances on the relation between history and poetry. He refers to the contemporary reflections of Antonio Minturno and Julius Caesar Scaliger.

Renesansowy ogród wymowy. Renaissance Figures of Speech, ed. Sylvia Adamson, Gavin Alexander and Katrin Ettenhuber, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007

Author(s): Wojciech Ryczek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4 (41)/2016

„Skarb duszny, nad złoto i kamienie drogie kosztowniejszy”

Author(s): Margarita A. Korzo / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The article is an attempt at reconstructing the Latin source of the Polish devotional print “Skarb duszny, nad złoto i kamienie drogie kosztowniejszy (A Soul Treasure, Costlier than Gold and Precious Stones)” and the history of its translations done by the Orthodox Church followers in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelth. It was a translation of a work by a Jesuit Franciszek Coster composed about 1576–1577 to serve the Sodality of Our Lady, College Society of Jesus in Cologne, and printed at the turn of 16th and 17th c. under various titles (“Bulla super forma iuramenti professionis fidei,” “Thesaurus piarum,” “Piarum et christianarum Institutionum libri tres,” “Libellus Sodalitatis”), indicating Coster as its author or anonymously. A Soul Treasure [...], launched in Cracow in Andrzej Piotrkowczyk’s publishing house (1582, 1594), was twice translated into so called simple language and printed in Vilnius Orthodox Brotherhood as a kind of biblical-liturgical Orthodox book, either in the second half of the 1630s or at the beginning of 1640s (a fragment urging to frequent confession), and as a separate print “Nauka o tayne svatovo pokayania (A Study of Mysterious Holy Confession)” (Kiev 1671). At the turn of 17th and 18th c. translation of “A Soul Treasure [...]” into simple language widespread in Ukraine also in handwritten transcripts.

Doświadczyński przed Trybunałem

Author(s): Piotr Miłosz Pilarczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

Legal problems included into literary writings rarely become an issue of analysis. The judiciary subject is often voiced in Ignacy Krasicki’s output, and some of them are recurrent in many of his pieces. The novel “Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki (Adventures of Nicolaus Doświadczyński)” offers a description of the functioning of the Crown Tribunal, the highest judiciary body in the Republic. Time distance and legal practice details included in the piece hinder the proper understanding of this part of the novel. The literary picture is not only uniquely realistic and conforms many law historians’ observations, but also delivers pieces of information which allow to indentify many raised problems, places, time and figures. A legal-historical analysis gives a new reading of that part of Krasicki’s creativity.

Renesansowe teorie figuratywności (II): Jakub Górski

Author(s): Wojciech Ryczek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The main aim of the article is a description of the study of tropes set forth by Jakub Górski (1525–1585) in his handbook “De figuris tum grammaticis, tum rhetoricis” (1560). A reconstruction of the humanist’s views on the functions of eloquence identified mainly with elocution allows to account for the relationships between rhetoric and dialectic (and in broader sense also with philosophy). An analysis of two key terms in the dictionary of forms of expression (figure, trope) provides for sketching the main determinants of Górski’s idea of rhetoric as of an art of amplification and figurativity. Such an analysis is at the same time an introduction to a description of 10 tropes with their numerous types (allegory, irony). Górski’s handbook, which brings the basic pieces of information on rhetorical tropes and figures, offers a powerful image of rhetorics teaching at The Cracow Academy in the second part of the 16th century.

Renesansowe teorie figuratywności (III): Adam Burski

Author(s): Wojciech Ryczek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The main aim of the article is a presentation of a book on elocution “Tractatus de elocutione et ornamentis illius, sive figurarum verborum et sententiarum” prepared by Adam Burski (c. 1560–1611). The volume is preserved in the manuscript collection of The National Library of Poland and is probably based on Burski’s lectures on rhetoric delivered at The Zamojski Academy in the year 1605. It consists of 26 chapters and each of them contains a fragment of Cicero’s work in rhetoric with the humanist’s commentary (scholion). The exposition of Burski’s study in tropes and their types allows, on the one hand, to describe his rhetorical education project (examples of tropes are taken from the Polish language), and on the other hand, to discuss such detailed matters as the essence of eloquence (ornateness), rhetoric simulation, and emulation of Cicero’s style.

„Jako samojedź krzywousta...”

