Elwira Buszewicz

Two Penelopes: Ovid’s Heroides and Its Two Imitations: Andrzej Krzycki and Baldassare Castiglione’s Epistolatory Elegies

The article presents a bilingual (Latin with a Polish translation) edition of two Neo-Latin imitations of Ovid’s Heroides, preceded by an introduction and provided with a philological and historical commentary. Both poems were written in the first twenty years of the 16th century. The author of the first one is Andrzej Krzycki (Cricius, 1482–1537), who at the time of composing the poem was the secretary of the first wife of Sigismund the Old, Barbara Zapolya. As the queen’s secretary, Krzycki was responsible for the stylistic aspect of her letters, which made it all the easier for him to create a fictional epistolary elegy on her behalf. The elegy commemorates the victorious battle for the Polish-Lithuanian army with the Grand Duchy of Moscow at Orsha (1514). For the poet it was also an opportunity to praise the invincible king and his army.

The author of the second elegy is Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529), known as the author of Il libro del Cortegiano. He wrote a poetic letter on behalf of his wife, Ippolita Torelli, who was waiting for her husband’s return from Rome. Both authors not only refer to the situation of Penelope in Ovid’s first heroide, but also use Ovid’s other letters of heroines and their neo-Latin imitations. Castiglione also evokes one of Propertius’ elegies (IV 3), which seems to be a “proto-heroide”. Krzycki’s “Penelope” seems to be psychologically less complex, while its Italian counterpart consciously employs allusions, rhetorical games and omissions. Both display a wide range of feelings from despair and sadness to hope, and express deep affection for their husbands. The introduction places the poems in their historical and literary contexts, underlining especially Ovid’s Heroides influence on European Renaissance literature. The commentary indicates some similia and explains many details related to the circumstances of creating these works.

Między depresjąa nudą. Dziwne melancholie Klemensa Janicjusza

Głównym celem artykułu jest opisanie nastrojów melancholijnych pojawiających sięw elegiach Klemensa Janicjusza (Clemens Ianicius, 1516–1543), poety polsko-łacińskiego, zmarłego przedwcześnie w wieku 37 lat. Na początku autorka przedstawia krótkąbiografiępoety (jego chłopskie pochodzenie, edukacjęszkolną, studia w Akademii Lubrańskiego w Poznaniu, przerwane z powodu ubóstwa ojca, dole i niedole związane z zależnościąod mecenasów duchownych i świeckich, pobyt w Padwie i studia tamże, ukoronowane wawrzynem doktorskim i wieńcem laurowym przeznaczonym dla wybitnych poetów, wreszcie – chorobęi śmierć). Następnie dokonana zostaje analiza kilku utworów. Elegie omawiane w artykule 50 Elwira Buszewicz

pochodząz dwóch zbiorów poetyckich Janicjusza: Variae elegiae (Elegie różne) oraz Tristia. Autorka stara sięopisaćrozwój melancholijnego temperamentu przejawiającego sięw twórczości Janicjusza, zaczynając od elegii poświęconych febrze i śmierci umiłowanego patrona poety, arcybiskupa gnieźnieńskiego Andrzeja Krzyckiego, a kończąc na wierszach pochodzących z kolekcji Tristia, które traktująo chorobie i smutku poety.

ABSTRACT

Between Depression and Boredom. Clemens Ianicius’Weird Melancholies

The purpose of the article is to describe melancholic moods in the elegies of Clemens Ianicius (1516–1543), a prematurely deceased Polish Neo-Latin poet. First, the author recapitulates briefly the poet’s biography (his peasant pedigree, education, studies at the Collegium Lubranscianum in Poznań, interrupted because of his father’s poverty, his fortunes and misfortunes resulting from the ecclesiastical and nobility patronage, his stay and studies in Padua, graduation with doctoral degree, coronation with a laurel wreath, and finally his illness and death). The analysed poems include elegies from two main collections of Ianicius’verses: the Variae elegiae and the Tristia. The author traces the development of the poet’s melancholic temperament, starting with the elegies concerning his favourite patron’s (the Primate Andrzej Krzycki) fever and the mourning after his death, and finishing with the elegies from the Tristia, treating the poet’s disease and sadness.

