Polish Poetry - I. THE MIDDLE AGES
Stanislaw Baranczak
0000-00-00I. THE MIDDLE AGES
As a consequence of Poland's adoption of Christianity in its Western in A.D. 966, Latin served as the dominant literary language for at least three centuries. Some oral folk poetry in Polish must have existed at this early stage, but nothing has been preserved in written form. Oddly enough, the first recorded poem in Polish is the most refined literary product of the entire medieval period. Bogurodzica (Mother of God) as anonymous religious hymn from the 13th century preserved in a 15th-century manuscripts, consists of two stanzas with a highly complex parallel construction and sophisticated verse structure.
Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, Polish poetry is characterized by a prevalence of religious topics. Within devotional poetry, the epic is still poorly represented: Legenda o sw. Aleksym (The Legend of Saint Alexis), e.g., is unexceptional verse hagiography, drawing on foreign sources and rather primitive in form. By contrast, devotional lyricism flourished in numerous Lenten and Easter songs, Christmas carols, and hymns to the Virgin, mostly adaptations from Latin. Some of these poems are quite innovative. Zale Matki Boskiej pod Krzyzem (Lament of the Mother of God at the Foot or the Cross), a first-person monologue forsakes allegorical commonplaces for an individualized point of view and emotional intensity Piesn o Mece Panskiej (Passion Song) represents an early attempt at syllabic regularity. As a rule, however, the verse structure of medieval Polish poetry is based on a loose system of relative syllabism, with uneven lines equal to clauses and approximate rhymes.
Secular Polish poetry of the Middle Ages, far less abundant, consists of poems and fragments written for various purposes with similarly various aesthetic results. Some of them are merely mnemonic devices, while others are didactic and satiric; there are several timid attempts at erotic poetry as well. The most interesting lay poem of the period is the 15th-century Rozmowa Mistrza Polikarpa ze Smiercia (A Dialoque between Master Policarpus and Death); one of many variations on the medieval theme of memento mori it stands out by virtue of its vivid, if macabre, imagery and humor.
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