Struktura ironii w programie Sarmatia Jacka Kaczmarskiego. Wprowadzenie

The article is an introduction into an analysis of irony used by Jacek Kaczmarski in the songs making up his Sarmatia cycle. In almost every work in the cycle we can find elements of irony, thanks to which the artist is able to present notions like nation, tradition and cultural heritage in the broadest possible spectrum. Using Douglas Muecke’s typology, the author of the paper puts Kaczmarski’s ironic devices in order, at the same time pointing to the simultaneous appearance of some types of irony, which in turn is associated with the considerable number of ironic tropes that can be found in Sarmatia. Irony — both as the basis and as expression (to follow Piotr Łaguna’s apt distinction) — turns out to be, and not only in Sarmatia, one of the key artistic devices found in the world of Kaczmarski’s lyrics. An important thread in the article concerns the problem of scholarly analysis of the lyrics, which deserve to be carefully read philologically.