The ode as a genre in the Latin poetry of Jan Kochanowski (Lyricorum libellus)

The aim of this study is to establish the place of Jan Kochanowski’s Lyricorum libellus (1580) in the history of Polish Renaissance Neo-Latin ode presented against a wider European background. The development of this genre in this historico-literary period in Poland has received only fragmentary reporting, e.g. in relation to Horatianism in literature or as a background for the vernacular ode. Yet, as Carol Maddison argues in her Apollo and the Nine, the Neo-Latin ode is, in a sense, a new genre revived and newly “devised” by Renaissance humanists. In her fundamental work, Maddison also presents the development of the ode and its variations in Italy and France. According to ancient patterns used by poets, Horatian odes (including Kochanowski’s odes) can be divided into the “pindaric” and the “anacreontic-sapphic.” To some extent this division coincides with the classification of odes as “political” or “private.” Similar categorisation criteria adopted by various researchers (Zofia Głombiowska, Jacqueline Glomski, Józef Budzyński) may result in individual odes being assigned to several different categories.
The first part of the paper, therefore, emphasises the identity of the Neo-Latin ode and its status as a new genre strongly related to Renaissance Humanism. In the second part, the author attempts to assign particular poems from Lyricorum libellus to patterns indicated by Maddison, and deals with previous attempts at classification based on differentiating between political and private odes. She also underlines that Kochanowski frequently imitated both pindaric and anacreontic patterns through Horace. In the third part, the author analyses the strophic organisation of individual odes and their metre as well as their logical-rhetorical structure. The odes are here classified with regard to these criteria and interpreted in accordance with their historical context. The author pays close attention to the genre’s borderline between ode and hymn, stylistic “nobilitation” of lyrical poems and the outright Horationism of the collection. Lastly, she presents conclusions concerning the role of Lyricorum libellus in the development of the ode. Before Kochanowski, a significant role in the evolution of the genre was played by the so-called “university ode,” which was popular in Silesian and German poetic circles, as well as in odes by Paweł z Krosna. Kochanowski’s odes, however, bear little resemblance to this stage of the development of the genre in Poland. Imitating Horace in the spirit of such poets as Michal Marullus or Giovanni Pontano, Kochanowski demonstrates a mature awareness of the Neo-Latin ode, formed at the meeting-point of ode and hymn and constituting an element of a cycle organised in accordance with a certain idea.

The aim of this study is to show how Kochanowski imitated Horace in various ways and at different levels of his poetry. As to this moment, the matter has been discussed, mainly in regard to the Lyricorum libellus, by Zofia Głombiowska and Józef Budzyński. In this paper, the author briefly summarises their statements and comments upon them expressing her own view. She also mentions some other publications dealing with the Horatianism of the Polish poet to a lesser degree.

The text is divided into four sections. In the first one, the author makes a brief comparison between Kochanowski and Petrarca in the context of their mental kinship with Horace that resulted in poetry which is “Horatian” not only in terms of the verba but also some ideas.

The second section is devoted to the Horatianism of Kochanowski’s collection of odes (Lyricorum libellus). The author begins with a brief summary of the previously mentioned scholars’ views. She also demonstrates that some of these views may oversimplify the question of Horatian imitation in case of at least several of Kochanowski’s poems. To illustrate this, she presents an analysis of ode XI (In equum) in the context of its Horatian models; the conclusion is that in this poem, as well as in the entire collection, Kochanowski imitates Horace in a sophisticated and polyphonic way.

The third part of the text, after a brief mention of the “loci Horatiani” in Kochanowski’s elegies, shows the interplay of ideas between Horatian poetry and Kochanowski’s Elegy III 1. The author puts emphasis on the fact that Kochanowski adapted some of the elegiac themes to the Horatian rhetoric.

Concluding her disquisition, the author argues that Kochanowski’s Horatian imitation is neither superficial nor confined to the imitation verborum, but reaches deep in the structures of Horace’s poetry.

* The translation and publication was financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland) and the Faculty of Polish Studies, Jagiellonian University (Cracow, Poland) under Grant 643/P-DUN/2018 2. Polish text: E. Buszewicz, “Imitacja horacjańska w łacińskiej twórczości Jana Kochanowskiego,” Terminus 31 (2014), pp. 151–168.

