Czytanie Tassa - Kochanowskiego w kręgu poetów radziwiłłowskich w XVII wieku

Abstract

One of the first traces of the reception of Tasso’s work in Poland is a poem by Olbrycht Karmanowski extolling Piotr Kochanowski’s translation of the Gerusalemme liberata. In his review of the epic the Arian poet offered a competent and matter—of—-fact comment, pointing, amomg other things, to the characteristic embellishment of the translation, its current ideological message and the value of battle scenes. By bringing up the „daughters of Mnemosyne”, that is to say Muses, which he made Kochanowski’s principal patronesses, Karmanowski alluded — perhaps in a polemic manner — to the invocation of Gofred, which glorified the Virgin Mary rather than antique goddesses. In the circle of poets writing under the patronage of the Birże Radziwiłłs, who supported Protestantism in Lithuania, we come across also other traces of the reception of Tasso’s epic. Jerzy' Szlichtyng in the Pieśń o królu Władysławie IV, relating military triumphs of the Polish monarch, offered very realistic descriptions of the battle —scenes and battle—field which bring into mind associations with the relevant passages of the Gerusalemme liberata. That Daniel Naborowski was a connoisseur of Italian literature can be confirmed by his translations and stylistic allusions to Tasso’s epic. The Radziwiłłs are likely to have read Piotr Kochanowski’s translation, which is suggested by Mikołaj Sierotka’s, their relative, famous pilgrimage to the Holy Land or their own interest in history. Choosing their reading matter they were not motivated by the „dissimilarity of worship”, but they were willing to read also eminent „catholic” literary works.