Kreacja przestrzeni wiejskiej w liryce dziecięcej Marii Konopnickiej

Abstract

[Rural Space in Children’s Poetry by Maria Konopnicka]

The paper describes educational mechanisms in Maria Konopnicka’s poems for children containing images of rural landscape. In the world created by the analysed poems an impor-tant role is played by children, who - together with ever-accompanying animals, horses and mongrel-dogs - shape that space with their natural activities - work and play. The poems are a poetic list of the basic elements of the rural world; the reality they create is rather conven-tional in character. Konopnicka’s poems - a very particular kind of guide (specific role of pronouns here and our) - take the child-reader for a walk around the rural space, make him or her familiar with folk culture, raise their interest in the world, enrich their knowledge and - most of all - bring them in closer contact with the human and natural environment. The child-reader gets to know the reality also through the senses, thanks to abundant images and onomatopoeias. The poet-ics of the interpreted poems suggests perception mechanisms suited to psycho-physical condi-tion of child-readers; the kind of playful education used by the poetess has not become ar-chaic, it is still innovatory.