Neo-Latin poetry of Ukraine: literary and stylistic syncretism

Abstract

The article considers the literary and stylistic peculiarities of Neo-Latin poetry in seventeenth to eighteenth-century Ukraine. Latin poetry of that time is marked by variability and diversity of genres, for it logically continued the classical traditions and at the same time was influenced by the aesthetics and poetics of the Baroque due to the interlingual contacts. The Latin language was supposed to be the main criterion of the high style in a poetry. As for the genre peculiarities, Neo-Latin poetry tended to panegyrics as the literature "fashion" of that epoch, when the poets expressed their gratitude and admiration to the philanthropists, whereas the elegic poems were the part of poetic courses to illustrate the genre. It explains the freedom and fantazy which are present in panegyric poetry and classical canon which served for writing elegies. The period of the seventeenth to the eighteenth century was an absolutely disparate one in both the political and social life of Ukraine. Rapid development of events, dramatically changing realia and values shaped very special attitudes to life with the contemporaries, in particular with Kyiv intellectual poets who wrote a significant number of works in Latin. Analysis of these works enables to characterize the development of the Latin language in Ukraine and consider Neo-Latin poetry of Ukraine as a part of the Western European literary and language unity.