Latin Poems Research Articles

Anglo-Latin macaronic verse in early modern England: A new survey of manuscript evidence

Latin-vernacular macaronic verse is a distinctive feature of early modern literary culture across Europe. Scholarship has, however, focused upon Italian examples; the production of such verse in England has been particularly little studied, with existing analyses of Anglo-Latin macaronic based on a very small corpus of printed poems from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries only. This survey of previously unconsidered manuscript evidence demonstrates the production of Anglo-Latin macaronic verse of many kinds in early modern England, at least from the 1550s onwards, including new examples of both ‘morphological’ macaronic verse (in which a Latin poem contains some English words inflected as if they were Latin) and ‘simple’ macaronic (comprising various other kinds of language mixture). The article includes new evidence for the knowledge of Italian macaronic poetry in sixteenth-century England; for evolving trends in the typical uses of Anglo-Latin macaronic—from ad hominem satire in the earliest periods to more generally humourous or topical verse in the seventeenth century; on the use of rhyme and borrowings from other languages (including Greek, French and Italian) in Anglo-Latin macaronic; and for the importance of manuscript sources especially for assessing the prevalence of relatively ‘popular’ and informal types of bilingual literature, such as macaronic verse.

Isidorus versificatus – The Rewriting of an Isidorian Text in the 12th Century

Isidorus versificatus, a 12th-century anonymous Latin poem edited in 1975 by Christian Hünemörder, puts into verse fragments of Book XI (De homine et portentis) and Book XII (De animalibus) of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies (7th century). Our paper aims to examine how the medieval text modifies the claim of the encyclopedic prose on which it is based. We undertook a contrastive parallel reading of the two texts and found that, in rewriting the text, the medieval versifier reduced the informative dimension of the source by eliminating a critical amount of scholarly data, such as definitions, classifications, etymological approaches, and geographic information. Thus, within the epistemological horizon of the 7th century, it becomes possible to classify the medieval text as a scientific one. Furthermore, the unknown author eliminated the Isidorian theological considerations that helped identify the status of portents and animals within Creation. This has led us to question whether the versified version belongs to the genre of the Lehrgedicht assumed by its editor. Thus, we advance the hypothesis that the literary purpose pursued by the anonymous poet was to create a text that emphasizes the presence of mirabilia.

Paths and Puzzles: Walking the Maze in the Apocalypse of Golias

The Cambridge Quarterly endows a prize for the dissertation gaining the highest mark in the Cambridge University final examination in English. The article printed here is the Prize Essay for 2022. He laid bare the secrets of his right hand, and when I had looked and began to read, I found written in dark lettering, ‘I am the leader who goes before, and you must follow me.’ He whom I had begun to follow glided quickly past, and, as I was led more rapidly, we tumbled together into another land. (ll. 25–31)1 This is the first of several disorientating narrative movements in the late twelfth-century Latin poem, the Apocalypse of Golias.2 The poem narrates a dream or vision which begins under an oak tree with the appearance of Pythagoras, the leader in the passage above, proceeds to an apocalyptic vision, and ends with a cursory coda in heaven. The difficulty posed by these movements has led several influential critics to condemn the poem for structural incoherence: F. Raby judged the beginning ‘not very well related to the rest of the narrative’ and ‘irrelevant’; J. B. Hauréau added that titling a work ‘apocalypse’ does not license the mixing of incoherent material; and Karl Strecker claimed that the two outer sections were appended unnecessarily to the central one.3 It is to this discussion of structure and movement that the present investigation contributes, employing more recent developments in scholarship on miscellanies and the ‘whole book’, and approaching the poem through the specific instance of its transmission in Cambridge, Trinity College, O.2.45, a thirteenth-century miscellany from Cerne Abbey, Dorset.4 Specifically, it is suggested that the materials surrounding the poem in O.2.45 – diagrammatic, mathematical, and riddling – might have schooled a reader in methods of reading which would equip him to negotiate the narrative shifts and turns in the Apocalypse which have traditionally been attributed to poor poetic construction. Underlying this essay is a methodological approach, outlined by Nichols and Wenzel, which, proposing that ‘the individual manuscript contextualizes the text(s) it contains in specific ways […] seeks to analyze the consequences of this relationship on the way these texts may be read and interpreted’.5 Using both formalist and material-text analysis, this essay explores possible routes through the text, and their interaction with ideas of memory and numerical structure, games and diagrams, to advance an interpretation that places the reader at the centre of a textual diagram which amazes and amuses.

