BAROQUE by Michael J. Mikoś

The natural simplicity of Renaissance literature and its balance between content and form were gradually abandoned in the seventeenth century. Inspired by the visual arts and literary models from Italy, contemporary writers dispensed with the rigors of structure, introduced a variety of styles, and freely combined various genres. They often used elaborate language and fashioned sophisticated poetic figures, taking delight in complex metaphors, contrasts, and enumerations. Some poets, overly concerned with the refined form of expression, paid less attention to the intellectual content of their works.

The language which they had at their disposal was the mature vernacular. Latin was still used by poets, for example, by Maciej Sarbiewski, and prose writers, such as Starowolski and Kochowski, especially in historical works. Many writers indulged in 'macaronism,' a popular fashion which gradually turned into a mannerism, as they used Latin words and phrases to embellish the pages of their Polish texts, especially in memoirs and treatises. Yet even though Latin was taught at schools and understood by many educated people, the role of the native tongue, strengthened by the Reformation, became dominant.
Middle Polish was a refined instrument in the poet's hand. Not unlike English, which combined the speech of the Anglo-Saxons with diverse outside influences, mostly in the form of lexical borrowings, Polish kept adding to its Slavic core a variety of foreign loans. It absorbed many Latin words, for example, klasa 'class'; dedykacyja, 'dedication'; frukt 'fruit'; French kadet 'cadet'; dama 'dame'; biżuteria 'jewelry'; and Italian aria, balet, and opera. In constant contact with the Ruthenian and Ukrainian languages, which it enriched with many words, Polish borrowed from them, e.g., bohater 'hero'; druh 'friend'; and sioło 'village'. Military engagements with Tartary and Turkey brought other borrowings, to mention only karabela 'curved sword'; kindżał 'double-edged dagger'; and kulbaka 'saddle'.

In morphology, instead of three types of noun declensions, a distinction was established between the plural virile nouns (e.g., ci synowie 'these sons'), and the remaining nouns (e.g., te dziewczyny, 'these girls', te koty 'these cats', te domy 'these houses'). The dual form of the nouns and the old conditional forms of the verb gradually disappeared. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the lexical, morphological, and syntactic structure of Middle Polish took a form which was not much different from the Polish of today.

The breakdown of a uniform philosophy, caused by the Reformation and the Counter Reformation, brought about a conflict between the values of this world and those of the spiritual one. Baroque poets coped with a dramatic distinction between the visible and invisible world, attempting to determine man's choice and course in life. The themes of impermanence of our existence, of death, corrupt body, and sin were intermingled with the themes of splendors of the world and its pleasures, mostly of love, both profane and sacred, and presented in a series of ingenious contradictions.

Intense religious polemics continued to provide a creative impulse to Baroque poets and prose writers. Many of them, following Sęp Szarzyński and Sebastian Grabowiecki, grappled with profound religious questions. The conflict between antiquity and the spirit of Christianity became the main topic of Maciej Sarbiewski's Latin poetry. His interpretations and paraphrases of Horace's Odes, which brought him international popularity as a "Christian Horace," dealt with the divine presence manifested in the beauty of nature and with human yearnings for union with God. Sarbiewski extolled the happiness of monastic life, while in his patriotic songs he glorified his native Mazovia and his country.

Religious and patriotic themes were also dominant in the poems of Wespazjan Kochowski, who considered himself above all a propagator of faith. A soldier, poet, and historian who could write in a down to earth language as well as in an elaborate style, Kochowski felt that his role was to record historical events, inspire, and teach. His major work, A Polish Psalmody, written in melodious biblical prose, dealt with the central question posed by metaphysical poetry, namely the meaning of human existence. Some of the psalms propagated Sarmatian beliefs about the unique role of the Polish nation.

