A Bunch of the Wildflowers or an Elegant Bouquet? Rhetorical Devices in the Dialect Poetry of Jan Mazur from Podhale

Abstract

Dialect poetry is usually treated as a synonym of folk poetry. While in most cases such a simplification is correct, it failes to describe the entirety of this phenomenon in relation to Podhale. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that a trend of dialect poetry not motivated by folklore made its mark in Podhale region still before World War II . Its creators were educated highlanders, often living outside Podhale. They treated dialect as an equal language capable of creating original literature. In their work, they consciously used figures of speech and stylistic tropes typical of poetry. Their work contributed to the internal differentiation of the Podhale dialect consciously going beyond just the folk artistic style. This thesis is proven by a stylistic and linguistic analysis of selected works by Jan Mazur.