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Artikuły
DOI Artikel:Górska, Magdalena: Symbole polskiego życia politycznego w Orator Polonus (1740) Samuela Wysockiego
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.37080#0081
SYMBOLE POLSKIEGO ŻYCIA POLITYCZNEGO
79
SYMBOLS OF POLISH POLITICAL LIFE
IN ORATOR POLONUS (1740) BY SAMUEL WYSOCKI
S u m m a r y
This paper discusses the function and the origin of over four hundred symbols included in
the rhetoric handbook by the Piarist Samuel Wysocki, entitled Orator Polonus (published in
Warsaw in 1740). The book is considered an exemplary resource book for parliamentary and
local diet speeches and orations of panegyric character. In keeping with the rhetorical practice,
the symbola were given the form of arguments, developed on the principle of similitude (simi-
litudo). The author of the handbook was inspired by the compendium by Filippo Picinelli
Mundus symbolicus (1681). He used the latter author’s exemplary emblems and symbols and
incorporated them to his erudite and morał argumentation. The symbols used by Wysocki
promoted an ideał of an exemplary Nobleman and landowner, as well as that of a State officer
and a legalist. In this way, Wysocki created a pattern that was distinct from the then-popular
emblems. The prevalent pattern related formally to the coats-of-arms, as testified by numerous
writings and documentation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the Saxon dynasty.
WysockFs works are a perfect example of the adaptation of emblems as a genre, with its
typical delimitation as regards the choice of theme, symbolic composition and the function of
the lemma, deeply rooted in the rhetorical rules and resulting from the political and panegyric
interest of the Nobility.
Translated by Konrad Klimkowski
Słowa kluczowe: symbol, emblemat, retoryka, parlamentaryzm szlachecki, wyobraź-
nia polityczna.
Key words: symbol, emblem, rhetoric, Nobility parliamentarism, political imagina-
tion.
79
SYMBOLS OF POLISH POLITICAL LIFE
IN ORATOR POLONUS (1740) BY SAMUEL WYSOCKI
S u m m a r y
This paper discusses the function and the origin of over four hundred symbols included in
the rhetoric handbook by the Piarist Samuel Wysocki, entitled Orator Polonus (published in
Warsaw in 1740). The book is considered an exemplary resource book for parliamentary and
local diet speeches and orations of panegyric character. In keeping with the rhetorical practice,
the symbola were given the form of arguments, developed on the principle of similitude (simi-
litudo). The author of the handbook was inspired by the compendium by Filippo Picinelli
Mundus symbolicus (1681). He used the latter author’s exemplary emblems and symbols and
incorporated them to his erudite and morał argumentation. The symbols used by Wysocki
promoted an ideał of an exemplary Nobleman and landowner, as well as that of a State officer
and a legalist. In this way, Wysocki created a pattern that was distinct from the then-popular
emblems. The prevalent pattern related formally to the coats-of-arms, as testified by numerous
writings and documentation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the Saxon dynasty.
WysockFs works are a perfect example of the adaptation of emblems as a genre, with its
typical delimitation as regards the choice of theme, symbolic composition and the function of
the lemma, deeply rooted in the rhetorical rules and resulting from the political and panegyric
interest of the Nobility.
Translated by Konrad Klimkowski
Słowa kluczowe: symbol, emblemat, retoryka, parlamentaryzm szlachecki, wyobraź-
nia polityczna.
Key words: symbol, emblem, rhetoric, Nobility parliamentarism, political imagina-
tion.