Ratio, affectus, sensus: Literary Culture of the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
In 2025, we will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first publication of Matheus Casimirus Sarbievius' most famous Latin poetry collection 'Lyricorum libri tres' (1625). This has led to 2025 being declared the Year of Baroque Literature in Lithuania. The eminent Jesuit neo-Latin poet of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sarbievius, has been hailed as the Christian Horace and the Sarmatian Horace. His theoretical thoughts on poetry and rhetoric are still highly regarded and have inspired new research on other concurrent themes and authors. This anniversary provides an opportunity to explore the extent and diversity of Baroque literary culture, which has seen a surge of interest in recent decades, both in the academic world and in popular culture. Therefore, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, together with the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University, is organising an international academic conference "Ratio, affectus, sensus: Literary Culture of the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania" on 25-27 September 2025 in the baroque city of Vilnius.
The aim of the multidisciplinary conference is to stimulate discussion on the literary culture of the "long seventeenth century" (from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This historical period, associated with dramatic changes and a general cultural crisis, is often described in contradictory terms and in constant tension between reason and senses, rigid structure and passions, classifications and impressions, etc. By embracing this contradiction, we invite an exploration of the theme in question through the lens of this dynamic interplay between reason (ratio), emotion (affectus) and the senses (sensus), which can be perceived in various genres of the period, such as poetry, biography, hagiography, rhetoric, private and public correspondence, and so on. The importance of the modern approach lies not only in what it can reveal about the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also about subsequent and contemporary literary culture, as scholars have demonstrated the continuing influence of a 'Baroque spirit'.
Event location
25–26 September the conference will take place at V. Krėvė (118) auditorium, Faculty of Philology
27 September the conference will take place at the Church Heritage Museum, Šv. Mykolo g. 9 (entrance from Maironio g. "Arkangelo konferencijų centras")
Keynote speakers
Ona Dilytė-Čiurinskienė
Senior Researcher, The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore
Prof Stephen Harrison
Professor of Latin literature, University of Oxford
Eleonora Terleckienė
Fighting Zoilus: Envy and the Author in Baroque Literary Culture
Eleonora Terleckienė
Vilnius University
Fighting Zoilus: Envy and the Author in Baroque Literary Culture
The figure of Zoilus as an angry, unjust, and incompetent critic was popularized by the Roman poet Martial’s epigrams. Short poems titled ad Zoilum or in Zoilum were often added to books as supplementary texts and were regarded as part of the Renaissance tradition, following a common structure and recurring epithets. Epigrams addressing Zoilus in books published in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are comparatively rare; however, their appearance may be considered even more significant. I argue that in seventeenth-century publications, epigrams dedicated to Zoilus and placed alongside the main text allow us to grasp the tension between the author and his real or implicit critic. Concentrating on a few examples – namely Kazimierz Stanisław Olewnicki Witakowski’s Flight of Stetkiewicz’s Arrow (Lot strzały Stetkiewiczowskiey, 1676, Vilna) and Mateusz Ignacy Kuligowski’s Laughing Democritus, or the Laughter of the Christian Democritus from This World, Divided into Three Stages of Human Life (Demokryt Smieszny, albo Smiech Demokryta Chrzescianskiego z tego świata na trzy częśći życia ludzkiego wieku rozdzielony, 1699, Vilna) – I will show how these paratextual elements function in the books in question. In addition, I will discuss an example from the manuscript tradition: the poem Relation on the Entry and Exit of Samogitia from Swedish Rule (Relatia Zmudzkiego weyscia y wyiscia ze Szwedzkiey Opieki, 1657) by Mikołaj Kazimierz Szemiot. I argue that, if we take into account the address to Zoilus, the whole poetic text can be interpreted as a response to envious criticism. The purpose of my paper is to show how the tradition of Latin Antiquity was adapted to the time and needs of Baroque literary culture.
