About expressiveness in the David’s Psalter prayers by Mikołaj Rej

Abstract

The article analyses the linguistic signs of expressiveness present in the prayers attached to the prose paraphrase of Mikołaj Rej’s David’s Psalter, in particular the evaluative (modality) and intensifying exponents. Rej’s prayers are characterized by a lot of emotionalisms which make them a tool of the emotional expression. The writer uses many expressional synonyms accumulated as two or three evaluative expressions and many epithets which perform the hyperbolic function and intensify the referent feature of the noun. Metaphors and rhetorical questions also serve the function of intensification. The expressiveness is also emphasizes by the use of the elements characteristic of the spoken language: the lexicon of the vernacular speech, a wide variety of phatic signals and demonstrative pronouns. The application of these linguistic phenomena makes Rej’s prayers, despite the structural limitations, assume the character of private confessions full of authentic affection and admiration of God – the addressee.