A Farmer who does not want to be a poet: the motif of recusatio in the compositional structure of Sarbiewskiis Ode IV 4
ENThe article discusses lyricum IV 4 by Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski as shaped by and distanced from the epic form by the conventionally formulated, yet unconventionally used, motif of recusatio. The poem is based on a farmer’s monologue about the battle between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Turks at Khotin (Chocim, 1621), which he once saw on the very same field he is now ploughing. It re-evaluates the outcome of this fight, which is treated here not only as a common literary symbol of Christian victory, but also as a universal call to fight the still-looming Turkish threat to the European antemurale christianitatis (set implicitly in the biblical context). The poetic strategy draws on a recontextualisation of Virgilian motifs. First of all, the harbinger of a peaceful time (G. I 493–497) is transformed into a recusatio, establishes a compositional framework for the ode and undergoes content alterations. This makes the recent battle more vivid and renders the Turkish threat as a still persisting menace. Secondly, the farmer’s name (Galesus) refers directly to a warrior in the Aeneid (VII 535–539) and thereby to the warring farmer of the Georgics (IV 116–148). All in all, the recusatio in Sarbiewski’s ode modernises Virgilian motifs and encloses the poem, which is split between lyrical, epic and biblical conventions, in an emulative composition to stress a current problem on the international arena. Keywords: recusatio, Sarbiewski, Khotin, Chocim, Virgil, Turks, recontextualisation, Georgics, Aeneid.
- Like a phoenix into the ashes: christological and Jesuit profile of Uniate martyrdom in Andrzej Młodzianowski's Emblematic vita (1675) of Josaphat Kuntsevych (1580-1623).. Profiling saints: images of modern sanctity in a global world. Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2023. P. 345-370.
- The Attitude towards the Turks in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the reign of Jan III Sobieski.. Nordic journal of Renaissance studies, 2019, 16, 215-229.
- The Making of a saint through the lenses of (panegyrical) poetry: Aleksander Walenty Szlachtowicz's Tryumph duchowny (1628) and Josaphat Kuntsevych's First processus in partibus.. Lietuvos istorijos studijos, 2025, The making and remembering of saint Josaphat Kuntsevych: 17th-20th century, 184-213.
- The Polish-Lithuanian state, 1386-1795. Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2001. xii, 374 p.