Recurrent themes of man's constant struggle on this earth and of the redeeming power of pious love found expression in Zbigniew Morsztyn's cycle of Emblems, modelled on Latin, Spanish, and French paraphrases of the Song of Songs. A prevailing motif of these devotional poems was a love dialogue between the Bride and the Bridegroom. Biblical inspiration permeated the lyrical poetry of Stanisław Lubomirski, author of the Poems of Lent, who made verse adaptations of Ecclesiastes, and who paraphrased in twelve songs the books of Tobias, presenting the story of a young Tobias as a historical romance.

Many seventeenth century poets and prose writers followed in the footsteps of medieval annalists and chroniclers, showing a lively interest in history. The artistic stimulus was provided by Piotr Kochanowski's translation of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, which for many years served as a model and best representation of the epic poem in Polish literature. This story of Christian heroism during the first crusade (1096-1099) found a receptive audience in Poland, engaged in the protracted war with Turkey. The glorious military deeds of the Polish soldiers were faithfully recorded and extolled in poetry and prose.

It was the diary of Jakub Sobieski, a leading participant in the war against Turkey and father of King Jan Sobieski, which Wacław Potocki used in his War of Chocim to recreate the historical background, describe the progress of events, and recount the victory of the Polish army under Hetman Jan Chodkiewicz in the battle of 1621. Writing "for the immortal glory of the Polish nation," Potocki contrasted in his epic narrative heroic scenes from the battle of Chocim with satirical descriptions of his effeminate contemporaries, moralizing about the harmful influence of the noblemen of privilege on the state of the republic.

The wars with Muscovy and Sweden found a perceptive chronicler in Samuel Twardowski, who wrote also about his journey to Turkey. His long narrative The Civil War with the Cossacks and Tartars, Muscovy, Afterwards With Sweden and Hungary combined vivid scenes based on eye-witness accounts with numerous facts and documents pertaining specially to the embattled south-eastern regions of Poland during the Chmielnicki uprising. Kochowski's four volumes of Latin Annales Poloniae, dedicated to King Jan Sobieski, covered the same events during the reigns of King Jan Kazimierz and King Michał Wiśniowiecki. Szymon Starowolski described in The Perfect Knight the ideal Christian soldier who selflessly serves his country, defends the faith, and strives for moral uprightness, while in his Sarmatian Warriors he portrayed brave kings and military commanders from Poland's past. Hetman Stanisław Źółkiewski, one of the valiant generals described by Starowolski, was the author of the memoirs entitled Beginning and Progress of the Muscovy War, a succinct description of his campaigns and diplomatic activity. In his voluminous correspondence to his wife, Jan Sobieski recounted major events and political developments from the period between 1665 and 1683.

Military activities of the average nobleman also became a subject of literary interest. Participants of war campaigns transformed their experiences and reminiscences into poems or recorded them in diaries and memoirs. Zbigniew Morsztyn, who fought in the Cossack and Swedish wars and was imprisoned by the Swedes, wrote a plaintive Song of Captivity, as well as the epitaph for Paweł Morsztyn, killed in the 1652 battle at Batoh. The same battle, in which the Polish troops were defeated by Tartars and Cossacks, inspired Kochowski to commemorate his fallen comrades in a moving poem A Monument to the Brave Soldiers. All these works strengthened the Sarmatian spirit of patriotism, piety, and heroism.

The most vivid and revealing description of the soldier's lot, indeed of the common nobleman's life in that period, was compiled by Jan Pasek in his Memoirs. A lively self-portrait of a garrulous and headstrong man showed Pasek with sword in hand during a victorious campaign under the famous commander Stefan Czarniecki against the Swedish troops in Denmark, then enjoying domestic life, then as a participant in rowdy activities at social functions and public assemblies.

