Lyric Poetry in the Mohylanian Poetics

This article analyses the treatment of lyric poetry in the Mohylanian poetics and takes into account the wider framework of the conception of poetry fostered at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The author reconstructs the sources that Mohylanian authors used and then studies their selective use; she also investigates the numerous poetic quotations from Horace and M. K. Sarbiewski that Mohylanian authors quoted as examples illustrating the poetic rules, precepts and principles they wished to impart to their pupils. This analysis confirms that lyric poetry was mainly conceived by Mohylanian authors as a poetic means to either praise someone (genus demonstrativum or exornativum) or to convey some moral teaching (genus deliberativum), and was thus conceived as a means for the moral edification both of those who practiced it and also those who took pleasure in reading and listening to it.