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Polish literature |
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2008) |
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| Polish culture |
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Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. The majority of Polish literature was written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries (including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and Esperanto) have also contributed to Polish literary traditions.
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Of the Polish literature before the Christianisation almost nothing remains. Pagan inhabitants of Poland possessed certainly some oral literature, which was however not worth a mention in the eyes of Christian literati and thus perished.
It is the custom of Polish literary criticism to include literary works dealing with Poland to the thesaurus of Polish literature, even if they are not written by ethnic Poles. Such is the case of Gallus Anonymus, a foreigner monk, who composed his Cronicae et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum in sophisticated Latin prose. The tradition of Latin historiography was continued by Wincenty Kadłubek and Jan Długosz, both having great significance.
The first recorded sentence in the Polish language reads: "Day ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai" ("Let me grind, and you take a rest") and was a paraphrase of the Latin "Sine, ut ego etiam molam." The circumstances in which this phrase was written reflected the cultural conditions in early Poland. The sentence appears in the Latin chronicle Liber fundationis, the history of the Cistercian monastery in Henryków, Silesia, written between 1269 and 1273 by a German abbot, known simply as Piotr (Peter), and referred to an event almost a hundred years earlier, supposedly uttered by a Bohemian settler, Bogwal ("Bogwalus Boemus"), a subject of Bolesław the Tall, when he felt compassion for his wife, who "very often stood grinding by the quern-stone."1
Notable works of literature from the medieval period include:
Most early Polish vernacular texts were influenced heavily by Latin sacred literature. These include Bogurodzica ("Mother of God"), a short hymn praising the Virgin Mary, which served as a national anthem, and Rozmowa mistrza Polikarpa ze śmiercią ("Master Polikarp's Conversation with Death").
In the early 1470s the first printing houses in Poland (see Spread of the printing press) were set up by Kasper Straube in Kraków. In 1475 Kasper Elyan of Glogau (Głogów) set up a printing shop in Breslau (Wrocław), Silesia. Twenty years later, the first Cyrillic printing house was founded at Kraków by Schweipolt Fiol for Eastern Orthodox Church hierarchs.
With the advent of the Renaissance, the Polish language was finally accepted on an equal footing with Latin. Polish culture and art flourished under Jagiellonian rule, and many foreign poets and writers settled in Poland, bringing with them new literary trends. Such writers included Kallimach (Filippo Buonaccorsi) and Conrad Celtis. Many other Polish writers studied abroad or at the Kraków Academy, which became a melting pot for new ideas and currents. In 1488 the Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana, the world's first writers' club, was founded at Kraków by Conrad Celtis.citation needed
One of the Polish writers who used Latin as his principal vehicle of expression was Klemens Janicki (Ianicius), who became one of the most notable Latin poets of his time and was laureled by the Pope. Other writers such as Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski laid the foundations for a Polish literary language and modern Polish grammar.
Notable Polish writers and poets active in the 16th century, and some of their works, included:
Main article: List of Polish-language authors
Writers in chronological order of birth:
Main article: List of Polish-language poets
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