Patryk Michał Ryczkowski

This contribution provides an edition of Mikołaj Lubomirski’s epigrams on Polish-Lithuanian rulers. It consists of three major parts. Firstly, a preliminary study establishes the connection between Janicki’s vitae and Lubomirski’s work. Janicki’s vitae were written around 1542 and printed as late as 1563. Many subsequent editions and Polish paraphrases introduced changes, such as the pieces on the rulers who were not covered by Janicki. A few examples of such additions (for example, two versions of Andrzej Trzecieski’s epigram) and of Janicki’s vitae editions (Gdańsk 1621, Krakow 1631, Stendal 1670) are discussed.

Between 1621 and 1632, Lubomirski composed four additional (Latin) epigrams, which he included in a notebook that is partially preserved in: Krakow, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, ms. 5575 (codex unicus). The poems are collected in a separate unit (supplementum) and placed directly after the handwritten copy of Janicki’s vitae. It is argued that Lubomirski aimed to reveal the theme of Jagiellonian succession, mostly through the symmetrical composition of his cycle. Its framework is constituted by the first and the last epigram on the figures who are connected to the Jagiellonian dynasty, Sigismund II Augustus (supp. I) and Sigismund III Vasa (supp. IV). Within this arrangement, the second and the third poems are devoted to the first kings elected in

the so-called free election, Henri de Valois (supp. II) and Stephen Bathory (supp. III). Both pieces contrast with each other, however: Henry’s image is clearly negative, while Stephan is depicted overall positively, and thus his profile is similar to those of Jagiellonians. Other intersections between the poems, which exceed the frame and inset composition, can be observed as well.

After the critical edition of Lubomirski’s epigrams (second part) the commentary (third part) is structured not according to the chronology of the rulers, but in order to acknowledge the established theme of Jagiellonian succession. In addition to a few textual and philological issues, the commentary notes internal connections between the pieces in the supplementum. Some essential similarities and differences to other vitae cycles and texts are remarked, although the focus is on Janicki’s epigrams. Finally, the historical context is explained and the events, places, and figures that the poems refer to are identified.

“Longas carpere perge uias”: The Role of Wandering as Ovid’s remedium amoris in the Compositional Structure of Samuel Twardowski’s Nadobna Pasqualina

In the paper, the author juxtaposes and compares Ovid’s Remedia amoris and Nadobna Pasqualina by Samuel Twardowski in order to show how the genre convention of the Latin love elegy influenced the shaping of the Polish Baroque poem. The plane of comparison is formed by selected compositional and content elements, that is the compositional frame based on the epic convention, together with the definition of poetic aims and assumptions, and the topos of love as a disease, characteristic of the elegiac, along with a healing journey.
So far Twardowski’s work has been described as a “spiritual romance” (romans duchowny), although such classification is unsatisfactory and the notion itself is vague. In more recent studies, therefore, attention is drawn to the need for a broader look at the genre form of Nadobna Pasqualina and allows for the coexistence of elements specific to different literary genres. Starting from this postulate, the author briefly describes the assumptions of genre classification based on genological constructivism and distances himself from the concept of the spiritual romance, emphasizing the epic qualities of Nadobna Pasqualina, also those that bring it closer to the epyllion and highlight the dialogue of various components (part one). Therefore, the epic frame of the work does not exclude the exposure of the elegiac motif of love as a disease and wandering as a cure.
The main part of the argument is divided into five parts (2–7). The second part of the study discusses the epic compositional frame of Twardowski’s work and his self-representation as a narrator of the poem about love struggles that is stylised as a story of war and displays didactic tendencies. The third part is devoted to the compositional frame of Remedia amoris, which places Ovid’s work within the convention of love didacticism. In addition, it revaluates the motifs of war and love presenting them as an illness and emphasizes the need for medicinal products, which are the subject of the elegy. In the fourth part of the study, the author reinterprets Pasqualina’s unfortunate love as a condition requiring treatment. Consequently, the fifth part is devoted to the comparison of how Twardowski and Ovid shaped this topos. Both suggest that one cannot get rid of love. It is only possible to immune oneself to love’s destructive influence by strengthening the forces of reason (firmitas mentis, “the other armed thought” – myśl insza uzbrojona, and the talisman of wisdom). In Ovid’s work, the journey is perceived only as a moving away from the source of love, which makes it possible to gain distance, while in Twardowski’s poem its didactic value and the need for self-improvement are also emphasized. The sixth and seventh parts of the paper concern the compositional role of related topoi of love as a disease and wandering as a cure. For Ovid, they are one of many remedia which he describes in his elegy, consistently striving for poetic fame (part six). Twardowski, in turn, uses them to shape the composition frame and fill it with an allegorical story about the need for self-improvement (part seven).
The conclusions of the analysis are presented in the summary (part eight). In both works, the journey has a therapeutic and didactic character and is connected with love understood as both war and illness. For Ovid, however, it is only a literary topos, while in the case of Pasqualina it enables Twardowski to shape the content and composition of a multidimensional allegorical work. As a typical elegiac motif, it co-shapes and enriches the genre form of Nadobna Pasqualina, which derives from the epic, and should not therefore be limited only to the heretofore accepted category of spiritual romance.