W godności i w cnoty dojrzałe – o wzorcu panny, żony i dobrego małżeństwa w literaturze okolicznościowej XVII–XVIII wieku

Abstract

Nuptial ceremony literature, created on the occasion of weddings, constitutes an interesting source for the research into the mentality of the 17th and 18th century people. Nuptial literature was characterized by a great diversity of forms and styles. A literary term connected with this sort of ephemeral creations is epithalamium, a form of superordinate function with respect to all other literary forms produced on the occasion of a wedding, such as speeches and toasts. Occasional literature not only shows the grandeur of the Old-Polish wedding ceremony, but is also a source for the research into the history of family. From the countless praises included in epithalamia or wedding speeches, an image of a perfect woman can be retrieved. The analysis of wedding poetry allows a reconstruction of the role models of a maiden, a wife and a mother. Those images were obviously idealistic visions, which often reflected the unattainable, yet they do reveal the preferences concerning woman’s appearance or character.