FRIAR WILLIAM HEREBERT’S CAROLS RECONSIDERED

William Herebert’s Middle English poems, which appear in his Commonplace Book (c. 1314), have been undervalued by scholars. Yet, far from being a lonely purveyor of an ungainly series of translations, Herebert instead was a skillful adapter of Latin hymns into dance songs. Echoing his contemporaries and following the example of St Francis, Herebert revised the forms of two Latin poems, ‘Gloria, laus et honor’ and ‘Popule meus, quid feci tibi’, into two English lyrics: ‘Wele, heriȝyng and worshype’ and ‘My volk, what habbe y do þe?’ In doing so, he dealt imaginatively with poetic form, liturgical content, concepts of time and matching words to music – and he ended up producing early examples of English carols. Herebert’s achievements in dance song demonstrate that the seemingly outrageous idea of the dancing friar is not as alien to religious devotions as one might expect. We conclude with speculations concerning the performance of Herebert’s songs.

Two Newly Discovered Poems by Garcilaso de la Vega

Until now, only three Latin poems by Garcilaso de la Vega have been extant. In this study, I present two newly discovered odes by Garcilaso: one addressed to Pietro Bembo, and another addressed to Johann Alexander Brassicanus. I also present new critical editions of the three previously known poems in the light of the new witness. I argue that the poems constitute sophisticated meditations on the purpose of encomiastic literature and the nature of lyric poetry. In this way I aim to provide a better understanding of Garcilaso’s Latin odes and restore his reputation as a consummate Latin poet.

Jacobites and Latin Verse, 1688–1702

AbstractThe richness of Jacobite poetic culture is well known, but the substantial body of Jacobite verse written in Latin — which remained an important European language into the eighteenth century — has received patchy attention. During the first phase of Jacobitism (1688–1702), Jacobites wrote Latin poems in England, France, Scotland, and Ireland to express their disappointments and hopes. Poems were composed in modes of satire and panegyric/lament and, in many genres, from epigram to epic. They circulated domestically and internationally and through consumption were a feature of political culture for both Jacobites, who embraced them, and Williamites, who defined themselves against them.

Cumulative Revision in John Gower’s Quicquid homo scribat

ABSTRACT John Gower’s twice-revised short Latin poem on his blindness, incipit “Henrici quarti primus” / “Henrici regis annus” / “Quicquid homo scribat,” provides an opportunity to observe the author at work on self-revision. Gower was a compulsive reviser, and Quicquid homo scribat clarifies special details of his procedure. In bringing the poem into a new form, Gower saw fit to draw on two different prior iterations. This decision bespeaks a rhizomatic approach to revision and a multidirectional understanding of the implications of the literary work. Rather than work a poem up from nothing, Gower preferred to start with some metrical phrases already composed on the same or a related subject, either by another author or, often, by himself. To see Gower’s decision to revise as a compulsion, and therefore something less than a voluntary decision, is to understand the text on the page as a prosthesis constructed to enable the author to confront difficult circumstances. This essay reads revision in Quicquid homo scribat between Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of the rhizome and Julie Singer's concept of lyric prosthesis.

Gower’s Quatrains: Language, Rhyme, Occasion

ABSTRACT John Gower is known for writing long. After composition of Vox clamantis, however, Gower simultaneously wrote short, mastering the art of the quatrain. This is the form of his very shortest authenticated poems. They form a set. All are in Latin. All employ internal rhyme. These jingling poems stand out from the slow, lugubrious music of the nearly rhymeless Vox clamantis. Gower turned the difficulties of the quatrain-length poem to advantage, composing a series of postage-stamp Latin poems that comment on the vastnesses of his life in poetry. From the archer poem “Ad mundum mitto,” associated with Vox clamantis, to the prophetic Lancastrian encomium H. aquile pullus, in Gower’s quatrains we find an art of literary asceticism that sorts oddly with the poet’s current reputation for prolixity.

