Złe białogłowy w utworach Jana Andrzeja Morsztyna

Abstract

J.A. Morsztyn is a poet who wrote most of his works about the fair (Polish biała/white) sex (the word kobieta/a woman was not used then) named with many synonyms (over 180 entries). Apart from panny, niewiasty, dziewki, dziewczęta, dziewczyny śliczne, nadobne, piękne the characters of the poet’s works were also złe panny, białogłowy, panie, baby. The author describes them in four categories: nazbyt cnotliwe/too chaste girls, złośnice/vixens, szpetne/the ugly, and wszetecznice/the meretricious. The presented Morsztyn’s poetic world is subjective and solely hedonistic, which is proved by the comprehensive vocabulary of names, epithets, proverbs and semantic jokes. The poet is characterized by scoffing distance to created characters, women's anger, and their subordinated service role in society. However, there are not any portraits of the baroque. A variety of creations of female characters in hedonistic roles enables to agree with an opinion defining Morsztyn as a pan-erotic poet.