Volume 27, Issue 1 (74)

2025

Publication date: 21.07.2025

Description

The publication was funded by the Faculty of Polish Studies under the Strategic Program Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.

Cover Design: Paweł Sepielak

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Editorial team

Issue Editors dr hab. Michał Czerenkiewicz, mgr Karolina Grzybczak

Issue content

Od Redakcji

Karolina Grzybczak, Michał Czerenkiewicz

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. VII-VIII

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.001.21685

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Editors' Note

Karolina Grzybczak, Michał Czerenkiewicz

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. IX-X

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Articles

Fabulae de Arthuro: Sir John Prise (d. 1555), Early Arthurian Chroniclers and “Superfluous Fables” (John Leland)

William C. McDonald

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. 1-30

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.002.21686

The Tudor historian and senior government official Sir John Prise wrote Historiae Britannicae Defensio (published posthumously in 1573), one of the last defenses of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and with it the long‑rejected Trojan foundation myth of Britain and the historicity of King Arthur. This historian promises to eliminate fabulas de Arthuro from the biography of Arthur, but never fully explains what these fictions contain. We learn that Prise is one of many Arthurian chroniclers who 1) acknowledge the existence of fictional elements in the recorded history of King Arthur, 2) do not describe these fictions in detail, and 3) promise to remove fictional material from the king’s true history.

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Jan Damascen Kaliński’s Epic Poem on the Battle of Vienna and the Ekphrasis in Books 5–8

Florian Schaffenrath

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. 31-56

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.003.21687

As many other Neo‑Latin epic poems, Jan Damascen Kaliński’s Viennis (Warsaw 1717), which describes the second siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683, contains a detailed ekphrasis. Here, however, it is not a work of fine art, such as a relief or a tapestry, but a book that attracts the attention of the epic’s hero, the Polish King John III Sobieski: at the end of Book 4, on his way to Vienna, Sobieski stops at Juliusburg Castle and is presented with a book by his host. For an entire night, the king is engaged in reading in the course of four books, finishing at the beginning of the ninth book and returning to his task. This paper deals with an interpretation of this ekphrasis as a whole, and in particular with the question of the significance of using a book rather than a work of art.

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„Medyczna pikareska XVII wieku”. Elementy powieści łotrzykowskiej w Discursos medicinales Juana Méndeza Nieto

Katarzyna Płaczek‑Kaszyńska

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. 57-73

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.004.21688

The article deals with the only work by Juan Méndez Nieto that survived until today, namely his Discursos medicinales, edited between 1606 and 1609. The text stands out from the medical literature of the first half of the seventeenth century: it is a vast collection of detailed clinical cases from a period spanning more than five decades of medical practice in Spain and the New World, accompanied by an extensive formulary, and at the same time an exciting story of a doctor driven by a desire to gain fame and recognition. The reflections presented in the article focus on the literary aspects of the work, in particular on the features that bring it close to the conventions of the picaresque novel, an issue that did not garner much scholarly attention in previous research on Discursos medicinales. As Méndez Nieto is almost unknown to the Polish reader, the first part of the article presents a brief overview of the most important biographical facts and discloses the reasons why the text appeared in print in its entirety only at the end of the twentieth century. This is followed by a discussion of the way in which the author constructs a story about himself, focusing on the means used to make his account credible and, thus, to achieve the effect of honesty typical of the picaresque novel. The considerations presented in the article lead to the conclusion that, regardless of whether Méndez Nieto has consciously resorted to narrative strategies typical of this genre, their main function in Discursos medicinales is to fictionalize autobiographical discourse.

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Arte de Trovar, czyli jedyna galicyjska średniowieczna poetyka. Analiza i przekład

