Cosmopoiesis Jana Kochanowskiego
Jan Kochanowski’s Cosmopoiesis

Summary/Abstract: Constructing his poetic world, Jan Kochanowski on the one hand acted as a typical Renaissance poeta faber pertaining to the figure of the demiurge from Plato’s “Timaeus,” while on the other hand he transgressed thus established frames. He ordered collections of his poems as architectural compositions referring to the tradition preserved in old textbooks in rhetoric, yet filled them with deeply hidden pieces of information about himself, in which, as a matter of fact, he followed the Christian God’s modus operandi. In doing so, he oftentimes took advantage of cryptological procedures used in the then diplomatic correspondence. The moment the world of words and values constructed in this way collapsed due to the poet’s personal experience, in “Treny (Laments)” he brought about its magic reintegration. Kochanowski also surpassed Plato’s demiurge in one more aspect. In his literary creativity he realised a peculiar act of auto-creation of which the description, employing alchemist symbolism, is found in the trifle “Do gór i lasów (To the Mountains and Forests)” (III 1).

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