Slovak Averroes poetic composition from 1701
[Un componimento averroista in slovacco del 1701]
Pavol Koprda
DOI: 10.18355/XL.2018.11.01XL.19
Abstract
The study about the Selecky´s songs Obraz pani krásnej“ ... (1701) is a series of poetic expressions, which are, in their entirety, the transfer of the Averroes philosopher's system into poetic speech. The habit of forming a poetic composition as a discourse of the medieval philosophical system has stabilized in Italian poetry, beginning with Giacomo da Lentini in many poets, including Dante, in which he acquired the character of a heroic philosophical-theological system. Selecky´s Slovak poetry presents a very credible, confidential knowledge of the whole sense of Averroes' philosophy of the highest knowledge and the highest happiness that man has to achieve during life, not after death. He also discovers expressive and technical autonomy to the Italian medieval and Renaissance poetic works of the same substance. Therefore, it is unlikely that Selecky would have been so thoroughly and confidently acquainted with Averroes' system and became autonomous in his poetic work during a presumed study at the University of Trnava. It is more tolerable to assume that the author is Croatian from Dalmatia and that he learned everything from the local poetry tradition before coming to Trnava.
Key words: medieval Averroes philosophy, literary hermeneutics, older Slovak, literature, "my lady", Trnava Jesuit University