S5E3 and all video recordings are available on our YouTube.

Encounters with Polish Literature is a video series for anyone interested in literature and the culture of books and reading. Each month, host David A. Goldfarb will present a new topic in conversation with an expert on that author or book or movement in Polish literature. More about the Encounters with Polish Literature series and the timeline.

The Renaissance in Poland takes place largely in the sixteenth century when medieval manifestations of native West Slavic culture and poetic language meet the modern cosmopolitan humanist culture of Europe at large through the universal language of Latin. Italian scholars, architects, and artists come to Poland, particularly during the reign of Queen Bona Sforza and Zygmunt I August, but as early as the late fifteenth century with the arrival of Filippo Buonaccorsi, known as “Callimachus,” who served as a tutor and diplomat in the courts of King Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk and Jan I, and imported classical literature as well. Poles are studying in Padua and Bologna, serving in legations to the Vatican, corresponding with Erasmus, participating in the Reformation, and traveling to Spain, France, and Holland. Poland had a number of important neolatin poets during this era who influenced poetic form in the vernacular language of Polish.

The most significant poet who wrote in both Latin and Polish during this time was Jan Kochanowski, best known for the Laments or Threnodies for his young daughter Urszula, and implicitly for his daughter Hannah, both of whom died in childhood, and for his play arguing for the virtues of the Polish democracy of the gentry, The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys.

In this episode, the fiftieth episode of “Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature” we begin with an overview of some of the key poets of the Polish Renaissance, paying special attention to Mikołaj Hussowczyk whose “Song of the Bison” has recently been published in a critical translation in English, and also to Mikołaj Sęp-Szarzyński, a metaphysical poet who represents the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Then we focus on Kochanowski’s two major works.

Jan Kochanowski and the Renaissance in Poland, recommended sources in English Translation and additional background:

Samuel Fishman, ed. The Polish Renaissance in its European Context. Foreword by Czesław Miłosz. PIASA. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. [Best obtained at a research library or through interlibrary loan]

Nicolaus Hussovianus. Song of the Bison. Ed. and tr., Frederick J. Booth. Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2019.

Jan Kochanowski. The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys, tr. with intro and commentary by Barry Keane. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Sub Lupa, 2018. [Best obtained at a research library or through interlibrary loan, but in need of republication]

Jan Kochanowski. Grief – Anger – Acceptance: Jan Kochanowski’s Threnodies. Tr. with intro and notes by Barry Keane. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Sub Lupa, 2016. [Best obtained at a research library or through interlibrary loan, but in need of republication]

Jan Kochanowski. Laments, a bilingual edition. Tr. Stanisław Barańczak and Seamus Heaney. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995. Also, a British edition.

Jan Kochanowski. “Threnodies” and “The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys.” Tr. with introduction and commentary by Barry Keane. Katowice: Biblioteka Śląska, 2001. (These translations have been updated in the 2016 and 2018 editions discussed in the episode). [Best obtained at a research library or through interlibrary loan]

Jan Kochanowski. Treny: The Laments of Kochanowski. Tr. Adam Czerniawski. Foreword bz Donald Davie. Ed. and Annotated by Piotr Wilczek. Studies in Comparative Literature 6. Oxford: Legenda, 2001. [Best obtained at a research library or through interlibrary loan]

Harold Segel. Renaissance Culture in Poland: The Rise of Humanism, 1470-1543. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Barry Keane is a Professor in Comparative Studies in the Institute of English Studies at the University of Warsaw. He has written widely in the fields of Classical Tradition, Irish (particularly James Joyce in recent years) and Scottish literature, and Polish literature, and his book publications include Polish-to-English translated and critical editions of Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski (2018) and the Baroque poetess Anna Stanisławska (2016, 2021, due 2025) for Iter Press. He has also written: Irish Drama in Poland. Staging and Reception (2016) for Intellect Ltd., and bibliographical monographs on the Polish Renaissance and the Polish Baroque for Oxford Bibliographies.

David A. Goldfarb, Host & Producer
Bartek Remisko, Curator and Executive Producer
Natalia Iyudin, Producer