The Latin Poems of Margareta van Godewijck (1627-1677)

This contribution presents the editio princeps of all extant Latin poems written by the Dutch poet Margareta van Godewijck from Dordrecht. In order to increase the accessibility of these hitherto unpublished texts, the edition is preceded by an extensive preparatory analysis of previous biographical sources and accounts of how her poems were received. These will illustrate the need for the present study. There follow an evaluation of her Latin poems with regard to both form and content and a discussion of her Latinity, textual interaction with other Neo-Latin poets, and the literary merits of her work. It is argued that her Latin poetry had a clear social and performative function and can best be considered within the context of student composition. Finally, an account of the trajectories of the two surviving autographs and an explanation of the editorial principles prepare the reader for the critical edition.

A Song of the Siege of Acre (1189–1191): Depictions of Conrad of Montferrat and theCarmen de Accone oppugnatione

In the midst of the Third Crusade (1187–1192), an anonymous author composed a poetic account of the Siege of Acre. This Latin poem, the Carmen de Accone oppugnatione, has been largely overlooked in modern scholarship, but it offers a crucial perspective of the first three years of the crusade. An examination of the Carmen’s origins and perspectives reveals both the speed with which crusade authors attempted to explain the actions of prominent figures within coherent, elevated narratives, as well as the power which such narratives have had in shaping modern perceptions of crusaders such as Conrad of Montferrat.

Henriko Valua išrinkimo Abiejų Tautų Respublikos valdovu vaizdavimas lotyniškoje prancūzų poezijoje: „J. de La Gessée“ Henriada ir jos autorius

In 1573, Henry de Valois, Duke of Anjou, was elected as the king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and some literary works were published to familiarize the French public with the history of Poland and Lithuania, the geographical and economic situation of the country. Some Polish historical works were translated into French (e.g. the chronicle of Jan Herburt of Felsztin), many poets wrote occasional poems, dedicated to the future king, in French, Polish, and Latin. This article aims to discuss the poem Henrias, dedicated to Henry de Valois, written in Latin by a French poet under the pseudonym Jean de La Gessée, – a rare and completely unexplored work until today. Henrias was addressed not only to the future king but also to the court, the French diplomats and ambassadors of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Henry de Valois is portrayed here according to the tradition of Renaissance epic poetry by using an ethical model of the ruler’s “virtues” and by discussing the ruler’s place in history, linking him both to the mythological origins of the French nation (to the myth of Trojan ancestry), and to the former rulers of Poland and Lithuania (the ruler is depicted here as the successor of their policy). The poet also presented a description of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – the future reign of Henry de Valois – in accordance with the literary tradition of 16th-century representations of Poland–Lithuania. To be noted, this is the first description of Poland–Lithuania in French poetry in Latin and one of the first in all French poetry. The author also wrote an unpublished larger-scale heroic epic Poloniade in French, dedicated to Henry de Valois, but it has not survived. This article also serves as an introduction to the biography and works of this not-well-known poet and discusses the problem of the authorship of his works. It is highly probable that the authorship was so far misattributed and that the author’s name is just a pseudonym of another court poet – talented and highly educated courtier Louis d’Amboise, as shown by the many details, hidden in his poems, including biographical facts (in all his works) and the anagrams of his name (in his Latin poems). Henrias and other Latin poems of this author (e.g. Epigrammatôn … libri duo) show the direct and close contact of the author with the royal entourage, top politicians, and foreign diplomats. It is unlikely that the author was a newcomer protestant Gascon, looking for success in Paris because Henrias was undoubtedly written at the king’s request and was very well paid (as well as the Poloniade). It shows that the author was a Catholic and he was quite familiar with the history and political realities of Poland–Lithuania. Keywords: 16th century; Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; Henri III, Henri de Valois; 1573 ruler election; Latin Lituanica; neo-Latin literature; 16th-century occasional poetry; 16th-century French literature; Henrias; Jean de La Gessée; Louis d’Amboise.

