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Research Departments and Units

Department of Renaissance and Baroque Literature

Room 126; Tel. (22) 65-72-742

The Department meetings: Mondays 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Members of the Department:

Professor Joanna Partyka
Associate Professor Małgorzata Ciszewska
Associate Professor  Estera Lasocińska
Associate Professor Magdalena Piskała
Dr. Maciej Pieczyński

About the Department:

The Department was founded in 1976 under the guidance of Professor Janusz Pelc. In 1993, Professor Adam Karpiński, Associate Professor at the time, acted as the person in charge of the Department and in the following year became its Chairman. Since December 2011, the Department has been headed by Dr. Joanna Krauze-Karpińska.
The Department conducts research on Polish writing from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. It also prepares the works of this period for publication.


Main Directions of Research:

  • Monographic studies relating to works and authors of the Renaissance and Baroque (Jakub Kazimierz Haur, Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, Wacław Potocki, Albert Inez, Szymon Okolski);
  • Research into the history of ideas with particular consideration of the reception of ancient philosophy in old Polish writing (Stoicism, Epicureanism in the literature of the Renaissance and Baroque);
  • Issues of literary theory, rhetoric and poetics of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries (compendia of knowledge, including heraldic manuals of rhetoric, occasional oratory, paraliterary texts);
  • Old Polish tradition of manuscripts and prints, and literary milieu of the old era (silva rerum, women’s writing of the 16th–18th centuries, a history of printing and publishing houses);
    Editions of Polish and Latin works of the Renaissance and Baroque (Wacław Potocki, Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, Szymon Okolski, Albert Inez, old Polish translations of the works of Justus Lipsjusz).

In recent years, members of the Department have published many studies and monographs. The most significant of them include:

  • Ewa Głębicka, Szymon Szymonowic. Poeta Latinus. Seria: Studia Staropolskie. Series Nova, vol. 2 (LVIII). Warsaw 2001;
  • Adam Karpiński, Tekst staropolski. Studia i szkice o literaturze dawnej w rękopisach [Old Polish Text: Studies and Essays on Old Literature in Manuscripts]. Seria: Studia Staropolskie. Series Nova, vol. 8 (LXIV). Warsaw 2003;
  • Estera Lasocińska, "Cnota sama z mądrością jest naszym żywotem." Stoickie pojęcie cnoty w poezji polskiej XVII wieku ["Virtue Alone with Wisdom are Our Lives": The Stoic Notion of Virtue in Polish Poetry of the 17th Century]. Seria: Studia Staropolskie. Series Nova, vol. 6 (LXII). Warsaw 2003;
  • Joanna Partyka, "Żona wyćwiczona." Kobieta pisząca w kulturze XVI i XVII wieku ["A Trained Wife": The Woman Writer in the Culture of the 16th and 17th Centuries]. Seria: Rozprawy literackie, vol. 82. Wydawnictwo IBL. Warsaw 2004;
  • Małgorzata Trębska, Staropolskie szlacheckie oracje weselne. Genologia, obrzęd źródła [Old Polish Noble Wedding Orations: Genre Theory, Rites, and Sources]. Seria: Studia Staropolskie. Series Nova, vol. 19 (LXXV). Warsaw 2008;
  • Magdalena Piskała, Boże miłości i wstydliwe dowcipy. Studia nad epigramatyczną twórczością Macieja Kazimierza Sarbiewskiego i Alberta Inesa [God's Love and Shameful Jokes: Studies on the Epigrammatic Works of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski and Albert Ines]. Seria: Studia Staropolskie. Series Nova, vol. 23. Warsaw 2009;
  • Joanna Krauze-Karpińska, "Wirydarz poetycki" Jakuba Teodora Trembeckiego [The Poetic Garden of Jakub Teodor Trembecki]. Seria: Studia Staropolskie. Series Nova, vol. 24. Warsaw 2009.

The members of the Department also have a number of significant achievements in the field of scholarly editing. The following critical editions are some of the concrete examples:

  • Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, Poezje zebrane [Collected Poems]. Ed. by Adam Karpiński, vols. 1-2. Warsaw 1995;
  • Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro, Monita politico-moralia. Przestrogi polityczno-obyczajowe [Monita politico-moralia: Political and Moral Advisories]. Ed. by Ewa J. Głębicka and Estera Lasocińska. Series: Biblioteka Pisarzy Staropolskich, vol. 14. Warsaw 1999;
  • Adrian Wieszczycki, Utwory poetyckie [Poems]. Ed. by Anna Gurowska. Series: Biblioteka Pisarzy Staropolskich, vol. 22. Warsaw 2001;
  • Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, Poezje zebrane [Collected Poems]. Ed. by Radosław Grześkowiak and Adam Karpiński. In cooperation with Krzysztof Mrowcewicz. Series: Biblioteka Pisarzy Staropolskich, vol. 23. Warsaw 2003;
  • Szymon Staropolski, De claris oratoribus Sarmatiae. O znakomitych mówcach Sarmacji [De claris oratoribus Sarmatiae: On the Excellent Orators of Sarmatia]. Ed. and trans. by Ewa Głębicka. Series: Biblioteka Pisarzy Staropolskich, vol. 25. Warsaw 2002;
  • Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Epigrammatum Liber. (Księga epigramatów) [Epigrammatum Liber: A Book of Epigrams]. Ed. and trans. by Magdalena Piskała and Dorota Sutkowska. Series: Biblioteka Pisarzy Staropolskich, vol. 26. Warsaw 2003.

The Department has organized many scholarly conferences both within the larger research projects and as commemorative undertakings. The materials from the conferences were used to prepare collective volumes. The cycles of scholarly conferences titled "Old Polish Colloquies" have an almost twenty-year tradition. The Department has organized them since 1994 in cooperation with the Old Polish Literature Department of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.

Since 2007, together with the University of Warsaw’s Institute of Polish Culture, Institute of Classical Philology, Department of Occasional and Popular Literature of the Renaissance and Baroque, and the "Artes Liberales" Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, our Department has organized monthly scholarly meetings called "Old Polish Thursdays." During the meetings, the most prominent scholars of old literature and culture, specialists from Poland and abroad, present their lectures.

All members of the Department belong to the "Pro Cultura Litteraria" Association that supports Polish studies research, publishing, and popularization activities. Prof. Adam Karpiński is Chair of the Board of the Association, Dr. Estera Lasocińska is a secretary and a Board member, and Dr. Małgorzata Trębska is a member of the Audit Committee.

The Department also supports and takes an active part in the activities of the Center for Text Criticism and Scholarly Editing. The Center serves as a discussion forum for literary historians and scholars of other disciplines in the humanities who are interested in the problems of scholarly editing and textology.

Members of the Department not only conduct intensive research work but also engage in the popularization of scholarship. Their activities include:

  • Annual participation in the work of the Polish Language and Literature Competition;
  • The organization of the five hundredth anniversary of the Birthday Celebrations of Mikołaj Rej;
  • Publications for academic and school purposes.