Writing bi- and multilingual occasional poetry in the seventeenth century Academia Dorpatensis – a rather acceptable practice at the time?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The early modern Academia Dorpatensis provides over 2,300 printed academic occasional poems within the period of 1632–1710. Among them there are as many as 58 occasional poems printed within the period of 1636–1705, which could be considered as bi- or even multilingual. In terms of sub-genres, wedding poems (epithalamia), funeral poems (epicedia), valedictory poems (propemptica), and gratulatory poems (gratulatoria) all comprise several examples in which poems are written in both classical and vernacular languages. The focal point of this article, however, are those poems in which either classical languages, classical language(s) and vernacular(s), or vernaculars appear together in the same poem. These bi- and multilingual poems will be analyzed in terms of linguistics, also providing the criteria and methodology for studying these poems.