„(...) Będę ci spiewał jak mrące łabędzie (...)” – porównania z komparansem „animalistycznym” w poematach Juliusza Słowackiego

A purpose of the article is to provide characteristics of comparisons appearing in Juliusz Słowacki’s poems exemplified by the constructions where comparans refers to the world of animals. Lexical material has been excerpted from eleven works written by J. Słowacki in the pre-mystic period. They include the following poems: Arab, Beniowski (songs I–V), Jan Bielecki, Lambro, Mnich, Ojciec zadżumionych, Podróż do Ziemi Świętej z Neapolu, Poema Piasta Dantyszka,Wacław, W Szwajcarii and Żmija. Non-gradation comparative structures possessing standard comparison indicators have been analyzed. The article mainly focused on: 1) discussing a formal shape of studied constructions, 2) semantic classification of comparans contained in comparisons referring us to the animal kingdom, 3) emphasizing multitude of “animal” lexis connotations used by the poet, 4) discussing basic subject areas the excerpted comparisons belong to with regard to the meaning of a descriptive chunk, and 5) the most important functions of these clues. It has been established that the analyzed comparative constructions have an explicitly anthropocentric character since they, most of all, serve a suggestive illustration of a human’s psycho-physical condition.