Joachim Rachel’s Epigrammatum centuria (1648): first renunciation of occasional poetry in premodern Livonia

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the development of the multilingual secular literature of early modern Livonia, the 1630s and 1640s mark not only the beginning of vernacular poetry in Estonian and Latvian, but also the first attempts to break free from the dominant paradigm of occasional poetry and to write single authored collections on universal topics. Following the classical and humanist tradition, Joachim Rachel’s Epigrammatum centuria (Hundred epigrams) poetized his knowledge and ideas without a link to a public or private event, elevating a collection of short poems in Livonia to the similar level of individual literary achievement as the publication of an epic or chronicle, and the poet to that of an individual author.