Horatian Imitation in Jan Kochanowski’s Latin Poetry

The aim of this study is to show how Kochanowski imitated Horace in various ways and at different levels of his poetry. As to this moment, the matter has been discussed, mainly in regard to the Lyricorum libellus, by Zofia Głombiowska and Józef Budzyński. In this paper, the author briefly summarises their statements and comments upon them expressing her own view. She also mentions some other publications dealing with the Horatianism of the Polish poet to a lesser degree.
The text is divided into four sections. In the first one, the author makes a brief comparison between Kochanowski and Petrarca in the context of their mental kinship with Horace that resulted in poetry which is “Horatian” not only in terms of the verba but also some ideas.
The second section is devoted to the Horatianism of Kochanowski’s collection of odes (Lyricorum libellus). The author begins with a brief summary of the previously mentioned scholars’ views. She also demonstrates that some of these views may oversimplify the question of Horatian imitation in case of at least several of Kochanowski’s poems. To illustrate this, she presents an analysis of ode XI (In equum) in the context of its Horatian models; the conclusion is that in this poem, as well as in the entire collection, Kochanowski imitates Horace in a sophisticated and polyphonic way.
The third part of the text, after a brief mention of the “loci Horatiani” in Kochanowski’s elegies, shows the interplay of ideas between Horatian poetry and Kochanowski’s Elegy III 1. The author puts emphasis on the fact that Kochanowski adapted some of the elegiac themes to the Horatian rhetoric.
Concluding her disquisition, the author argues that Kochanowski’s Horatian imitation is neither superficial nor confined to the imitation verborum, but reaches deep in the structures of Horace’s poetry.

 

Kleks (The Inkblot) in the text, the text on Kleks (The Inkblot). Metaphors and intertextuality in Jan Brzechwa’s novel sequence on Mr Kleks (Mr Inkblot)

The main aim of the paper is to find some deeper meanings of Jan Brzechwa’s trilogy on Mister Kleks. The author focuses on metaphor of a library as a gateway to a fabulous world and on a metaliterary dimension of the work, showing that it can be read as a kind of Künstlerroman (and Bildungsroman). She also seeks sources for Brzechwa’s invention, analyzing each part of the novel from this point of view. The science-fiction, utopist and parodist contexts of the novel are also taken into consideration.

 

Fiery Love: Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski’s Ode to Saint Stanislaus Kostka

The objective of the article is to provide background for the reading of a new annotated bilingual edition of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski’s ode to Saint Stanislaus Kostka. Written in 1638, when Kostka had not yet been canonized, the ode was published posthumously, many years after the poet’s death.

First, the origins of the poem are presented, including the suggestions advanced by Stanisław Łubieński, the bishop of Płock, that Sarbiewski should create odes worshipping Polish saints. Other texts devoted to the venerable young man written by, or attributed to Sarbiewski are also briefly discussed. This is followed by an analysis of the ode, with special focus on its visual and theatrical properties, and on the poet’s emphasis on the mystic experiences of the Jesuit saint and his special bond with Mary. The manner of portraying the saint’s life deployed by Sarbiewski is shown to be modelled on the contemporary iconographic tradition, especially a drawing by Giacomo Lauro, which, copied by an anonymous artist was subsequently included in the collection Icones et miracula sanctorum Poloniae (Cologne 1605). Literary hagiographic works on which Sarbiewski might have drawn – both poetry and prose – are also mentioned.

After the introductory section, the ode is presented in two language versions: the original Latin and the new Polish translation. The text is provided with comments detailing historical facts, discussing the ancient similia and elocutionary relations to Sarbiewski’s other texts.

The focus of this article is mainly on Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, whose poetry features the themes of sleep or dream in many ways, aspects and levels.Among Ronsard’s odes we can find a lyric prayer to a personifi ed and divinized Sleep (Voeu au Somme); the poem is marked by a strong desire for oblivion or even for death as eternal sleep, considered as liberation from the troubles and anxieties of the daily life, as a remedy for extreme torments.
Dream visions are also structural elements of du Bellay’s cycles of love poetry, e.g. the Somnium (in the case of Latin elegies) or Sonnet V of L’Olive (in the case of French sonnets). On the other hand, the Songe, linked to the Antiquités de Rome, represents a series of pessimist and catastrophic visions inspired by Ecclesiastes and the Book of Revelation.
As for reveries, they are often comparable to a mental voyage, a kind of a quest, related to the Platonic ladder of love with three main steps: love of a beautiful body, love of a beautiful soul and love of beauty itself, i.e. the eternal and absolute beauty. Among the Platonic infl uences we can also classify the androgyny myth and the idea of metempsychosis, noticeable in Ronsard’s poetry (Élégie XV), presenting a very pessimistic vision of the human nature.Th e Hymne de la Surdité of du Bellay, in which the poet transforms his own disability into an ideal reality, is probably rooted in a similar vision.