Author(s): Jacek Sokolski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The article describes the image of Death in 15th c. “Rozmowa mistrza Polikarpa ze Śmiercią (Master’s Conversation with Death).” The piece says that Death looks “wrymouthed like a man-eater.” The word “samojedź” (“man-eater”) is now no longer used though recurring in Old-Polish writers collective noun referring to an anthropophagus, it seems, however, that it might initially have had a different meaning. An analysis of the proper fragment of the piece in question reveals that the presentation of personified Death directly refers to clinical descriptions of a leper’s appearance known from various medieval works. It is thus possible that the term “samojedź” (“man-eater”) was also used to refer to the lepers and this meaning disappeared due to some reasons.

Czy faktycznie Piotr Skarga był prorokiem „upadku Polski i niedoli porozbiorowej”?

Author(s): Krzysztof Obremski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

Ignacy Chrzanowski in his “Historia literatury niepodległej Polski (965–1795) (History of the Literature of the Independent Poland <965–1795>)” wrote, “in the entire Old Polish literature there is nothing that has so much power and fear as that [in Sermon three] in the prophecy of the fall of Poland and post-partition misery.” Skarga’s prophecy was twofold: if you remain sinful in your infidelity to Church, ergo to the Republic of Poland, you parish; if you return to Church obedience and thus conditioned improvement of the Republic, you shall be saved. In the 1790s the Republic of Poland and the Church were intermingled in the way Skarga expected. Yet, in the year 1795 the Third Partition took place. The fact can be explained in two ways. The first, pious, is that in the worldly unexplored God’s justice, the Republic’s sins prevailed over virtues, and so Skarga’s prophecy proved legitimate. The second, critical, reveals that one cannot speak about the prophecy’s fulfilling since The Republic was divided by three Christian powers in spite of being till the end tied to the Church. The answer to the title question remains internally contradictory. Skarga was not and at the same time was a prophet as his prophecy “of the fall of Poland and post-partition misery” came true against the premises he adopted (the partitioner was not the pagan Turkey, but Christian countries) and at the same time in harmony with them since the reforms proposed by the Polish Enlightenment activists aimed to totally subordinate the Church to the Republic.

Litewsko-polskie związki w „Pieśni nowej Kalijopy sarmackiej”

Author(s): Jan Okoń / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The subject of the paper is “The New Song of Sarmatic Kaliope” published in Vilnius in 1605. It proclaimed the praise of Kircholm victory on September 27th 1605, in particular the approval of the chief commander Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. Due to its theme, as well as because of the participation in the battle of Charles Suderman, the King of Sweden, the “Song” became recognized in Poland and in Europe. The paper presents the history of the investigations on the Song and discusses its currently known unique specimen from the Municipal Library of Gdańsk. The article also establishes the piece’s authorship: the discovery in Lvov of another curiosity, “The Life of St. Kasimir” (Vilnius 1606) allowed to state that the author of both texts is Mateus Chryzostom Wołodkiewicz (circa 1585–1642), a graduate of The Vilnius Academy, a descendant of a Lithuanian ducal family. The paper also discusses a more extensive problem of the role of The Vilnius Academy as a center of humanistic culture and its contribution to youth education and preparation to live in civic society.

Włoski pierwowzór „Dworu cesarza tureckiego” Szymona Starowolskiego

Author(s): Roman Krzywy / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The author of the article identified the Italian original of Szymon Starowolski’s “Dwór cesarza tureckiego (The Court of the Turkish Emperor),” a formerly vastly popular piece of prose which mingles a topographic description and practical particulars (referring to e.g. trade) with a presentation of customs at the sultan’s court and with informations about Islam. The Polish writer translated the memories of a Levantine Jew known as Domenico Hierosolimitano (1552/55–1622) and published by Alfonso Chierici under the title “Vera relatione della gran città di Costantinopoli et in particolare del serraglio del Gran Turco” (Bracciano 1621, second ed. 1639). Most probably Starowolski used the second edition and adapted the original to compose his translation in various ways, namely made additions, specified the original wording, divided the original into smaller chapters, and changed the order of some text’s fragments

Wiersze na ryciny jako dominanta polskojęzycznej twórczości Symeona z Połocka

Author(s): Radosław Grześkowiak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

