Meluzyna

The author compares two funeral pieces by Kasper Miaskowski (Polish Kaliope to death by Wojciech Gajewski and his Epitaph) with a funeral speech preserved in a manuscript and read by Wojciech Miaskowski. It aims at praising late Wojciech Gajewski in order to verify similarities between the texts and, simultaneously, whether one may speak of a relation between them. In the article, essential similarities of inventive nature were indicated: authors used the same arguments to enhance the topos fortitudo et sapientia serving to praise the nobleman. Similarities also concern elocutions which are associated with the use of specific notions in identical contexts. qese resemblances seem to prove the poet’s oratory skills. qe author also focuses on differences in the elaboration of issues by writers, claiming that, following Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski’s opinion, the reason for this lies in different purposes of the speaker and the poet. Therefore, the differences resulted mainly from poetic generalisation which in the Renaissance period was also connected with ‘silva rerum' poetry. Moreover, an analysis of the funeral speech enables the author to gain complementary knowledge on Gajewski’s biography.