Erotyka jako temat wyznań w barokowym liście miłosnym. Próby przełamywania tabu [Eroticism as a topic for confession in the Baroque love letter: attempts to break a taboo]

The article relates to how the issues of erotic needs and experiences were raised in Baroque love letters, before and after the marriage. The analysed source material, created both by women and men, shows to which extent former lovers were willing to break a taboo and directly express not only their spiritual longing, resulting from a distance, but also the physical, motivated sexually, in the text theoretically considered as a completely private and devoted only to a partner. In the considerations the letters of the rich nobility representatives (Jan Sobieski, Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa, Magdalena Radzwiłłowa from Czapski’s family), and of the impoverished nobility members (Teresa and Kazimierz Wiśnicki) were included. The text attempts to answer in what way environment, readings, social status, and personality traits may influ ence the tendency to break taboos in the field of erotica or vice versa, to decide on its conservation. The analysis presents as well, what methods were used by pen–friends to express some embarrassing content