(1539-1584) - Kochanowski was born into mid level aristocracy. He is considered to be the greatest poet of Polish renaissance poets and often regarded as the greatest pre-Romantic poet in all Slavdom. He is considered to be the father of Polish poetry. He enjoyed his education at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (Kraków) and in Padova, Italy. After his studies he became a regular at the courts of high nobility and Polish royalty. From 1564 till 1570, he functioned as the king's secretary. He concentrated on a variety of controversial issues. These included the reformation and church renewal, as well as issues such as the application of laws and political issues such as the ongoing conflicts with the Muscovites.
He married sometime in the 1570s, he settled in Czarnolas and embarked on the third phase in life, typical of the customs of Polish renaissance nobility. He died in 1584 during political turmoil in Lublin.
His creative works are extremely varied, he started off writing epics moved on to lyrical poetry and Latin odes. He is most known for his phenomenal translation of the biblical book of Psalms into Polish and the first Polish drama, The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys. Later in life he also wrote his Laments.
He was a vital, many-sided and prolific writer: his surviving lyrical poems and satires include 16,700 verses in Polish and 7000 in Latin. Even his contemporaries considered him to be the greatest Slavic poet yet.
Important works: