„The way of the hetmans...”. Chodkiewicz's Address from Book Four of The Chocim War by Wacław Potocki − Construction, Inventive Background, Ideas

Abstract

The paper analyzes an excerpt from the great epic poem by Wacław Potocki, that is the famous address delivered by Chodkiewicz from Book Four of the Chocim War. The author discusses its construction and function against the background of antic and modern eposes and biblical tradition. He presents the rhetoric structure of the text under consideration, its composition and figures. He shows some relations with Homeric and Vergilian epos, and also with the historical books of the Old Testament of Jerusalem Liberated according to Piotr Kochanowski. This he explains by the fact that in Potocki's poem the idea of a „pious war” plays the most essential role.