Turystyczny przewodnik po Piekle Mikołaja Reja, czyli o międzyplanetarnych podróżach duszy ludzkiej...

Abstract

The article deals with the complex issue of presenting the underworld in the Reja`s Wizerunk. The author draws attention to the presence in the output of the old Polish poet of many visionary elements borrowed from the most varied traditions and religious systems. The popular pattern of searching for spiritual perfection, fixed in the archetype of the topographic movement of the hero (Latin: Homo viator) turns out to be particularly visible. It turns out that at the very foundations of this imaginative pattern there is an ancient doctrine or interplanetary wandering of the soul. Most of the work was focused on the description of XI songs of Reja’s Wizerunk, where a description of hell appeared. Unexpectedly, the picture of the topography of the infernal underworld and its inhabitants turned out to be the mirror image of the spiritual interior of man. The psychological nature of the descrip-tion of hell proves the intense search for Renaissance artists, how the imperfect human soul can return to its place of divine origin.