Political life was treated frequently, although not profoundly, in literature. A spirit of reform, carried over from the sixteenth century, found expression in a series of treatises by Starowolski, who criticized in Reform of Polish Customs the shortcomings of public life and sounded the tone of patriotic alarm in his poetic homily Lament of the Distressed Mother, the Polish Crown. Łukasz Opaliński called in A Conversation Between a Parson and a Country-squire for drastic changes of the government, most urgently for the strengthening of the royal power and for regulation of the workings of the Sejm. His brother Krzysztof Opaliński, author of a collection of fifty vituperative Satires, mixed indignant judgments of society with keen observations and warnings concerning Poland's political and economic future.

The different types of seventeenth century literature were displayed in a variety of genres and styles. Next to the popular epic poem, the romance, mostly of French origin, became fashionable at the Court and among the aristocracy. Twardowski's Daphne Changed Into a Laurel Tree, its theme taken from mythology, and Fair Pasqualina, a poem of adventure paraphrased from the Spanish, as well as Lubomirski's comedy Ermida or The Shepherdess Princess, were the best known adaptations. The drama, which in its classical variety was practiced in the Jesuit and Protestant school theatres, was staged mostly in the form of comic interludes, as for example, the amusing story of Peasant Into King by Piotr Baryka, and during liturgical celebrations, most often showing Christ's birth and death.

The growth of poetic forms was best manifested in the development of the epigram, which was modelled on Kochanowski's Trifles. These short occasional poems, descriptive or satirical, melancholy or humorous, written by erudite poets and rhymesters, provide a valuable source of information about public events and local incidents, about people of various ranks and their daily affairs. Some of these trifles were mere anecdotes, others, in the fashion of popular coffin portraits, took the form of epitaphs extolling virtues of the deceased. Wacław Potocki's two anthologies, Moralia and A Garden of Trifles, varied in style and tone, contained thousands of spontaneous poems revealing with vividness and realism the country life and customs of the gentry. Similar vignettes were drawn by Kochowski, the author of Polish Epigrams, and by Hieronim Morsztyn in his Compendium. Equally popular were the collections of poetry and diaries kept by many noblemen in their homes. These private anthologies, called Silva rerum, contained memoirs, documents, and poetic texts, preserved by the families and read for pleasure. Even more common were the texts of medieval tradition circulated by vagrants and itinerant actors. These satires and parodies mocked the moral norms and served to entertain the lower classes.

It was, however, the court poems of Jan Andrzej Morsztyn that exemplified best the poetic art of the mature Baroque. A translator of Giambattista Marino's poems praising worldly pleasures and Corneille's Le Cid, Morsztyn excelled as a poet of love and moral subtleties, to a great degree because of his virtuosity of language and masterly technique. His intricate verses, filled with color and light, were embellished with flowery ornamentations and elaborate metaphors.

Morsztyn often employed a conceit--a figure of speech which establishes a striking parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or situations. In the sonnet To a Corpse, a dramatic monologue addressed to the dead, a complaining lover compares and contrasts death and love. He describes physical facts and inner turmoil. The dead is immune to any sensations, while the narrator suffers profound spiritual and psychological pain. The bold conceit serves to exaggerate the misfortunes, suggesting that it is better to be dead than to suffer from the pangs of unrequited love.

Another sonnet, The Wonders of Love is a story of a gradual dependence on deceptive emotions, which are inflamed by increasingly stronger passions. The narrator becomes unable to satisfy his desires, as he finds himself emotionally starved. But it is when he turns to his beloved and begins to sing her beauty, as he does in the lines To the Same Lady, that the poet composes with flair the intricate verses of Baroque court poetry:

Your eyes are not eyes, but suns that shine bright,

In whose glow all reason must lose its light;

Your lips are not lips, but rosy coral,

Which capture every sense by their color;

Your breasts are not breasts, but a pure design

From heaven, which our will in chains confine;

Thus the eyes, lips, breasts, blind, bind, and confine

Reason, sense, will with glow, color, design.

Printed source: Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to the End of the Eighteenth Century. A Bilingual Anthology, by Michael J. Mikoś, Warsaw: Constans, 1999.