The article focuses upon the analysis of poems written down in the manuscript associated with the Działyński family. The works have satirical in nature and are addressed to the circle of the closest people, relatives and family. What is more, their author is using different types of literary styles and literary genres (e.g. prayer, laudatio, speech). The poems have a carnivalesque character. That is why they are upsetting rational order of the world. The author is mocking and unmasking conventions. Of course, the value of these poems should not be overrated. These literary pieces are examples of composition inconsistency and stylistic ineptitude. The article is taking also a matter of the authorship of poems, however, it verifies the authorship of Marcin Działyński, the governor of Nakło.
The article points to a relationship between Mikołaj Mieleszko’s "Pious Sighs" ("Nabożne westchnienia"; 1657) and the ascetic-mystical literature of the 17th century. This work particularly shows the meditative character of Mieleszko’s emblems. It also presents the division of the work into three books introduced by Mieleszko, which can be viewed in the context of the model of the three-stage mystical way to God (via purgativa, via illuminativa, via unitiva), employed by St. Ignatius of Loyola but known already by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and fully expressed by St. Bonaventure. The article also discusses the participation of human faculties in the emblems: memory, intellect, will, imagination, and feelings, which are so important in the act of meditation. Referring to the method of applying senses (applicatio sensuum), originating from the Church tradition (Origen, St. Bonaventure) and taken over by St. Ignatius of Loyola, the work emphasizes Mieleszko’s need to apply it in his emblems. Moreover, the article focuses on the influence of Kasper Drużbicki’s and St. Teresa of Ávila’s works visible in Mieleszko’s poems. The themes, allegories, symbols and metaphors of the ascetic-mystical literature reverberate in the emblems of the Baroque poet.
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