Fraszka jako gatunek somatyczny

Abstrakt

The article comments on the therapeutical properties of the epigram (and other short, comical poetic genres). Laughter was considered one the best remedies for melancholy, the most serious of the psychosomatic syndromes in the diagnostics of humoral medicine, based on the ancient theory of four humours. Because of its direct influence on the spleen, i.e. the organ responsible for the secretion of black bile, laughter was supposed to alleviate melancholy. Epigrams, considered by Old Polish authors to be a poetic genre written “for the body”, were to be relaxing and listening or reading them, especially in a group of friends, was supposed to be a therapeutic medicinal practice.