The subject-matter of the work is letters and epilogues in Gesta by the so called Gallus Anonymus, especially topics they present. The author builds a multi-coloured series of topics on the basis of his own cultural awareness with very blurred references to social realities. Thus, the most important role is given to those places in Gesta which overcome or do not respect conventions and relatively change attitude towards them. A discussion on Gallus Anonymus intensified in the last decade, loses a lot without being re-recognised generally speaking, the sphere of literary conventions or topics. The main obstacle in clear-cut and reliable findings concerning intended and factual reception of Gesta can be noticed in conventions used that were often treated by interpreters as a social reality while all statements formulated by Gall cannot be literally treated.

The subject-matter of the article constitutes a small fragment of the proloque to Chronicle by Master Wincenty, called Kadłubek (approx. 1150–1223), namely scribendi cathetes so far identified with Juvenal’s Greek, that is the expression scribendi cacoethes, known from the seventh satire (VII 52) of the Roman poet. In this philological study, the author of the article questions the findings reached by predecessors and points to the possibility of borrowing a quotation from works by John of Salisbury, a poem entitled Entheticus de dogmate philosophorum (Entheticus maior) or one of the letters addressed to William Briton. In order to accept this hypothesis, the author pays attention to other textual similarities between the Chronicle of the Polish historian and works written by the English writer, especially a treatise called Policraticus. The analogies point to the possibility of using the works by John of Salisbury, and, what is more, constitute a starting point for further considerations on biography and intellectual formation of Master Wincenty. In the last part of the article, the author paid attention to a relative popularity and topicality of Juvenal’s Greek in the Polish and European literature from the 14th to the 20th century, starting from Francesco Petrarca and finishing with Zenon Przesmycki.

Paszkowski’s writing desire derives from the following reasons: his willingness to satisfy the material needs (Paszkowski was a writer), fulfill a public mission via informing the society about momentous current events and educating the society within the civic and religious spheres (Paszkowski is an Old-Polish moralist). His artistic programme in which he gave reasons for his literary activity, was formulated most clearly in Zamknienie do łaskawego Czytelnika supplementing Dzieje tureckie. The reason why the author took this literary effort is not an internal obligation not supported by external factors. On the contrary, the poet took up and conducted a literary activity under the influence of circumstances, and impulses coming from the world. The main motive of writing was worrying about the good of not only the citizens, but also all inhabitants of the Republic of Poland.

Stanisław Samuel Szemiot (about 1657–1684) is an author of Sumariusz wierszów, a collection written between 1674 and 1684, characterized by a big genre and thematic heterogeneity. The collection includes didactic, religious, occasional and satirical works, as well as epigrams, aphorisms, songs or rhymed narrative samples. One of the topics dealt with by the poet is a meta-literary one. As early as in first works of his Sumariusz, Szemiot presents his poetic programme and declares originality. A poet in the act of writing is, according to him, unlimited, and creates for his own pleasure, waiting for neither approval or disapproval on the part of his readers. Poetry, on the other hand, even the lowest one, is a way for being inscribed into the history. One should make it clear here that “writing for oneself” means writing literature for one’s own use. The very expression suggests an intimate tone addressed to the circle of close relatives: family, friends or neighbours. Szemiot was not ambitious enough or too shy to publish his poems. Further considerations of the writer from Przegaliny correspond with metaliterary views by Jan Kochanowski, Jakub Kazimierz Haur or Łukasz Opaliński. Voicing his own literary programme, Stanisław Samuel Szemiot proclaims above all an artistic freedom of the poet-landowner. Poetry that is the effect of “a non-idle idling”, as he claims, should not be subject to evaluation as constitutes the values in itself as an intellectual entertainment, and allows for avoiding what the 17th century writers call a very harmful idleness. Meta-literary reflections made by the author of Sumariusz wierszów go beyond the horizon of the “Sarmatian province” or at least prove that his literary awareness bears a comparison with such landowner poets as Wespazjan Kochowski or Wacław Potocki.

