The light of faith. The motif of the sun and its Christian connotations in the poetry of Krystyna Saryusz-Zaleska

Abstract

The paper discusses the way the motif of the sun functions in the poetry of Krystyna Saryusz-Zaleska (1874–1945). Basing upon the poetry of the author from the Young Poland epoch, we are dealing neither with a simple identification of the sun with divine power, nor with a permanent assignment of it to one of the divine figures (God, Christ, Mary). Not every instance of invoking the sun is associated with a lyrical emanation of divinity; and not always when the when the poet uses solar accents, the metaphysical context is exclusive or even dominant. There are many examples of solar universalism in Saryusz-Zaleska’s poetry, when the sun becomes a symbol of life, when it co-creates spectacular landscapes (sea, mountain), when it allows for the demonstration of the beauty of the Italian or Dalmatian landscape in proper lighting. At the same time, however, there is no mention of a permanent secularization of this motif, because, after all, religious accents are very often connected with the sun.