A Fine Piece of Arse. Solving Jan Kochanowski’s Gadka

• Authors: Radosław Grześkowiak
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

The paper focuses on the literary riddle written in the sixteenth century by Jan Kochanowski (Fraszki III 78), concerning an animal with one eye that is shot at with arrows without arrowheads. The answer to the riddle is still debated by exegetic researchers. The author discusses the answers proposed so far (firearm, a homosexual’s anus, a female anus, an outhouse), starting with detailed lexical analysis of the epigram. Having discussed the poetics of the Old Polish ambiguous ribald riddle (suggesting indecent associations, but leading to an innocent answer) and the differences in the perception of the female body in the sixteenth century and today, the author shows that the audience of the riddle in the times of Kochanowski reached the conclusion that the answer was a female vagina. This trivial solution still seems to be the most probable answer.

Keywords

PL

Jan Kochanowski; old sexuality; poetics of a riddle; scatological humour; ribald humour

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 60

Dates

published

2016

online

2018-03-25

Contributors

author

Radosław Grześkowiak

Identifiers

DOI

10.12775/OiRwP.2016.SI.06