Patryk M. Ryczkowski

Rethinking Sarbievius: A few remarks on the Composition of His Lyric Collection

Patryk M. Ryczkowski

Vilnius University / University of Innsbruck

Rethinking Sarbievius: A few remarks on the Composition of His Lyric Collection

Modern recipient has just a few bilingual editions of Sarbiewski’s lyrica at his disposal which present translations into major languages of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth next to the Latin original. As valuable as such works are, they ‘simply’ convey the text of the poems, include some editorial errors and rather freely paraphrased fragments; in addition, they are not sufficiently annotated and miss new research contributions. Moreover, they are based on selected copy of Sarbiewski’s work (in most cases on 1634 edition with Rubens’ engraving); even if the digitized copies of his collection printed in early modern times, which differ in their contents, might be nowadays accessed online, the recipient gets eventually the impression that lyrica are in fact a coherent collection which came into being in the form that he currently reads. Using a few instructive examples, this paper will advocate for rethinking the composition of Sarbiewski’s lyric collection: it will be argued that, first, a modern edition requires a closer look at its context and development throughout the early modern editions and manuscripts; secondly, such approach must also respect the internal complexity of the collection.