Biernat of Lublin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biernat of Lublin (Polish: Biernat z Lublina, 1465? – after 1529) was a Polish poet, fabulist and physician. He was one of the first Polish-language writers known by name, and the most interesting of the earliest ones. He expressed plebeian, Renaissance and religiously liberal opinions.

Biernat wrote the first book printed in Polish (by Florian Ungler), a prayer-book, Raj duszny (Hortulus Animae, Garden of the Soul, 1513). He also penned the first secular work in Polish literature: a collection of verse fables, Ezop... (Aesop..., c. 1510), plebeian and anticlerical in nature (first known edition, 1578, titled Żywot Ezopa Fryga [The Life of Aesop the Phrygian]).