Milton's “Ad Patrem” and the Poetics of Virgilian Sons

This article relocates John Milton's Latin poem to his father (“Ad Patrem”) in the contexts of the young Milton's literary self-fashioning and the changing patterns of early modern Virgil reception. Here and in his prose epistles, Milton establishes the persona of a scholarly, questing filial figure, grounded in a reading of book 6 of the “Aeneid” and its drama of fathers and sons. He makes a case for poetry and scholarship as shared practices. This article reflects on a new archival turn in Milton studies and, in turn, how Milton himself invites the reader to become a questing scholar.

Des Dichters Abschied von der Welt. Das Conversio-Gedicht Ego quondam filius mundi specialis und der Archipoeta

In the last decades of the 12th century, an educated secular cleric retired from a successful career in the service of some high-ranking prelate to enter an unnamed monastic order. His decision and motives he made known in a Latin poem addressed to his friends. Though his career reflects the reality of life of many intellectuals in the High Middle Ages, the poem’s depth of content and thought as well as its virtuosity of language and form are astonishing. The poem Ego quondam filius mundi specialis (Chevalier 36996; WIC 5269), written in 42 Goliardic stanzas, is the subject of the present essay. An examination of the manuscript tradition, educational background, literary allusions and versification makes it clear that the unknown author ranks with the great modern poets of his time, such as Petrus Abaelardus, Hugh Primas, Alanus de Insulis, Petrus Riga, Peter of Blois, Walter of Châtillon and the Archpoet. Presumably of German extraction, he studied in France, where he became acquainted with the Latin songs from the circle of Petrus Abaelardus (Carmina Florentina) and the poems of Hugh Primas. While serving at some German-speaking ecclesiastical court in the Alpine countries, he probably came into contact with the circle of collectors and poets, from whose initial collections the Carmina Burana ultimately emerged. In addition to a number of allusions and parallels, it is the versification that gives a clear indication of the poet’s identity, who, most likely, is no other than the Archpoet, the brilliant poet at the court of Rainald von Dassel, whose biography and real name have so far eluded all investigations. These results confirm an assumption, which had already been made by Wilhelm Wackernagel in 1845, but fell into oblivion soon after. The essay is followed by editions of the poem Ego quondam filius mundi specialis (according to the three manuscripts: St. Gallen, Kantonsbibliothek Vadiana, Vadianische Sammlung, Ms. 455; Vorau, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 401; Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. C 58) and the Christmas poem Dum sub mundi uespere dies inclinatus (Chevalier 36900; WIC 4964; Linz, Studienbibliothek, Handschrift 33 [olim Cc.II.15]; Vorau, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 401; Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. C 58), which are transmitted together in the Vorau and Zurich codices. Whether both poems are the work of the same author is questionable. The identity of an Egidius Magnus, who is credited with the excerpts in St. Gall Ms. 455, remains in the dark.

Author, Scribe, and Book in Late Medieval English Literature

Author, Scribe, and Book in Late Medieval English Literature

Kuga na vratima Zagreba 1682-1683.

