Description

• Title:
  A Fine Piece of Arse. Solving Jan Kochanowski’s Gadka
• Creator:
  Grześkowiak, Radosław
• Description:
  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.
• Object availability:
  free access
• Rights:
  Prawa autorskie (c) 2018 Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce
• Date:
  2018.03.25
• Type:
  info:eu-repo/semantics/article;
  info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
• Language:
  English
• Source:
  Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce; Tom 60 (2016): Special Issue; 189-220;
  2450-8349;
  0029-8514
• Format:
  application/pdf
• Publisher:
  Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Relation: https://apcz.umk.pl/OR/article/view/OiRwP.2016.SI.06/14409
• Subject:
  Jan Kochanowski;
  old sexuality;
  poetics of a riddle;
  scatological humour;
  ribald humour
• Identifier: https://apcz.umk.pl/OR/article/view/OiRwP.2016.SI.06
• Data provider:
  Akademicka Platforma Czasopism
• Can I use it?:
  seek permission
• Type:
  text