Aleksander Minor's "The Description of Witów": on 'coding the world in Baroque literature Cover Image

Opisanie Witowa Aleksandra Minora: o „kodowaniu świata” w literaturze baroku
Aleksander Minor's "The Description of Witów": on 'coding the world in Baroque literature

Author(s): Agnieszka Łapajska
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
Keywords: silva rerum; edition; Aleksander Minor; nobleman poetry; rhetoric

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyses previously unknown poem, published by Agnieszka Niewiadomska in the“Melusina” (2015, no. 1), from a handwritten silva rerum by Aleksander Minor – cupbearer (cześnik)of Chełm and the author of various texts, mostly occasional texts. “The Description of Witów”(Opisanie Witowa) is a panegyric piece, praising the former mansion in Witów (Lesser Poland region). The paper attempts to establish the historical, cultural, and literary (especially in the rhetorical tradition and nobleman poetry topics aspects) contexts of the poem. The juxtapositionof literary conventions with reality known from archives and on-site research allows to post a question concerning the methods and capabilities of recording reality in literature ofthe second half of the 17th century. The discovery of Minor’s poem is also a contribution to reflecton the legitimacy of researching on non-remarkable texts, which value for literary history is based not only on the quality of literary features.

  • Issue Year: 3/2015
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 95-104
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Polish