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The page of Kochanowski, Jan, English biography

Image of Kochanowski, Jan
Kochanowski, Jan
(1530–1584)

Biography

Jan Kochanowski (1530 - August 22, 1584) was a Polish Renaissance poet who established poetic patterns that would become integral to Polish literary language. He is commonly regarded as the greatest Polish poet as well as the the greatest Slavic poet prior to the 19th century.
Kochanowski was born at Sycyna, near Radom, Poland. Little is known of his early education. At fourteen, however, fluent in Latin, he was sent to Kraków to study at the Jagiellonian University. After graduation in 1547 at age 17, he attended university at Koenigsberg, in Ducal Prussia, and at Padua, Italy. At Padua, Kochanowski came in contact with the great humanist scholar Francis Robortello. Kochanowski closed his fifteen-year period of studies and travels with a final visit to France, where he met the poet Pierre Ronsard.In 1559 Kochanowski returned to Poland for good, a humanist and Renaissance poet. He spent the next fifteen years close to the court of King Sigismund II of Poland, serving for a time as royal secretary. In 1574, following the decampment of Poland's recently elected King Henryk Walezy (whose candidacy to the Polish throne Kochanowski had supported), Kochanowski settled on a family estate at Czarnolas ("Blackwood") to lead the life of a country squire. In 1575 he married Dorota Podlodowska, with whom he had seven children.Kochanowski is sometimes referred to in Polish as "Jan of Czarnolas" ("John of Blackwood"). It was there that he wrote his most memorable works, including The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys and the Laments.
Kochanowski died, probably of a heart attack, in Lublin on August 22, 1584.
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