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Abstract

The paper focuses on Osip Mandelstam's Tristia cycle of poems, who proceeded to express the condition of a wronged person in the form of a lament, regret. The key principle of a poetic lament consisted in a contrast, which is why the authors of elegies opted for adopting a linear order, placing the consolatio as the final sequence. Mandelstam puts this linearity into question as an advocate of Bergson's notion of discontinuity of time, allowing to perceive a diversity of phenomena in their systemic manifestations as totally discrete, and yet – also in their wholeness. The linkage between the poet’s output and the philosophy of death, as revealed in Tristia, does not eliminate the notion of consolation, which reflects well Mandelstam's project of creating the language of joy, his vision of the world as a cultural whole, or his pet project of “universal domestication”. This is meant to shift attention to the so-called “things”, that may offer comfort derived from within the very act of experiencing beauty in its sensual dimension. The notion of gentleness is also essential, as it may well offer consolation as an indispensable component of being.

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Authors and Affiliations

Barbara Stawarz
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Abstract

This study is a research reconnaissance into the visual imagery in the poetry of Jan Kochanowski, Poland’s most talented poet before the Romantic Age. Although he was familiar with the technique of ekphrasis and took an interest in emblems, he seems to have been rather sparing in making use of visual potential of the poetic word. However, he does rely on the sense of sight in his epistemological refl ection concerning the problem of knowing God, aesthetics (the experience of beauty) and ethics (the visible order of the world as a guide to proper conduct). The eye also plays a major role in his descriptions of the human psychology, especially love. The sight has a special function in his Treny (Laments), a cycle of elegies written after the death of his baby daughter Urszula in 1579. While addressing the fundamental questions of life and death, Kochanowski draws on visual and aural imagery to convey the devastating pain felt by the father after the death of his beloved child and to question his earlier confi dence in man’s sovereign mind.

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Authors and Affiliations

Roman Krzywy
ORCID: ORCID

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