The article show what turned out decisive in Miłosz’s childhood and early youth times that made him later on decide to become a writer. The author examines circumstances under which Miłosz’s linguistic sensitivity in the “pre-writing” period, looks at his first individual reading, and writing samples subsequently. The correspondence between a beginner writer with Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz proves a hypothesis that Miłosz’s writing desire is secondary from the beginning in the light of his reality desire. A written word is aimed at capturing it and maintaining it most directly and as it is possible, namely referring directly to the world (not the written word). The aim of writing, on the other hand, derives from curiosity of the thing, the same that accompanied Miłosz before he had learned how to read and write.

The subject-matter of the work is an overview of the ways the authors of Old-Polish noble memoirs justified the reasons of writing down their memories. A basic difficulty was a conventionalization of this type of declaration, strongly ingrained in author’s awareness on the one hand and subjectivity as well as autocreation typical of any type of egodocuments on the other. Particular memorists pointed to the willingness to inform about the current course of events (although distinctions between the public affairs, understood as a dimension of history, and private ones, constituting the subject of interest was usually rigoristically perceived), a defense of their of their own behaviour in the situation when they had to make morally ambiguous choices, the need to teach their successors about the right ways of gaining the property, God’s grace, curiosity of the world or, finally, manifestation of the native proud. All these reasons, udoubtedly important, could also serve as a peculiar mask behind which the willingness to commemorate the memory about oneself, history and achievements common to everyone.

The article touches upon the problem of the workshop awareness of two Old- Polish female memoirists, broadening the so far existing knowledge on a rhymed autobiography by Anna Zbąska and a prose memoir by Regina Salomea Pilsztynowa. Having no rhetorical education or familiarization with the literary canon the male youth used to get to know at schools at that time, both writers intuitively looked for artistic means that would be most adequate to their aims, and imitated the convention that they could learn while reading. The imitation concerns compositional and genre principles (an epigram, autobiography, journey description, romance), but also various inventive means and, elocutionary, in the case of Zbąska. The very means were used by female memoirists fairly unskilfully, which, in consequence, led to the development of memoirs different from those written by men at that time.

The article by Beata Mytych-Forajter treats about works written by Mickiewicz’s friend, a geologist, and mining engineer who was very successful in Chile, South-America. Texts by Domeyko, located at the borderline of various forms and genres (a journal, diary, journey report), are, above all, connected with the need to note down oneself, leave an existential mark behind, and transform experiences into a notation. A strange author’s talentless writing who did not leave his portable wallet, serving the purpose of the shelter for thoughts, for the most of his life, but also a miniaturized ersatz of house is related to this identity project.

The text concerns one of the main motives to be found in journal notes made by Jerzy Pilch, the motive of disease. The author of the text pays attention to diversified realization strategies of this phenomenon in Pilch’s text. To the most important belongs rationalization of the process of getting ill, withdrawal of one’s own body from the text, and accumulation of formulas aiming at concealment or camouflage of pain and suffering. The author also asks a question on the functions of disease textualisation, especially in the light of the autotherapic power of noting down many a time questioned by Pilch. Besides, what is important in this book is irony, scorn, and black humour that stylistically organise Pilch’s intimate testimony. In final, Pilch’s journal of disease turns out to be a refined game with oneself, a reader and genological possibilities of a journal.

The article discusses the issue of talentless writing as a topic of epigrams in both the Ancient and the Old-Polish literature. The text is an attempt to examine the emergence of the talentless writer motif in old epigrammatic literature, its subsequent persistence and its relation to the concept of poetry and the poet that prevailed in epigrammatic poetry of the era as well as in the contemporary literary theory that discussed the genre. The article reconstructs the positive model of epigrammatic poetry which emerges from epigrams about bad poets and shows how the authors relate to this model when writing about their own poetry, what shortcomings they see in their work and how they try to justify themselves in the poems addressed to their readers or critics. In order to present the problem comprehensively and answer the pertinent questions, the analysis focuses on epigrams of less-known writers such as Jan Daniecki, Albert Ines, Józef Epifani Minasowicz or Adam Łabęcki, though the leading epigrammatists of the Old-Polish period, Wespazjan Kochowski and Wacław Potocki, were also included.

