Jan Andrzej Morsztyn

Jan Andrzej Morsztyn (1621–1693) was a Polish poet. He was a member of the landed nobility and an important official in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He held several important jobs, including being starosta of Zawichost, Tymbark, and Kowal. He also served as pantler of Sandomierz from 1647 to 1658, Royal Secretary starting in 1656, a secular referendary from 1658 to 1668, and Deputy Crown Treasurer from 1668.

Morsztyn was also a well-known poet from the Polish Baroque period and a key figure in the Marinist style of Polish literature. He became very wealthy through his work and service. In 1683, he faced accusations of treason and had to leave Poland. He spent his last years in France.

Life

Jan Andrzej Morsztyn was born on July 24, 1621, in Wiśnicz, near Kraków. He came from a wealthy Calvinist family with the Leliwa coat-of-arms. He studied at Leiden University and traveled with his brother in Italy and France.

After returning to Poland, Morsztyn worked for the powerful Lubomirski family and joined the royal court. He served in government meetings called Sejms from 1648 to 1659 and worked on important tasks for the government. He traveled for diplomatic work to Hungary in 1653, Sweden in 1655, and Austria in 1656.

Morsztyn became Royal Secretary in 1656, Crown Referendary in 1658, and Deputy Crown Treasurer in 1668. He helped negotiate the Treaty of Oliwa in 1660. He supported French policies and took French citizenship. When Poland's king allied with Austria instead of France, Morsztyn was accused of treason and fled to France in 1683. There, he lived as a royal secretary and took the title comte de Châteauvillain.

Morsztyn passed away on January 8, 1693, in Paris.

Family

Jan Andrzej Morsztyn married Lady Catherine Gordon of Huntly, a noblewoman from Scotland, in 1659. Catherine was the daughter of an important Scottish noble. She came to Poland with her brother, who worked for the Polish king for many years. Catherine also worked at the court of Queen Marie Louise de Gonzaga.

They had a son and three daughters. Their younger daughter, Isabella Morsztynowna, married into the important Czartoryski family. Because of this, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn and Catherine Gordon are related to important people in history, including Stanisław II Augustus, who became King of Poland, and Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz, who became Queen of the Belgians.

Works

Jan Andrzej Morsztyn was a famous poet from the Polish Baroque period. He wrote his poems in a fancy, expressive style that came from 16th-century Italy. He wrote most of his poems before he got a big government job in 1668. Morsztyn thought of his writing as a fun hobby, so he usually only shared his poems in handwritten copies. Because of this, many of his works were not printed until the 1800s.

He was very good at writing poems that followed special rules. Two of his collections are called Kanikuła (Dog Days, 1647) and Lutnia (Lute, 1661). In his poems, he often wrote about love and deep feelings, mixing happy and serious ideas. Some of his other poems also talked about politics, like Pospolite ruszenie and Pieśń w obozie pod Żwańcem (Song in the camp near Żwaniec), where he pointed out that some people were not ready to protect themselves from dangers like attacks from Tatars or Cossacks. Unlike his cousin, Zbigniew Morsztyn, most of his poems were not about religion, except for one called Pokuta w kwartanie.

Morsztyn was also good at translating the works of other writers. He translated the work of Torquato Tasso, Giambattista Marino, and Pierre Corneille. His translation of Corneille's Le Cid was the very first time this famous story was written in Polish, and it is still the most used version today.

In 1660, he helped write a plan to change how the government worked.