Ratio, affectus, sensus: Literary Culture of the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
In 2025, we will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first publication of Matheus Casimirus Sarbievius' most famous Latin poetry collection 'Lyricorum libri tres' (1625). This has led to 2025 being declared the Year of Baroque Literature in Lithuania. The eminent Jesuit neo-Latin poet of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sarbievius, has been hailed as the Christian Horace and the Sarmatian Horace. His theoretical thoughts on poetry and rhetoric are still highly regarded and have inspired new research on other concurrent themes and authors. This anniversary provides an opportunity to explore the extent and diversity of Baroque literary culture, which has seen a surge of interest in recent decades, both in the academic world and in popular culture. Therefore, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, together with the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University, is organising an international academic conference "Ratio, affectus, sensus: Literary Culture of the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania" on 25-27 September 2025 in the baroque city of Vilnius.
The aim of the multidisciplinary conference is to stimulate discussion on the literary culture of the "long seventeenth century" (from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This historical period, associated with dramatic changes and a general cultural crisis, is often described in contradictory terms and in constant tension between reason and senses, rigid structure and passions, classifications and impressions, etc. By embracing this contradiction, we invite an exploration of the theme in question through the lens of this dynamic interplay between reason (ratio), emotion (affectus) and the senses (sensus), which can be perceived in various genres of the period, such as poetry, biography, hagiography, rhetoric, private and public correspondence, and so on. The importance of the modern approach lies not only in what it can reveal about the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also about subsequent and contemporary literary culture, as scholars have demonstrated the continuing influence of a 'Baroque spirit'.
Keynote speakers
Ona Dilytė-Čiurinskienė
Senior Researcher, The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore
Prof Stephen Harrison
Professor of Latin literature, University of OxfordProgram
Registration
Conference Opening
Keynote
Break
Panel Session: Sarbievius 1
11:40 – 13:00
Tomas Riklius (Sarbiewski’s Theoretical Intersections with the Post-Tridentine Intellectual Sphere)
Marc Laureys (‘Parodia’ in the Lyrical Poetry of Albertus Ines SJ)
Maria Chantry (Emotions and Attempts to Order Them in the Works of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski)
Lunch Break
Panel Session: Baroque Latinity 1
14:30 – 15:50
Simone Carboni (A New Focus on Radivilias, a Prelude to the Baroque Era)
Mintautas Čiurinskas (Theatrum S. Casimiri (1604) – and the Onset of the Baroque in Lithuania)
Eleonora Terleckienė (Same Place, Different Wording: Rethinking Pilgrimage Writing in the Baroque Grand Duchy of Lithuania)
Break
Panel Session: Baroque Latinity 2
16:10 – 17:30
Jakub Niedźwiedź (The Emblematic Turn in in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 2nd half of the 17th Century)
Francis Young (Baroque Epic in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: James Bennett’s 'Virtus dexterae Domini' (1674))
Frans-Willem Korsten (Two Republican Baroques: The Dutch Republic and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth)
Reception
Keynote
Break
Panel Session: Sarbievius 2
10:20 – 11:40
Jolanta Rzegocka (On (Jesuit) Spoiling the Pleasure of the Time: Sarbiewski’s Vanitative Epigrams in Polish-Lithuanian Jesuit Playbills)
Patryk M. Ryczkowski (Rethinking Sarbievius: A few remarks on the Composition of His Lyric Collection)
Ina Kažuro & Lukas Bieliauskas (A Unique Discovery: Perhaps Sarbievius' Last Work Published During His Lifetime)
Break
Panel Session: Baroque Culture 1
12:00 – 13:20
Dovilė Čitavičiūtė (Marriage as Politics: Aristotelian Views on Women and Family in Baroque Lithuania women of the GDL)
Viktorija Vaitkevičiūtė (Images of the Townspeople in the Funeral Sermons of Lutheran Preacher Andrzej Schönflissius)
Mikołaj Walkowicz (In the clash with the plague. The image of the plague in Lithuanian Baroque and post-Baroque texts)
Lunch Break
Panel Session: Baroque Culture 2
15:00 – 16:20
Olena Kurhanova (The Vilnius Sluzhebnyk Edition of 1692 as a Monument of Baroque Book Culture Sluzhebnyk)
Viltė Stukaitė (Witnessing the Miracle: the Genesis and Nature of the Early Greek and Roman Rite Catholic Miracle Books)
Ilona Kalamon (Józef Andrzej Załuski and Literary Community of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania)
Special Programme
Reception
Panel Session: Sarbievius in Context 1
9:00 – 10:20
Olena Matushek (The Practice of Acumen in the Sermons of Lazar Baranovych)
Beate Hintzen (Sensual Visualization in the Poetic Worship of God and Veneration of Saints by Motiejus Kazimieras Sarbievijus and in Paul Fleming’s Commemoration of the Dead)
Michał Heintze (The Reception of Sarbiewski's Poems in the Engravings of Pieter Soutman (ca. 1580–1657))
Break
Panel Session: Sarbievius in Context 2
10:40 – 12:00
Olha Maksymchuk (Quotations from Sarbievius's Poetry in the Panegyric Edition 'Bogaty Wirydarz' by Ivan Ornovsky (Kyiv, 1705))
Asta Vaškelienė (Reception of Sarbievius’s Poetic Works in Latin Occasional Literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the 18th Century)
Krzysztof Fordoński (An Ode 'with Large Additions': Isaac Watts 'Translates from Casimire’s Book IV Ode 4')
Break
Panel Session: Neo Baroque
12:20 – 13:40
Fatima Eloeva (Baroque Stylization and Geographic Myth-Making: Kristina Sabaliauskaitė and Ismail Kadare’s Reshaping of Cultural Space)
Inga Vidugirytė-Pakerienė (The Baroque Vision and the City in Contemporary Lithuanian Women’s Literature)
Aistė Kučinskienė (Baroque Literature and Sarbievijus in Lithuanian Schools: From Neglect to Prosperity)