The narrative poems by Wacław Potocki show a clear tendency to interpolate the fictional structure of works via numerous digressions. The latter take on the form of selfexisting multigenre lyrical works, satirical intarsia, rhetorical monologues of characters or discourses and arguments conducted by them. The poet’s preferences for digressions and multplied reflections parallel to the main action of works, though not necessarilly depended on it, are best proved by Argenida, Transakcyja wojny chocimskiej and Nowy zaciąg. The very poems, a romance, epos and Messianic poem, are characterised by a clearly discoursive nature, which makes their fictional action seem as much a poetic form of mimesis as the author’s possibility to develop his rhetorical initiatives. This characteristic feature of poet’s narrative works, considered as a manifestation of “multiple speech” constitutes a structural quality of Argenida, a poem being a creative translation of Argenis, a Latin political romance by John Barclay. In this work, the presence of reflection, advice or lyrical and rhetorical excurses is connected with the quality of the adapted work as such, clearly the background one, where the fictional action permeates into the discoursive plan. The analysis of Wacław Potocki’s epic works in the light of the Polish and European early-modern literary practice allows for noticing the fact that the exposition of a digressive perspective of extra sphaeram is not a patent of a “multiple speaking” poet from Łużna, but an important and desired feature of the early-modern European narratives.

“Powinny trybut synowskiej miłości” is a series of oratorical behaviours a noble son was obliged to practise regarding his closest relatives, especially parents. The art of composing letters, and reciting speech as well as congratulation poems on the occasion of various annual festivals started in the Old-Polish period as early as the boy was a few years old. From that time, a Polish nobel child was taught skills that he was to use in his whole life. The article discusses a rich collection of texts from the 17th and 18th centuries that were to be used as the models for imitation, both for the younger and older noble sons.

Conversation with Mariusz Sieniewicz, Polish contemporary writer.

Fragment of prose by Mariusz Sieniewicz, Polish contemporary writer.

Polish translation of 'Poetics' by Julius Caesar Scaliger.

The article aimed at arranging and correcting the state of research on the functioning of the notion of “silva” in Old-Polish discourses. Basing on an initial division into the so called “silvae rerum” and poetic “silvas”, the author of the article quotes particular paragraphs of works written by the Ancient authors (mainly by Cicero) to which the references were made later on on the occasion of using the category of “silva rerum” in rhetorical works and headings of the collections of eruditions, symbols and “well- known quotations”, etc. published. The examples in question were presented in the article preceded by a summary of the contents of the coursebooks chapters by Iuglaris (Aloysius Iuglaris) as well as Jan Kwiatkiewicz and Veranius (Caietanus Felix Veranius). Next, the tradition of understanding “silvas” deriving from Statius was discussed. The last part of the text is devoted to the relationship between strongly-rhetoricised “silvas” of Statius type, and allegedly non-rhetoricised selected “silvas” of the twentieth century.

The review underlines the cognitive and aesthetic values of Małe folio (historia jednego wiersza), a book by Mrowcewicz who interprets the poem Na oczy królewny angielskiej, która była za Fryderykiem, falcgrafem reńskim, obranym królem czeskim by Daniel Naborowski in many ways. The researcher contrasted the poem by a Polish poet with the French original by Honorat de Porcheres Laugier, pointed to significant differences between the texts, and derived European contexts from both works. Bringing the characters of the poem closer, Mrowcewicz used unpublished sources, and successfully chose illustrations presenting the people and events in question. The review paid attention to archive records concerning the English princess to be found in Radziwiłł’s property that Mrowcewicz did not use. The author of Małe folio, in his essayistic form, offers readers interesting research hypotheses concerning Naborowski’s contacts with Shakespeare, a magic garden of the Brotherhood of Rose’s Knight in Heidelberg, as well as Radziwiłł’s connections with European courts, which has not been the subject of academic reflections so far, and constitutes a great value of the publication.

