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The article analyses the construction of Jewish characters in the following late medieval Polish apocrypha: Rozmyślania dominikańskie, Rozmyślanie przemyskie, and Sprawa chędoga o męce Pana Chrystusowej. The characters are built on a contrast between the figure of Christ and his tormentors. The article studies the following aspects of the contrast: hyperbolized aggression, beastial imagery, and the impurity of the perpetrators (which is conspicuous in images originating from the humoral theories). The literary representation of Jews (rather than Roman soldiers) as the ‘physical’ culprits of the Crucifixion of the Saviour also plays an important role in the texts under discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the tradition of exempla in Anna Mostowska's novel Matylda i Daniło (Matylda and Danilo) (1809). To effectuate this task, it recalls the narrations from two collections, namely Joannes Major's Wielkie zwierciadło przykładów (Great Mirror of Examples) (Polish translation by Szymon Wysocki from the year 1612) and Michał Jurkowski's Historyje świeże i niezwyczajne (Fresh and Unusual Stories) (the first part of the 18th c.). The article reveals the "long-lasting" of certain fictional schemes and motifs (a penitent ghost, attitude to monastic life, suffering of a purgatory soul, or the redemption of sins and salvation of an individual) present both in the preacher's examples and in the novel in question. The patterns of Western European horror novel are in Mostowska's piece modified through the conventions of applied texts--exempla. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes up Tadeusz Sinko's statement forgotten by scholars that Jan Kochanowski in his poem Zuzanna (Susanna) makes a reference to a convention of medieval vernacular songs about saints. The thesis is proven in the context of the piece's poetics adjustment to cultural experience of its addressee, Elżbieta Radziwiłłowa de domo Szydłowiecka, as well as from the perspective of the women's influence on the development of vernacular literary creativity. The paper also examines the category of virtue contained in the poem and having religious connotations as well as the intentionally introduced by Kochanowski numerous references to oral conventions. Apart from old Polish hagiographic songs, for comparative reasons the article uses examples of old Czech poems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, selected vernacular (Polish and Czech) mediaeval hagiographic songs (Legenda o svatém Prokopu, Legenda o svaté Kateřině, Legenda o svaté Dorotě, Pieśń-Legenda o świętej Katarzynie, Legenda o świętym Aleksym, Pieśń o świętej Dorocie, Pieśń o świętym Stanisławie, Pieśń o świętym Jopie) are analysed in the context of the elements used and characteristic of oral works. Th e study draws attention to fi xed epithets, formulas and “oral themes” repeated in the texts. It is emphasised that the visible “compilatory feature” of the discussed texts does not prove their unoriginal nature but their functioning in the oral circulation of literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article I analyze the concept of cyclical time as it appears in Maj by Karel Hynek Mácha. This type of time, described as "Holy time" according to Eliade's definition, is compared with the linear (historical) time created by Adam Mickiewicz in one of his most influential works, namely Konrad Wallenrod. The different creation of time in the text of the Czech romantic prove that May is an original work of art, not only a compilation of themes and motifs borrowed from Polish romantic literature, as it is often claimed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]