Emblematic Literature Research Articles

Mostruose metamorfosi: sull’ibridazione iconografica del basilisco

The paper aims to highlight the centrality of a late process of metamorphosis, which has unequivocally conditioned the image of the basilisk, radically transforming its appearance from a simple snake to a monster with the body of a rooster and a snake’s tail. The basilisk described in the classical sources corresponded to a small snake but was characterized by an extraordinary poisonous power. With the passage to the Middle Ages and the influence of Christianity, the basilisk took on new monstrous meanings, transforming its iconography into a rooster-snake hybrid, based on theories that believed it was generated from a rooster’s egg. The Renaissance and Early Modern Age inherited the medieval basilisk, which continued to be prominently depicted in emblematic literature; in parallel, however, the new scientific literature began to exclude excessively legendary meanings, preferring to return to descriptions of the classical era and thus depict the basilisk as a snake.

Racism and Indifference in Brazil: Anti-indigenous Text, Action, and Sensibility

AbstractThe article investigates how racist trends have permeated Brazilian history and geography. It discusses the persistence of racism and indifference in the early post-independence and republic periods. Past relations continued to systematically impact the present in an always unfinished process of nation-building based on spurious treatments of socio-spatial differences. The discussion makes use of emblematic literature books and controversial interpretations of progress and national identity. One of the most relevant examples of the contested basis of national development, examined in the second part of the text, is the trajectory of indigenous peoples. The main reference is the Guarani-Kaiowa indigenous nation, which has been relentlessly impacted by an aggressive instrumentalisation of difference through the indifference of an agribusiness-based regional society. Their contemporary experience exposes multiple violence accumulated over time and through the production of an uneven space by explorers, missionaries, colonists, public authorities and, eventually, the export-oriented agribusiness sector. Despite all racist violence, the voice, consciousness and agency of indigenous peoples represent the most acute challenge to the status quo and the main source of creative politics in the country today.

Říšský hrabě Albert Josef z Hodic a Volframic a soubor tabulí s emblémy ze zámku ve Slezských Rudolticích

The study deals with the preserved set of painted panels with emblematic motifs from the collections of the Krnov Museum, which come from the château in Slezské Rudoltice (Rosswald). This set of panels relates via emblems to the life and death of margravine Sophia, the wife of the Albert Josef Count of Hoditz and Wolframitz. The study thoroughly analyses the motifs and texts used on the panels, places them in the context of contemporary emblematic works and proves that their author was Count Hoditz. It also presents the basic literary and emblematic sources from which the author might have drawn inspiration. Based on the surviving inventory of books, it shows that emblematic literature was represented in Hoditz's library. The study also outlines the possibilities that arise in relation to the purpose and function of these panels.

A estrutura emblemática nas Aves Ilustradas em avisos para as religiosas servirem os ofícios nos seus mosteiros de Soror Maria do Céu (1734)

The work Aves Illustradas em avisos para as Religiosas servirem os ofícios nos seus Mosteiros, by Soror Maria do Céu (1658-1753), published in 1734, consists of a series of fourteen speeches written as fables or apologues where birds receive the allegorical and simbolic capacity of transmitting the moral values and teachings to the convent nuns, consisting each speech in a kind of “device” for each convent labour that could allow this work to be considered as an atypical form of emblematic literature.

Emblematic codes of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s dialogue A Colloquy, called “Alphabet,” or “Primer of Peace”

The paper focuses on the features, origin, and functions of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s (1722–1794) emblematic language (speech) in the dialogue A Colloquy, called “Alphabet,” or “Primer of Peace”. The objective is to study the emblematic arrangements of Hryhorii Skovoroda within the European emblematic literature context, focusing on eventual intertextual relations and striking semiotic interactions. The text of the paper interprets the artistic and stylistic features of the emblematic construction of eide of the Ukrainian writer, their sources, contexts, and the author’s conceptual nominations. Theoretical generalizations are made primarily from the text of Skovoroda’s dialogue A Colloquy, called “Alphabet,” or “Primer of Peace”, as well as from his other works, the scholars’ works, and the European literary context. The structural-semiotic methodology has been employed to trace the identified issues. The main idea of the paper is to highlight the dominance of the emblematic way of meaning stating in Hryhorii Skovoroda, thus, the emblematic code as the core in the sense-modelling activities. Emblematic forms have a special place in the coverage of anthropological, metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic, and hermeneutic eide of the Ukrainian poet and philosopher. Skovoroda considers emblematics as a particularly effective visual-verbal (iconic-conventional) type of signification functioning as a kind of refined meta-language, an ancient arcane semiosis practice of intellectuals. He had his personal insight into the nature, structure, and potential of such an expression, which was elaborated by the long-term, permanent hermeneutics of biblical texts, formed on the logic and metaphysics of ancient philosophers, the context of literary and artistic baroque, European emblematic models. Skovoroda uses significative re-referencing as a means of interpretation, therefore, individual images, embodied in the word, resemble semiotic bunches, concise visual-verbal meaning-making entities, disclosed through associations, comparisons, oppositions, metaphors, and structural-emblematic representation.

