Toruńska Olbiopolis : tropy i figury Ulryka Schobera

Abstract

The main aim of the paper is to present the catalogue of epigrams based on tropes and figures, placed in the book Ολβιόπολις, seu civitas beata (Olbiopolis, or a Happy City, Leipzig 1592) by Ulrich Schober (1559–1598), a neo-Latin poet associated with the Gymnasium in Thorun. This tome is a collection of almost five hundred verses written in different metres, rhetorical figures, and styles. Each of them, however, has one thing in common – they are paraphrases of Latin sentence: “Happy is the city that fears war in a time of peace” (felix civitas, quae tempore pacis timet bella), regarded as a variant of well-known Latin adage: “If you want peace, prepare for war” (si vis pacem, para bellum). The paper consists of three closely related parts. The first section discusses a prefatory letter addressed to Heinrich Stroband, burgomaster of Thorun, in which the author explained the didactic and moralistic purpose of his literary work. The second part brings considerations on epigrams based on tropes and figures as seen from the perspective of rhetorical criticism. And finally, the third part of the study is a transcription of the discussed verses, divided by Schober into four sections: ten tropes and three classes of rhetorical devices: figures related to grammatical order, figures of arousing and expressing of emotions, and figures of amplification or exaggeration. The ancient sentence concerning the time of war and peace in the life of a human community became the subject of a metrical, conceptual and linguistic paraphrase. Schober’s collection of epigrams might be interesting for an historian of rhetoric for two reasons. Firstly, it provides a remarkable insight into the reception of Melanchthon’s rhetorical theory in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And secondly, it allows a reconstruction of the teaching of eloquence in the Gymnasium of Thorun by such learning activities as: translation, metaphrase, summary, and imitation. Thus, a student following the example given by his professor was able to create their own catalogues of metrical and stylistic paraphrases. Schober’s Olbiopolis is a city built with words, figures, and images on the solid foundation of poetics and rhetoric. But his literary work should not be restricted to a poetical play on words or a rhetorical exercise of language and style. According to the wisdom written in the ancient sentence, peace is only seemingly a time free of war. More attentive readings in epigrams on the ideal city reveal the project of a political Utopia. For the purposes of humanistic pedagogy, Schober turned Olbioplis into the figure of an ideal city.