We are a team of scholars studying the oldest period in the history of literature. What does this mean? Our research focuses on old Polish literature, that is texts written between the 10th and the 18th centuries. It should be emphasized, however, that studying and teaching old Polish literature is impossible without reference to European or Mediterranean literatures. Therefore, we read and interpret Kochanowski and Shakespeare, Gertruda Mieszkówna and Hildegard of Bingen, Piotr Skarga and Boccaccio, Gallus Anonymus and The Song of Roland, Jan Twardowski and Camões, Morsztyn and Ovid, Sarbiewski and Ariosto, Baka and Aretino (and many others). We are also interested in the traditions that gave the beginning to medieval and early-modern European literature: Greek-Roman (traditio pagana), Jewish (tradition Haebraica), Christian (traditio Christiana), and Islamic (traditio Islamica).
The interests of the employees and doctoral students in the Department are very broad. They include, among other things, the history of Polish literature from the 10th to the early 19th century; neo-Latin and European poetry; the relations between Polish and Italian literature; the multiculturality of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Europe; editing poetry and prose; translating texts of old European literature; biblical studies; medieval preaching; renaissance cartography; posthumanism; old Cracow literature; the history of reading and writing; the literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; and early modern literature from the postcolonial perspective.
During our courses, we try to demonstrate that people who created this remote and strange literature were, actually, akin to us. And that, in fact, matters concerning them also concern us. The chief course ran by our Department is the History of old Polish literature. We also give lectures, lead seminars and tutorials dedicated to the old Cracow culture, the Mediterranean and biblical tradition, the multiethnic literature of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, rhetoric and historical poetics.