Studia Językoznawcze

The article explores the linguistic lexical means that served Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz to express the selected colours of the poetic world he created in the three initial volumes of his poetry, regarded as his juvenilia (Oktostychy, Dionizje, and Kasydy zakończone siedmioma wierszami). The subject of the author’s particular interest are lexemes that refer to the colours gold (złoty) and golden (złocisty), as well as the colours similar to them (i.e. yellow, citron, and amber). Their description is formal-semantic, performed in accordance with the principles of stylistic grammar, not considering the poetic function of the used linguistic means. The exponents of the abovementioned colours make up 18% of the usage of all the words referring to colours. The primary names of the indicated colours are the simple adjectives złoty, złocisty, topazowy, żółty, bursztynowy, cytrynowy, and the compound adjectives biało-złoty, różowo-złocisty, złotolisty, złotooki, złotoskrzydły, złotowłosy, żółtooki, żółto-jedwabny, as well as the adverbs złoto and złociście. Secondary in relation to them are the nouns złoto, złocistość, żółtość, and the verbs złocić (here in the form of the participles złocąc and złocony) and żółcić (in the third person singular form żółci). In the analysed poems Iwaszkiewicz appears as a poet sensitive to colours, of which the colour gold is the most intensive and renders the best the sensuality of the world of his poetic juvenilia.