Terminus Volume 26 Issue 1 (70)

2024

Publication date: 12.07.2024

Description

Cover design: Paweł Sepielak

The publication of this volume was financed by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Faculty of Polish Studies.

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Editorial team

Editor-in-Chief dr hab., prof. UJ Grażyna Urban-Godziek

Assistant Editor dr hab. Wojciech Ryczek

Issue Editor dr hab. Michał Czerenkiewicz

Issue content

Research papers

Concerning Veritas as an Early Historiographic and Editorial Principle. The Reception of the Arthuriana of abbot Trithemius (d. 1516) in the Latin Glosses of Richard White of Basingstoke (d. 1611)

William C. McDonald

Terminus, Volume 26, issue 1 (70) 2024, 2024, pp. 1-18

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.24.001.19704

In his multi-volume Historiarum Britanniae libri xi (1597–1607), the English Catholic scholar Richard White of Basingstoke promotes an anachronistic vision of the founding and history of Britain that challenges the analytical and source critical Anglicae historiae libri xxvi (1534ff.) of Polydore Vergil (1534ff.). White, seeking support for his historiographical enterprise, adopts two brief accounts of the life and achievements of King Arthur by the notorious abbot Trithemius (d. 1516), then makes editorial interventions, including repositioning and textual glosses. Veritas is White’s leading historiographical principle, as expressed, for example, when he claims to be able to distinguish between truth and the fabulous in these Arthurian texts by Trithemius. The difficulty—and the irony—are that White, as editor, imposes an unverifiable ethos of veracity upon Trithemius’ Arthuriana. White and Trithemius do concur, in general, on the historicity of King Arthur and the credibility of both the Historia regum Britanniae (circa 1136) of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Trojan foundational myth promoted therein.

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Nowołacińskie heroidy jezuickie. Mutacje i metamorfozy

Elwira Buszewicz

Terminus, Volume 26, issue 1 (70) 2024, 2024, pp. 19-42

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.24.002.19705

The aim of the text is to describe the varieties and transformations of the literary genre inspired by Ovid’s Heroides, which occurred in Jesuit works in the early modern period (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) within a specific geographical area, i.e. especially in Germany and the Netherlands. These considerations are preceded by a short reflection on Christian heroides created by humanist authors in the sixteenth century.

The paper discusses mainly volumes covering entire collections containing numerous sacrae heroides and also presents some illustrative examples. The most important authors for the implementation of the genre are presented: Jakob Bidermann, Jean Vincart and Jakob Balde, as well as (more briefly) Balduin Cabillavius.

The concepts of each collection and their ideological dominants are discussed. The analyses are complemented by fragments of some elegies quoted in the original along with the Polish translation made by the author.

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„Kolacyja przyjacielska” Jakuba Niemojewskiego z jezuitami poznańskimi – glosa terminologiczna

Wojciech Ryczek

Terminus, Volume 26, issue 1 (70) 2024, 2024, pp. 43-60

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.24.003.19706

Ultimately unsuccessful attempts to organize a public dispute with the Jesuits from Poznań in 1574–1575 forced Jakub Niemojewski (d. 1586), a vigorous reformer and talented orator, to write and publish “diatribe or friendly discussion” (“diatribe albo kolacyja przyjacielska”) in 1577. Due to a Jesuit intervention, to whom the first pages of the printed text were given, the publication was immediately suspended. They had the printer’s workshop destroyed, he was sentenced to whipping in the pillory, and the books were finally burnt. Despite the fact that only over a dozen pages of the text have survived, it may be interesting for historians of rhetoric for at least two reasons. Firstly, it is associated with the beginnings of anti-Jesuit literature in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, written to confine increasing influences of this expansive religious order. Secondly, it may be treated as an intriguing case of debate on the art of debate or negotiating the initial conditions for public dispute, which reveal significant differences in the understanding of its nature, form, and purpose.

Taking into account this meta-rhetorical dimension of Niemojewski’s polemic, the paper aims at specifying the meaning of the title term “discussion” (“kolacyja”) as a semantic equivalent of “diatribe” in three interrelated contexts: art of argumentation (collatio argumentorum), Erasmian model of polemic on theological questions (collatio Erasmiana), and a topos of “friendly” discourse (collatio amica).

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„Wieczność wlać w granice małe”. Remigiusza Suszyckiego (1642–1705) wizja zaświatów

Krzysztof Prabucki

Terminus, Volume 26, issue 1 (70) 2024, 2024, pp. 61-93

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.24.004.19707

The aim of this study is to characterise Pieśni nabożne by Remigiusz Suszycki and to reflect on the vision of the hereafter presented in this poetic cycle. Pieśni nabożne were first printed in 1697 by the print house of Franciszek Cezary the Younger in Kraków. They were subsequently reprinted and supplemented in 1700 and 1702. The collection is internally diverse. The third part, collectively titled Świat górny, contains two genres of works: songs and echoes. On close reading, it is possible to recognise Remigiusz Suszycki’s literary strategy, which consisted in juxtaposing songs and echoes, creating a form of dialogue between two subjects in two corresponding works.

The dialogue that takes place between the two pieces is intended to highlight two different perspectives – the earthly one (representing the human viewpoint) and the heavenly one (showing the vision of the heavenly intelligences). The whole is tied together by an idea related to the tradition of negative theology: throughout Świat górny, unscientific faith is valued positively, while the attitude of man possessing uncertain knowledge is valued negatively, against the background of man’s intellectual achievements in the field of natural science presented in the work. These observations also allow us to present the profile of a little-known author, namely Remigiusz Suszycki. A fuller characterisation of Pieśni nabożne also fills a gap in research on late Baroque religious poetry.

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Reviews and analyses

Późnośredniowieczne vademecum na temat Turków i jego wydania. Recenzja edycji: Nicolaus Secundinus = Mikołaj Sekundinus, Liber de familia Autumanorum, id est Turchorum = O pochodzeniu Turków osmańskich, wydanie, przekład z języka łacińskiego, wstęp i komentarz Mieczysław Mejor, Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich PAN. Wydawnictwo, 2023 (Bibliotheca Litterarum Medii Aevi. Opera, 8), ss. 80

Piotr Tafiłowski

Terminus, Volume 26, issue 1 (70) 2024, 2024, pp. 95-98

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.24.005.19708

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Title and Editorial Pages PDF Table of Contents PDF Editor’s Note PDF

Słowa kluczowe: King Arthur, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Johannes Trithemius, Richard White of Basingstoke, Polydore Vergil, Troy, British mythic history, early editorship, early modern intellectual history, early modern history writing, reception of Arthuriana, angelology, veritas as historiographical principle, Neo-Latin literature, Jesuit poetry, Heroides sacrae, Jakob Bidermann, Jean Vincart, Jakob Balde, Balduinus Cabillavius, Jakub Niemojewski, Jakub Wujek, Erasmus of Rotterdam, anti-Jesuit literature, rhetoric, diatribe, polemic, echo, song, apophatic theology, religious poetry, late baroque

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