‘As fezes que levar este feníssimo ouro’: Una curiosa dedicatoria del Ms. LC P-152 de la Crónica do Imperador Beliandro

ABSTRACT In this paper, I transcribe and analyse the dedication of a manuscript of Part I of the late chivalric romance Crónica do Imperador Beliandro, which is now preserved in the ‘Portuguese Manuscripts Collection’ at the Library of Congress (Washington). Following the tradition of specula principium or ‘mirrors of princes’, the dedication, dated 1692, recommends to the young António Estêvão da Costa e Sousa (1671-1723) the example of the chivalric heroes and alludes to emblematic literature (with some references to Andrés Laguna and Ammianus Marcellinus). This paper thus helps to reconstruct the textual history of this copy of the Crónica do Imperador Beliandro.

Horapolo y Alciato en Toledo: lectura en clave emblemática de un poema heroico (Sagrario de Toledo, 1616)

En 1616 vio la luz el poema heroico Sagrario de Toledo, de José de Valdivielso, escrito por encargo del arzobispo Bernardo de Sandoval con motivo de la inauguración de su capilla catedralicia. Con una doble finalidad devocional y propagandística, en sus octavas reales distribuidas en 25 libros el poeta vuelca toda su erudición. Entre las fuentes que maneja se encuentra la literatura emblemática, con citas explícitas a los Hieroglyphica de Horapolo y al Emblematum liber de Alciato que integra en el argumento del poema para desarrollar conceptos en relación con la dignidad episcopal de san Ildefonso, el combate contra la herejía en defensa de la virginidad de María, la exaltación de la fiesta de la O, y los amores deshonestos de don Rodrigo y La Cava a orillas del Tajo. Poesía y emblemática se enriquecen mutuamente, convirtiéndose en un excepcional ejemplo de la confluencia de géneros en el marco de la cultura visual del Siglo de Oro español.

Emblematic Literature as a Form of Biblical Hermeneutics

The article defines the basic principles of the influence of biblical hermeneutics on the poetics of Ukrainian Baroque emblematic literature, which were determined by its general development trends. The four-sense biblical hermeneutics, founded by the Greek and Roman Church Fathers, played an important role in the formation of Ukrainian Baroque literature that mainly developed within the theological framework. The principles of biblical hermeneutics eventually began to go beyond the theological literature. Thus, the medieval interest in symbol and allegory led to the appearance of “empresas” – symbolic drawings that became fashionable at the royal courts of Europe in the 15th century. The Renaissance misunderstanding about the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs, their perception as ideographic writing through which Egyptian priests expressed their wisdom, led to the appearance of emblems, allegorical prints with long explanatory verses, aimed at giving some moral lessons. It was believed that the emblem could communicate truth to the mind more directly than with the help of words. It was reflected in the mind, while the person’s gaze wandered through the symbolic details of the emblem. The research provides evidence that a large number of literary works of the 17th century showed the influence of the emblem on the formation of symbolic representation, arranged to reveal the truth implicitly or explicitly through the sequential placement of the elements. Many poetic images of the 17th century come from well-known emblems, which were means of perceiving, interpreting, and opening the world of the Bible to the Baroque reader.