Samuił Piotrowski-Sitnianowicz (1629–1680), more commonly known as Symeon of Połock, was in the years 1643–1650 a student of The Kyiv-Mohyla College and subsequently from 1650 to 1653 of The Vilnius Academy. Both schools required that their students composed poems in Polish, and exercises in this matter made a starting point for Piotrowski-Sitnianowicz’s poetic carrier. In his later poetry in Old Church Slavonic, epigrams written for drawings or paintings played an important role. The author of the present study proves that also 28 juvenile epigram cycles are Polonized from Latin subscriptions to popular series of Dutch artists’ drawings. Apart from indicating and discussing the drawings being the basis for the poet’s adaptation, the article offers the first critical edition of the analysed texts since the available publications of Symeon of Połock’s Polish output are far from being correct. The first part of the study presents the graphic sources of poetic cycles “Trudno wszytkim wygodzić” (adaptation of drawing series “Iudicii popularis vanitas et stoliditas <Vanity and Stupidity of Common People’s Judging>” by Ambrosius Francken the Elder from before the year 1607), “[Trojakie prawo]” (adaptation of drawing series “Triplex lex <Triple Law>” by Maarten de Vos from before 1580), “[Trzy stany i ich obowiązki]” (adaptation of Maarten van Heemskerck’s drawing cycle, circa 1565, “Triplex hominum status et uniuscuiusque munia ac partes <Three Social Classes, Their Functions and Duties>”), and “Zaniedbanie duszy dla zbytniego o ciele starania” – adaptation of an anonymous drawing cycle “Animae incuria ob nimiam corporis curam (Rapt Attention Given to Body Leads to Soul Negligence)”.

Pożyteczny obywatel z Grabowca, czyli nieznane karty biografii Tomasza Kajetana Węgierskiego

Author(s): Wojciech Konończuk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

In spite of the increasing interest in the last years in Tomasz Kajetan Węgierski’s creativity, research in his biography stand in the same place, even though it contains many blank spots or false pieces of information which are adopted and accepted. The article aims to revise some of them, to correct the falsely established his date and place of birth, to introduce into academic circulation new bibliographical facts including that of his origin. The text is based on a few archive search queries. One of the presented discoveries are two letters unknown to Węgierski’s scholars (dated 1778 and 1784) which have been analysed and included into the paper in the translation from French. It is suggested that the conclusions from the article allow to insight into the poet’s activity and into at least a part of his literary creativity in a slightly different context.

Czujność, czułość

Author(s): Jerzy Franczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2016

The paper is an attempt to interpret a poem by Julian Kornhauser, usually read as a manifesto of the new poetry rejecting social obligations, so important for the so-called New Wave generation. This interpretation aims to highlight hidden contradictions between the critique of the propagandist manipulation and the need to describe the personal experience. Kornhauser makes here a turn towards aesthetics as aisthesis, understood in its original meaning by Baumgarten and rediscovered in modern philosophy (for example by Mike Dufrenne), and opens up his poem to the sensible world.

Wojaczek wśród najmłodszych

Author(s): Marta Koronkiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2016

In the article, the author considers ways in which representatives of the youngest generation of poets refer to the poetry of Rafał Wojaczek, pointing out that, on the one hand, the legend which has grown around this poet’s biography is something tempting and difficult at the same time, and on the other hand, in his poetics the young poets find a way to go beyond irony and towards a non-pathetic sublimity, which has a generational significance for them. According to the author, such effects of reading Wojaczek can be found today in poetry of Konrad Góra and, artistically related to him, Kamil Brewiński or Szymon Domagała-Jakuć. Andrzej Sosnowski is pointed out as an important intermediary who offers a refreshing interpretation of the poetry of the author of Inna bajka.

Widma, zjawy i nawiedzone wiersze, czyli o poezji Romana Honeta

Author(s): Presila Grzymek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2016

The main purpose of this article is to analyze the occurrence of the figure of a spectre in Roman Honet’s poetry. The spectre is described here in various aspects and dimensions. The methodological tools used to analyze this literary trope mainly come from Jacques Derrida’s hauntology and the psychoanalytic presupposition of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Török, which the French philosopher was inspired by when formulating his philosophical project. In her interpretations the author attaches considerable importance to explaining the existential condition of the poems’ entity and the dimension of temporality in which they exist.

Niepełnosprawność w polskiej literaturze dla dzieci XIX wieku

Author(s): Alicja Fidowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2016

The author focuses on representations of disabled protagonists in the Polish children’s literature of the 19th century. She begins with presenting the perspective proposed by Simi Linton. In subsequent paragraphs, she analyzes selected texts of Polish children’s literature. She tries to determine the character of the 19th-century Polish culture from the perspective of the disability studies.

Kategoria Post-Blackness jako próba współczesnej redefinicji czarnej tożsamości

Author(s): Magdalena Kargul / Language(s): Polish Issue: 30/2016

This article explores the dynamic changes in ways of perceiving race and identity in the complex, post-modern African-American culture. Gathered under the name of “post-blackness,” some methods of an artistic representation of race were presented against the background of socio-political events of the last few years. The paper reconstructs the formations that allowed for the emergence of this term, such as black nationalism, womanism, as well as theories of race of the 1960’s and 1970’s.