The Bronze Sounds of Pigoń’s Speech. Biblical References in the Kombornian’s Memoirs

Abstract

This article is an attempt to describe selected aspects of the language used in the works of Stanisław Pigoń, an outstanding humanist and scholar of peasant origin, born at the end of the nineteenth century in the village of Kombornia in the Subcarpathian region of Poland. In addition to monographs and editorial works devoted mainly to the works of Adam Mickiewicz, Stanisław Pigoń left behind a sizeable oeuvre which also includes memoirs, which the author made the object of description in terms of linguistic evidence of the presence of references to the biblical heritage. The study is part of the trend in linguistic research focused on the description of individual language – idiolect seen in the context of outstanding personalities with significant creative achievements who have made a significant contribution to the history of a given language and national culture. As a result of the material queries presented in the article and the conclusions drawn on their basis, it has become possible to identify the type, function and ways in which Pigoń used those forms and content that originate from the biblical tradition. An analysis of Stanisław Pigoń’s memoirs reveals that the presence of a “biblical code” in this part of his work is a natural part of the writer’s creative idiolect, shaped equally by the language of his childhood and the religious tradition of the countryside, as well as by his research interests in the literature of Polish Romanticism, particularly its Messianic trend, which refers to the technique of biblical stylization.