La fauna emblemática en el libro "Theatrvm Omnivm Scientiarvm" (Nápoles, 1650)

El presente trabajo se integra dentro de los estudios entorno a la literatura emblemática que se vienen desarrollando en España tras la estela iniciada por Santiago Sebastián. En él abordaremos el estudio y traducción anotada de una selección de 9 emblemas, que aparecen en el libro Theatrvm omnivm scientiarvm, libro de emblemas dedicado al Conde Oñate, virrey en Nápoles, por la Universidad de Nápoles con motivo de las fiestas del inicio de los estudios en la universidad en 1649, en donde la fauna emblemática adquiere protagonismo.Los libros de emblemas ven el mundo y la naturaleza como un gran libro abierto y entre otras lecciones nos recuerdan la lección que nos enseñan los animales a los hombres. Giovanni Battista Cacace, autor del libro, utiliza los animales presentes en las alegorías y fábulas de la tradición clásica y cristiana para simbolizar y exaltar con la literatura emblemática la figura del virrey.

De muscipulis et caveis. The cage and the mousetrap as pictorical and literary motifs in neo-latin emblem books

Topics and metaphors within the system of classical rhetoric served as store-houses at times, to express ideas from the most general to the most particular, passing through an infinite number of the most varied concepts and realities. The authors sought to evoke a world of conceptual associations in the mind, so as to arrive at the most profound feelings of the reader. The same may be said of emblematic literature, a genre with a moral and didacticvocation. It fully exploits the polyvalent and at times antagonistic symbolism of image and word, to offer its potential readers a flood of reflections with which to orient their political and religious thought. In this work, we shall analyse the graphic and literary motifs of the mousetrap and the cage and their symbolic interpretation through the emblems of the Dutch physician, philologist, historian, and poet Adriaen de Jonghe or Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575).

De yerbas, animales y otras ponzoñas: renovación mágica en «El peregrino indiano» de Antonio Saavedra Guzmán

El peregrino indiano by Antonio de Saavedra Guzman incorporates new substances into the magic spell. In addition to La Araucana , there are ingredients that come from other discursive traditions: the Renaissance treatises of natural history, the Bible, bestiaries, emblematic literature, magic and grimoires.

Must I Needs Want Solidnesse Because by Metaphors I Speak?: Emblematics, Stylistics, Materiality

Emblems and devices were typical in their hybrid nature, with textual and visual elements mutually interpreting and reinforcing each other. Using symbols and metaphors, however, did not necessarily mean producing superficial, entertaining forms of art with no solidnesse: rather, emblems and devices can be considered as wide cultural indexes in perennial negotiations with the materiality of their symbols. Seen from this point of view, their study can highlight various aspects that are central to the empirical study of Early Modern literature and provide a fresh look at this cultural phenomenon and at the changes in relevance paradigms in a period rife with epistemological and political tensions. Moreover, emblematic texts stressed the centrality of the interpretative moment of a participatory reader and are thus prone to fruitful stylistic analyses: in particular, the stringent theoretical tools provided by Relevance Theory's inferential model of communication can expose not only the emblematists' rhetorical strategies to direct their reader, but also their increasing tendency of constraining the latter's hermeneutic possibilities, allowing a fruitful analysis of emblematic literature and its cultural, economic and ideological bearings.

Visual and verbal communication in Francesco Pona's Cardiomorphoseos (1645)

This essay analyzes a central problem in the tradition of Renaissance and baroque emblematic literature, namely, the distinction between private and universal communication. The Italian Renaissance theorized the existence of two visual/verbal genres, one (the so-called impresa) conveying a 'personal, individual, noble, and covert expression' and the other (emblem), structurally similar but not identical to the first, was meant to express a universal communication and thus an abstract state of mind (for instance, bravery or honesty.1 As Mario Praz reminds us, emblems and imprese 'originate as a humanistic attempt to give a modern equivalent of the hierogliphys' as they were wrongly interpreted by Florentine Neoplatonism.2 Indeed, Italian humanists saw hieroglyphs as 'ideogrammatic figures' synthesizing a form of intuitive knowledge.3 In a seminal passage from his commentary on Plotinus, Marsilio Ficino states that the image of a snake biting its tail expresses the concept of time in a sudden and insightful manner.4

Dedal i Ikar - dwa humanistyczne ideały moralne

For humanists of the 15th and 16th centuries the literary motive of Daedalus and Icarus became a basis for discussions about the attitude of a man towards both other men and the world. The elitarian, “philosophical” character of this motive is emphasized by its scarcity in plastic arts of that period and, on the other hand, by its great popularity in the moral and emblematic literature. Here was the Renaissance somewhat a heir of the mediaeval Ovide moralisé.