The aim of this study is to establish the place of Jan Kochanowski’s Lyricorum libellus (1580) in the history of Polish Renaissance neo-Latin ode presented against a wider European background. The development of this genre in this historico-literary period in Poland has received only fragmentary reporting, e.g. in relation to Horatianism in literature or as a background for the vernacular ode. Yet, as Carol Maddison argues in her Apollo and the Nine, the Neo-Latin ode is, in a sense, a new genre revived and newly “devised” by Renaissance humanists. In her fundamental work, Maddison also presents the development of the ode and its variations in Italy and France. According to ancient patterns used by poets, Horatian odes (including Kochanowski’s odes) can be divided into the “Pindaric” and the “Anacreontic-Sapphic.” This division coincides to some extent with the classification of odes as “political” or “private.” Similar categorisation criteria adopted by various researchers (Zofi a Głombiowska, Jacqueline Glomski, Józef Budzyński) may result in individual odes being assigned to several different categories. The first part of this paper, therefore, emphasises the identity of the NeoLatin ode and its status as a new genre strongly related to Renaissance Humanism. In the second part, the author attempts to assign particular poems from Lyricorum libellus to patterns indicated by Maddison, and deals with previous attempts at classification based on differentiating between political and private odes. She also underlines that Kochanowski frequently imitated both pindaric and anacreontic patterns through Horace. In the third part, the author analyses the strophic organisation of individual odes and their metre as well as their rhetorical structure. The odes are here classified with regard to these criteria and interpreted in accordance with their historical context. The author pays close attention to the genre’s borderline between ode and hymn, stylistic “nobilitation” of lyrical poems and the outright Horationism of the collection. Lastly, she presents conclusions concerning the role of Lyricorum libellus in the development of the ode. Before Kochanowski, a significant role in the evolution of the genre was played by the so-called “university ode,” which was popular in Silesian and German poetic circles, as well as in odes by Paweł z Krosna. Kochanowski’s odes, however, bear little resemblance to this stage of the development of the genre in Poland. Imitating Horace in the spirit of such poets as Michael Marullus or Giovanni Pontano, Kochanowski demonstrates a mature awareness of the neo-Latin ode, formed at the meeting point of ode and hymn and constituting an element of a cycle organised in accordance with a certain idea.

* The translation and publication was financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland) and the Faculty of Polish Studies, Jagiellonian University (Cracow, Poland) under Grant 643/P-DUN/2018 2. Polish text: E. Buszewicz, “Forma gatunkowa ody w łacińskiej poezji Jana Kochanowskiego (Lyricorum libellus),” Terminus 30 (2014), pp. 21–38.

Lucent Cracks of Heavens: Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Stars and an “Etrurian Poet”

The paper tries to display the links between a catalogue of metaphors contained in Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski’s handbook entitled Characteres lyrici, seu Horatius et Pindarus and Giambattista Marino’s Canzone delle stelle. Based upon his college lectures (Połock 1626/1627), Sarbiewski’s work offers practical rules for the composition of lyrical poetry and some theoretical considerations. Among many “ornaments related to the lyrical invention”, a very important stylistic device mentioned by the Jesuit poet and theorist is a “definition by accumulation”(definitio conglobata), that is, a series of extended metaphors or other figurative expressions, for example periphrasis, metonymy or allegory. This rhetorical strategy serves as a useful instrument in reintegrating the art of invention with amplification aimed particularly at the accumulation of different words or figures. As the “ornament of the lyric invention”, the definition described by the author appears no to be restricted only to effective searching for ideas and concepts; it is also a valuable tool for achieving unusual power of expression and for exercising composition and style.

Sarbiewski quotes an example concerning the stars, taken, as he says, from „a contemporary Etrurian poet”. In his commentary to the edition of Characteres lyrici, Stanisław Skimina identified this poet as Dante, which was subsequently taken for granted by many scholars. Recently, the poet in question has been proved to be Giambattista Marino, famous for his style characterized by many extravagant conceits, excessive figures, and other complicated rhetorical patterns. The authors analyze Sarbiewski’s catalogue in the context of Canzone delle stelle, dealing with the way the Polish poet understands and changes the original. While translating Marino’s poem into Latin and listing metaphorical “definitions”of stars, he retained freedom of creative interpretation. For this reason, in his catalogue one may find far-reaching textual changes, for example misreading of words, omission of some figures or simplification of meanings.