Poetry and I

Poetry and I

As a someone, who was raised and schooled abroad, I am not familiar with American literature, but literature has a universal function and it is not defined by the language, borders or author. Many writers are known all over the world, no matter what country they are from, their words are so powerful that it can reach to the further ends of the world. Although I enjoy a good book on my free time, the type of literature that is closest to my heart is a poetry. Going back in memory to my polish language classes in high school, I still remember threnodies by Jan Kochanowski.

Jan Kochanowski was born on June 6, 1530 in a little town called Sycyna. He was an outstanding poet. He wrote various lines for adults and children and his creations are praised to this day. Kochanowski had an extensive knowledge of ancient literature and history and his work was largely influenced by Greek literature. He was a secretary of a XVI century Polish king. He is an author of the first Polish drama, and wrote over 300 epigrams that for most, described an ordinary day of everyday man. His life was full of happiness until the death of his two little daughters Urszula and Hanna. This experience shook his entire life and put its mark on his future creations. Especially the loss of Urszula hurt him the most because he saw a great talent in her. Kochanowski did not

deal well with this tragedy and his compositions present state of his mind after it. He wrote a series of XII threnodies which expressed his pain over the loss. Threnody is a collection of lamentation, mourning cry. It is a kind of mourning poetry derived from antiquity, it expresses sadness, grief and reflections about thoughts and deeds of the deceased, praising its virtues and merits. In ancient culture lamentations were written to celebrate outstanding individuals such as kings or heroes, but Kochanowski departed from this principle and used his talent to write threnodies about his little daughter. Together with his daughter Kochanowski buried all of his hopes about her. Urszula was his favorite daughter because he thought she was very talented and would follow his foot steps.

When I was reading the threnodies I could fell his pain and sorrow, but at the same time I could imagine how special Urszula was. Each threnody showed a different stage that he was going through. In some of them he was describing her beauty, intelligence and greatness, in others, he expressed his pain and feeling of injustice. At some points he dares to blame God for his tragedy, which was unusual during this time when Poland was a very Catholic country. I loved reading those short, but strong lines because it made me realize how powerful words can be. By using colorful language full of metaphors and epithets an author can transform simple sentence into a beautiful poem. I liked the idea that words can give so