Jakub Merdała

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. 75-114

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.005.21689

This article aims to discuss the most important issues, techniques and stylistic devices characteristic of medieval Galician‑Portuguese lyricism concerning the only surviving treatise on poetics from this cultural area, known as Arte de Trovar. The article concludes with the first translation of the treatise into Polish, which is also its second complete translation into a modern language. The translation is based on the editions of the treatise that have been published so far, both critical and palaeographical. The interpretations by particular scholars (Monaci, d’Heur, Paxeco Machado and Machado and Tavani) are analysed and placed in the broader context of contemporary research on Galician‑Portuguese lyricism.
The article begins with a brief description of the manuscript itself and a presentation of basic information on the condition of the copy, the time of the treatise’s composition and its authorship. Next, the structure of the treatise, the division into individual parts, and a general characterisation of the definitions presented in it are provided in a succinct form. The main part is a detailed description of particular techniques and formal‑stylistic devices used by the troubadours, which remain unknown to the Polish researchers more widely: palavra perduda, cantiga atehuda, finda, dobre and mozdobre. Each concept is discussed both in the context of the poetics itself and in relation to contemporary definitions and their understanding. They are also approached from an Occitan‑Galician comparative perspective, as some of the techniques were used on both sides of the Pyrenees, with minor differences specific to each of the troubadour schools. For this reason, the Occitan‑Catalan poetics are also an important point of reference: Leys d’Amors, Doctrina de compondre dictats and the two treatises from Ripoll. In addition, three problematic genres mentioned by the author of the poetics, not attested in the Galician‑Portuguese corpus (as most contemporary criticism maintains), are also discussed in the article: cantiga de joguete d’arteiro, cantiga de risabelha, cantiga de vilãos. The article also presents hypotheses on the possible interpretation of the meaning of those terms based on the current state of research and the author’s observations.

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Editions and Translations

Sztuka komponowania pieśni. Przekład Jakuba Merdały

Jakub Merdała

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. 115-128

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.006.21690

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De lumine Marsilia Ficina – wprowadzenie do lektury i przekład

Paulina Piotrowska

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. 129-149

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.007.21691

This article consists of two parts. The first one is a short introduction to Ficino’s minor original work from 1492 and sheds some light on the circumstances under which the Renaissance text was written. A political and cultural background is outlined so as to give a better understanding of why such a subject had been approached by the author at that time.
The second part of the paper is a Polish translation of Ficino’s treatise on the light. However, it includes only the excerpts which had been added to the first version pertaining to the mystery of light entitled Quid sit lumen and written by Ficino in 1476. The Polish version of that last treatise was published almost a year prior to this article in a book Budujący mosty. Jerzy Prokopiuk i jego oddziaływanie kulturotwórcze [Pontifex: Jerzy Prokopiuk and his culture‑forming impact], Gdańsk 2024.
The passages enriching the 1476 treatise to be found in this paper reflect the thoughts of the authors translated by Ficino over the course of sixteen years (Plotinus, Iamblichus, Pseudo‑Dionysius the Areopagite, etc.). At the same time, the text itself is not aimed to belabour mathematical axiomata, but is to enable the reader, through the contemplation of light, to return to his homeland. The light visible to the eyes is only a means to redirect the reader’s attention to the invisible light with the help of its vehicle—transparency. Light is the bond of the universe (vinculum universi) in its great chain of being and imitates God. Finally, light is given to those blessed for ever and ever (as Daniel says), so that they can recognize one another.
Enriched with necessary footnotes, the translation seems to represent an important example of Italian Renaissance Neoplatonic thought.

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Review

Albion Calling: The Reception of British Religious and Educational Literature in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Mirosława Hanusiewicz-Lavallee, The Call of Albion: Protestants, Jesuits, and British Literature in Poland–Lithuania, 1567–1775, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2024 (Jesuit Studies, vol. 45), pp. 468

Waldemar Kowalski

Terminus, Volume 27, Issue 1 (74), 2025, pp. 151-156

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.008.21692

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Files to download

Title and imprint pages PDF Table of Contents PDF

Słowa kluczowe: King Arthur, fiction, fabula, historia, veritas as historiographical principle, early Latin chronicle, historiography, Trojan founding myth of Britain, early modern historiography, baroque epic poetry, Jan Damascen Kaliński, NeoLatin, ekphrasis, narratology, autobiography, autofiction, Discursos medicinales, Juan Méndez Nieto, history of Spanish medicine, Renaissance medicine, picaresque novel, Arte de Trovar, troubadours, Occitan troubadours, Galician-Portuguese lyric, Medieval poetry, Medieval treatise, palavra perduda, dobre, cantiga atehuda, finda, Marsilio Ficino, light (lumen, lux), Renaissance Neoplatonism

Funding information

The publication was funded by the Faculty of Polish Studies under the Strategic Program Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.