O siedemnastowiecznym kazaniu maryjnym Columba gemens et dolens... Sylwestra Rodkiewicza

Abstract

Sylwester Rodkiewicz’s Columba gemens et dolens... is the occasional sermon from the second half of the seventeenth century, preached on the day when the indulgence was applied, the celebration day of the Suff ering Virgin Mary. Due to the question if a printed text can be treated as a recorded form of the preaching appearance, in the article, the expected function of the printed work was defi ned as well as the composition of the piece was analysed. A part of the article was devoted to the description of rhetorical operations used by the preacher, the role of which was to lead to the main achievement – a persuasive aim (the encouragement to the passion piety, following the model of cosuff ering Virgin Mary). Th ese operations included the construction of vivid statements and the introduction of preachable conceits. Th e conceit based on a metaphor presented in the title, played also an important role as an element infl uencing the shape of extensive passages of the sermon. Th e analysis of the work confi rms the thesis concerning the dependence between the sermon-conceit and the emblematic form. Th e audience is infl uenced both by the conceit and the emblem, which is based on the same mechanism – in the course of the disquisition, the presence of the connection between initially contradictory elements is shown.