The text is a review of Melancholia w poezji polskiej po 1989 roku, a book by Alina Świeściak (Kraków: Universitas, 2011). Hoffmann positions the work in the broader panorama of Polish humanistic studies on melancholy which intensified around the turn of the century and are still relevant today. For Świeściak melancholy is not only an array of meanings surrounding a gap, emptiness and mortality in contemporary poetry (among others by Różewicz, Krynicki, Dycki, Kielar, Sosnowski), but it is also a figure that enables reflection on the notions of corporality or sight. The review makes an attempt to reconstruct these key concepts and to inquire about the limits of the notion of melancholy and questions the book's silence of Marcin Świetlicki's poetry.

Zapisywanie miejsca. Szkice o Śląsku w literaturze przełomu wieków XX i XXI by Elżbieta Dutka is a virgin work devoted to the relationship between a human being and a concrete and real space, it being Silesia. The author focuses on topographies – various ways of inscribing places into the culture, while the place may mean here a concrete localization, phantasmagory, a private homeland or even an internal conception of the author. The researcher is interested in a spacious dimension of human experiences, yet she does not aim at a synthesis of the phenomena observed, but stops at an overview of Silesia in various fields of art and the analysis as well as interpretation of selected works. She bases her discussions on theoretical assumptions by Martin Heidegger, Hanna Buczyńska-Garewicz and Tadeusz Sławek. At the same time, she looks for values that are universal and global in localness, which is not necessarily translatable.

The review discusses the latest book by Sławomir Buryła entitled Tematy (nie)opisane. Three essays in which the author deals with the issues that are absent or misrepresented in literary studies devoted to the Holocaust constitute the very article. Buryła makes a difficult attempt to consider how the Polish literature comes to terms with painful topics such as looting, informing, and a moral evaluation of Hitlerites. Making use of a rich written material, the author shows how many areas are still under-read despite a peculiar “overproduction” of texts on Shoah. Books commented on by Buryła allowed him to show numerous tensions, worries and the lack of homogeneity when going through one of the most traumatic experiences in the history of mankind. The book seems to be even more important because it inscribes itself into the trend of the current social and political life where it is more and more difficult to experience the basic value of the humanities such as understanding other people and their suffering.

A review of Zofia Nałkowska’s biography, entitled Nałkowska albo życie pisane reflects the appreciation of a majestic work done by Hanna Kirchner. It is worth emphasizing the vividness of the person being analysed and appreciating the richness of meanings to be found in her works. What comes first in the biography reviewed is a parallel analysis of Nałkowska’s writing achievements and life experiences made by Kirchner. The review pointed to the contemporary nature of the opinions made by the writer in question, and erudition represented by the author of her biography.

The author of the article discusses new poetics of the novel by Mariusz Sieniewicz to be found in such works as Rebelia, Miasto Szklanych Słoni and Spowiedź Śpiącej Królewny. What plays a decisive role in these works is imagination principles which, according to the author of the article, allows for calling the last novels by Sieniewicz spectroanalyses of contemporaneity. The characters of the works create themselves ghostly versions of reality, thanks to which they maintain the rest of the subjective activity. The very practice, in turn, leads to a gradual regaining of what is closest to an extremely individual experience, that is an every-day life. The consequence of these efforts is a personal metamorphosis (metanoia), a total change in the relationships between the world, and overcoming depressive moods. What the characters take part in is a unique experience of happiness, almost unknown in contemporary culture extorting and regulating happiness.