Semiotics of Old Age in Polish Neo-Latin Poetry. Samboritanus, Cochanovius, Treter, Sarbievius, Ines

Elwira Buszewicz

doi:10.14746/sppgl.2017.xxvii.2.7

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to analyze several early-modern Neo-Latin poems written by Polish authors; the poems deal (in different ways) with old age. The poets undertake a kind of intertextual game with the reader, applying various stereotypes and clichés. On can speak about a “semiotic landscape” of old age. The authors taken into consideration are Jan Kochanowski, Grzegorz of Sambor, Thomas Treter (16th century) and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Albert Ines (17th century).

Highlights

The main aim of this paper is to analyze several early-modern Neo-Latin poems written by Polish authors; the poems deal with old age
The authors taken into consideration are Jan Kochanowski, Grzegorz of Sambor, Thomas Treter (16th century) and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Albert Ines (17th century)
Before I pass to my particular subject, I feel obliged to explain what kind of semiotics I mean

Summary

Nec requiem tantis posset habere malis?

[Could she live forever in this poor condition? / Could she always weep for her loss? For the loss of her family? / Would she never find relief from these miseries?]. Treter finds his greatest glory in having supported Hosius in his old age (“nos senis optimi /...molle latus famulante dextra / suffulciebamus”); he regrets that living in Rome he is not able to do it for his own father He only commends him to God and addresses to him the final admonition, evoking the Horatian semiotic landscape: Felix senectam ducito candidam, Permitte Christo cetera, qui simul. As regards Albert Ines, Sarbiewski’s younger Jesuit fellow-brother and his imitative, but independent follower, he engages in multi-level intertextual games with his great predecessor, expressing the same ideas in other words, assuming a melancholy tone and creating a misty-foggy semiotic landscape His ode 53 (Ad Franciscum Rubium) seems to repeat the message of Sarbiewski’s Lyr 2.2: Qua quisque est genitus die Illa mortis iter capit [...] Et quidqiuid puero temporis additur, Vitae detrahitur suae. The poets often borrow patterns from Horace or Ovid, either combining their language and imagery or transforming their lexical structures and adapting them to some new ideological purposes

Primary sources

Secondary sources