This paper is the third part of a triptych that presents the publishing history of three Cracow reissues of 1619, 1620 and 1634 of a collection of Polish proverbs Proverbiorum Polonicorum […] centuriae decem et octo prepared by Salomon Rysiński. This section discusses the editorial work of Stanisław Serafin Jagodyński on the new Cracow edition of Rysiński’s 1620 collection, which, according to the wording of its title, was “corrected in many places”. 

Genre Characteristics of Romance

The study attempts to define the genre features of romance based on the currently available research findings, but also taking into account a broader perspective of different meanings which the term assumes both in Polish and in the main European languages. Wierzbicka refers to English studies, as well as to Polish studies because these two languages have developed a similar distinction between romance and novel. The basic assumption adopted in this paper concerns the equivocal use of this term in literary studies, which obscures the picture of the history of literature. Therefore, the history of the term is discussed, which has made it possible to distinguish six different meanings of the term. The first, oldest meaning is specific to the era in which it appeared (like many mediaeval terms), and concerns works written in Romanesque vernacular languages as opposed to mediaeval Latin. It is not a name of a genre. The second meaning has been distinguished in two variants. Generally, it refers to a literary genre that is characterised by an adventurous love story and a protagonist who on principle is a lover. Variants of romance include different textual forms: in the 16^th century, it was a poem of a specific narrative structure different from the epic, and in the 17^th century it was (mostly) prose. The third meaning begins to dominate in the 18^th century, and is an extension of the second meaning of the word “romance” in its second variant, namely, it covers all fictional prose of varied literary value. The fourth meaning was distinguished by English and Polish literary scholars of the second half of the 20^th century, who undertook the 18^th-century practice of juxtaposing “romance” and “novel”. They recognised “romance” as a heterogeneous epic form characterised by the extraordinary and fairy tale character of narrative fiction. The fifth meaning of the word “romance” refers to a lyrical genre. The sixth, contemporary meaning refers to popular literature, and specifically to a narrative genre that tells a love story. Each of these six meanings illuminates a different fragment of the literary reality. In this context, the question of which of them would be the most functional in literary research becomes all the more important. Wierzbicka argues that the second meaning, similar to the sixth meaning, will allow this term to be used with reference to all literature, without the risk of ambiguity. This is because the basic generic determinant of the second meaning coincides with the contemporary reading consciousness and today’s use of the word, and thus it has a practical dimension. The following were considered genre features of romance: love story, which can optionally abound in adventures; a specific construction of the hero or heroine as one in love; the narrative structure consisting of many actions concentrated around parallel characters; prosaic or verse form; entertainment function (formerly also didactic). Historical variants of the genre are also presented, including the mediaeval chivalric romance, comic-ironic romance, 17th-century romance, sentimental romance, realistic romance. The proposed definition also enables a new look at the historicoliterary reality, especially of the mediaeval and early-modern period, whose narrative works escape the existing nomenclature.

Mass before the Tribunal. The Personification of the Mass in the Polish Translation of Bernardino Ochino’s Dialogue in the Context of the European Reformation Literature of the First Half of the 16^th Century*

The first part of the paper is to introduce the main motif of Bernardino Ochino’s Trajedyja o Mszej (Tragedy on Mass) published in Polish translation in 1560. The work tells the story of a trial of the personified Mass indicted by figures that can be identified with the Reformation and the individuals engaged in it. The Author discusses the structure of this literary dialogue and describes briefly the characters involved in the plot with their polemical background (these include in particular personifications of the Mass, the Lord’s Supper, and the Roman Church, as well as figures of the Pope, Satan, Holy Spirit, and a metonymic protagonist named the Lover of God’s Glory). The second part presents the context of literary tradition, where Mass was personified for controversial purposes, mainly by authors connected with the Reformation. The motif of a personified Mass was probably introduced in Swiss pamphlets of the 1520s (Krankheit und Testament der Messe by Niklaus Manuel, Querela Missae by Johannes Atrocianus). The concept of accusing Mass of dishonesty and performing her trial was recognised as an innovation of English Protestant writings of the late 1540s (esp. William Punt’s and William Turner’s dialogues). The aforementioned texts are juxtaposed with Ochino’s dialogue to show the probable origins of the concept used in his text, as well as to specify additional motifs combined by him (and consequently the Polish translator). The similarities between Ochino’s work and the texts chosen, as well as Ochino’s connections with the places of publication of these texts, allow us to see them as part of a small yet consistent subtype of Protestant polemical writings, which Ochino chose to use and modify for controversial purposes.

* Praca naukowa finansowana ze środków budżetowych na naukę w latach 2017–2021 jako projekt badawczy w ramach programu „Diamentowy Grant”

“You Are Evidently Inferior Even to Beasts.” Zoomorphic Incarnations of Satan in Piotr Skarga’s The Lives of the Saints

The paper presents the animal incarnations of Satan in the The Lives of the Saints (Żywoty świętych) by Piotr Skarga. Animal motifs are not independent elements in this work, but only part of larger narrative entireties, so-called miracula, which have not yet been analysed. Scholars (H. Barycz, J. Tazbir) considered them elements that depreciated a monumental work of art. These views have been revised recently. Newer findings (by authors such as A. Kapuścińska, A. Ceccherelli, A. Nowicka- Jeżowa, K. Kiszkowiak) shed a slightly different light on the miraculous plots in The Lives of the Saints. However, even these researchers do not offer detailed analyses of miracula. On the contrary, they publish panoramic, comprehensive studies that usually present such texts in the context of a specific problem (e.g. the influence on the shape of post-Tridentine devotion). In this paper, Cybulska attempts to interpret animal motifs using the findings of the so-called Silesian school of micrology. This method seems appropriate as it involves focusing on detail. Moreover, as Aleksander Nawarecki stated, “The aspect of degradation, or rejection is important.” This is how miracula were perceived for a long time—as elements that diminish the value of The Lives of the Saints. Are miracular motifs, and specifically animal motifs present in them, irrelevant from the perspective of literary studies? This paper is intended to demonstrate that this is not the case. Although scattered in a large text and seemingly of little value to its interpretation, these motifs are in fact carriers of important content. They show how the nature and ontology of evil were understood and how the influence of evil on man was perceived in the epoch in which Lives were written.