The paper follows the epidemic wave which spread in 1679 from Austrian towards Slovenian Styria, and then, continuing through Ptuj and Varaždin, moved in the directions of Podravina and Croatian Zagorje, reaching Markuševac and other villages in the Zagreb region. A description of the disease and its devastating impact on the Ptuj region is taken from a unique and preserved source, the Latin poem about the plague by the Hajdina parish pastor, Jurij Hauptmanič. The paper then focuses on the situation in Zagreb in the summer and autumn of 1682 and the beginning of 1683, analysing Jesuit and Franciscan sources, the Croatian Viceroy’s letters, decisions by the Gradec City Council, as well as economic indicators. The paper concludes that the epidemic’s penetration of the city was avoided by proper crisis management. In doing so, the paper rectifies certain hitherto expressed views in historiography, according to which the plague was also present in Gradec. Sources, however, show that it remained restricted to the Franciscan monastery at Kaptol, and that the only victims were four friars in that very monastery, in August and September 1682. They were Franciscan students, sent to Varaždin, where they were infected by the plague (or possibly during mendication in the villages), and they died shortly after returning to the monastery at Kaptol. Some of the Franciscans scattered whilst some stayed in the Kaptol monastery, but two escaped to the Poor Clares’ convent at Gradec. On 4 September 1682, the Croatian Viceroy ordered that both the Monastery and the Convent be placed under heavy guard. The doors of the Kaptol monastery were to be bricked up, and the Gradec convent was to be locked, while ensuring the delivery of food and water. The Gradec City Council implemented the Viceroy’s orders, but did not introduce additional measures apart from ordering citizens to keep guard at the city gates while they were open during the day, and that all vagrants and vagabonds be immediately put to employment in the city or banished. The Viceroy left open the city’s ports on the border river of Sava, with strict adherence to the precautionary measures. The measures taken were adequate, because, apart from the Franciscan victims, nobody got infected in either Gradec or Kaptol. The disease remained restricted to a few surrounding villages. At the behest of the Jesuits, the Viceroy ordered that schools could again be opened on 12 January 1683, which essentially announced the end of the epidemic in the Zagreb region.

El intercambio de invectivas en yambos latinos entre Bonaventura Vulcanio y Franz Nans

This paper consists of the first critical edition and translation of some Latin poems written in iambic meter by the Flemish Hellenists Bonaventura Vulcanius and Franciscus Nansius to attack each other. It also contains a commentary on their historical context, genre, meter, vocabulary and style.

George Jeffreys’s Translation of a Latin Epigram on Casimire and Hosschius’s Elegy on Sarbiewski

The “Poems of Doubtful Authorship” in modern editions of Samuel Johnson’s poetry include three Latin poems that were first associated with Johnson in 1856. This article reveals the weakness of this alleged “attribution” and discusses the arguments for and against Johnson’s authorship of each poem in turn. While certainty is impossible, it concludes that he possibly wrote the translation Ex cantico Solomonis but that Venus in Armour and The Logical Warehouse are unlikely to be his.

Three Latin Poems Doubtfully Attributed to Samuel Johnson

The “Poems of Doubtful Authorship” in modern editions of Samuel Johnson’s poetry include three Latin poems that were first associated with Johnson in 1856. This article reveals the weakness of this alleged “attribution” and discusses the arguments for and against Johnson’s authorship of each poem in turn. While certainty is impossible, it concludes that he possibly wrote the translation Ex cantico Solomonis but that Venus in Armour and The Logical Warehouse are unlikely to be his.

El intercambio de invectivas en yambos latinos entre Bonaventura Vulcanio y Franz Nans

This paper consists of the first critical edition and translation of some Latin poems written in iambic meter by the Flemish Hellenists Bonaventura Vulcanius and Franciscus Nansius to attack each other. It also contains a commentary on their historical context, genre, meter, vocabulary and style.

ГРАМАТИЧНА ЕКВІВАЛЕНТНІСТЬ У ФРАНЦУЗЬКИХ ПЕРЕКЛАДАХ П’ЯТОГО ВІРША КАТУЛЛА «ДО ЛЕСБІЇ»

The article examines the phenomenon of grammatical equivalence based on the Latin poem «To Lesbia» by Catullus and its French translations of the XVI-XXI centuries. The research reveals that the sequence of certain grammatical structures in Catullus 5 plays a significant role in revealing the author's message addressed to Lesbia. In the article we present a brief analysis of the structure of this Latin poem with an emphasis on the role of conjunctive, gerund, imperative and constructions with the sequence of tenses and moods in the author's speech. Given the importance of grammatical structures of the Latin poem for the expression of the author's intentions, their adequate rendition in translations facilitates the achievement of grammatical and semantic equivalence while also helping the translator to convey the message accurately. We have found out that French translations of Catullus 5 mainly reproduce the grammatical meanings of the original poem, often expressing them in other grammatical structures and forms. Some translations retain the architectonics of the poem, using direct grammatical equivalents of the Latin original, while others render the grammatical structure of the poem by equivalent French grammatical constructions. Further studies in this area could focus on the research of grammatical equivalence in poetic translations with the use of corpus linguistic methods.