Sęp Szarzyński, Mikołaj

▪ Polish poet

born c. 1550, Zimna Woda, Kingdom of Poland [now in Ukraine]

died 1581, Wolica

      Polish religious poet remembered for writing metaphysical sonnets with inverted word orders.

      A member of a noble Protestant family, Sęp Szarzyński studied in Wittenberg and Leipzig, Germany, moving later to the University of Padua (Padua, University of) in Italy. He returned to Poland in 1567 as a fervent Roman Catholic and a member of the Dominican order. He died young but left a collection of patriotic odes, sonnets, and psalms, which were published by his brother and entitled Rytmy abo wiersze polskie (1601; “Rhythms or Polish Verses”). Though indebted to Jan Kochanowski (Kochanowski, Jan), Sęp Szarzyński in his Baroque poetry was able to express metaphysical concepts in a new, elaborate stylistic form.

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