DOCSLIB.ORG

Imitation and Adaptation in Late Humanist Emblematic Poetry: Zsamboky (Sambucus) and Whitney

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Imitation and Adaptation in Late Humanist Emblematic Poetry: Zsamboky (Sambucus) and Whitney Imitation and Adaptation in Late Humanist Emblematic Poetry: Zsamboky (Sambucus) and Whitney GÄBOR TÜSKES Institute for Literary Studies ofthe Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest After 1550, late-humanist Latin poetry in Western Europe contin- ued to flourish only in the Low Countries and Germany. In France, Latin and vernacular literature coexisted during the second half of the sixteenth century. In England, many authors, such as William Gager, Walter Haddon, and Christopher Jonson, achieved renown as neo-Latin poets, and they wrote either wholly, or mainly, in the learned language. However, a look at the three most eminent neo- Latin poets of the period reveals that the works of the Scot, George Buchanan, were published mainly in France and in Portugal, while the poems ofthe Welshman, John Owen (a member of Philip Sidney’s circle) were published and presumably appreciated mainly in Ger- many and the Low Countries. Thomas Campion wrote in English as well as in Latin. He is valued today for his English poetry, but in his own day wasalso a Latin poet. In the Low Countries, scholarly Latin poetry flourished more than anywhere else in the second half ot the sixteenth century, and thus the few English poets who continued in the Latin humanist tradition had particularly close ties with the Netherlands. If we look at the scene some decades later, we find George Herbert and Andrew Marvell; John Milton is the greatest English poet to write Latin poetry, and his Latin works formed an im- portant part of his literary career. The situation was different in central Europe, where neo-Latin po- etry continued to be widely composed, particularly by Czechs, Poles and Hungarians, but also in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries. 261 262 EMBLEMATICA GABOR TUSKES 263 Both earlier local traditions and the influence of the German universi- phrastic and i m i t a t i v e character o f Whitney's adaptations: they were ties were mainly responsible for this (Tarnai 1987 and 1997). Not clearly n o t intended as literal t r a n s l a t i o n s , nor a s faithful r e n d i t i o n s many poets from these regions used the best Italian, French and Neth- o f content, b u t free variations and interpretations o f the ideas s u g - erlandish sources of humanist poetry with any frequency or discern- g e s t e d by Zsdmboky. ment. One of the few who did was the Hungarian, Joannes Zsamboky Because o f the peculiar h i s t o r y o f their origin and o f the way they (Sambucus), who distinguished himself equally in philology, literary were put together, Whitney's adaptations of Zsamboky’s emblems theory, and historiography. Zsamboky spent many years studying in a r e a revealing and essential part o f the little explored history o f t h e Italy, Germany, France and the Low Countries, before settling in Vi- European impact o f the H u n g a r i a n ’ s E m b l e m a t a . Acomparison of t h e enna in the 1560s; there he became a central figure in the local circle of two works also a l l o w s us to examine Whitney’s adaptation t e c h - humanists, as well as an influential link between European and Hun- niques. I n addition, it presents an opportunity to consider the inter- garian humanism. He enjoyed the friendship of Henri Estienne and a c t i o n s o f l i t e r a r y and visual traditions and to study the transforma- supported the young Justus Lipsius; he was an active member of the tion o f t h e l a t e humanist epigram and emblem in the l a t e r sixteenth newly-founded Poetic Academy of PreSburg, and a productive editor century. I t will highlight the different ways in which Zsamboky and who, in addition to several of the classics, edited the collected poems Whitney saw themselves a s authors, a s w e l l a s their different c o n - of Janus Pannonius, the first great humanist poet outside Italy. He c e p t s o f the emblem and their working methods. How certain mecha- also published his own early poetry in Padua in 1555. But Zsamboky's nisms o f t h i n k i n g with visual t o p o i worked, and how they changed, lasting fame asa poet rests on his Emblemata, which was published in will also become clearer. The analysis aims to contribute to t h e under- Antwerp in 1564. standing, both o f t h e complex process by which emblematic conven- It is well known that the emblemata were an important source for t i o n s became established, and of t h e ways in which individual em- Geffrey Whitney’s collection, A Choice of Emblemes, published at Lei- blems work, and to place the Emblemata and t h e Choice of Emblemes den in 1586. Literary historians in England formally noted this in more precisely within t h e history o f this medium o f expression. 1866, when Henry Green published the first of several facsimile edi- tions of Whitney’s work.° In his accompanying essay, Green pointed The Emblemata out that 48 of Whitney’s emblems are adaptations from Zsamboky. He included them ina table and pointed to parallel occurrences of some Zsamboky’s collection o f emblems has been regarded a s t h e first of the themes in Shakespeare’s plays.* Green also indicated the para- important example o f t h e moralizing and philosophizing branch o f mannerist emblematic p o e t r y based on t h e imitatio o f classical p a t - 1. This essay is based on research conducted within two two-month fellowships terns. The book’s k e y characteristics are a pronounced stoicism, a under the terms of the Exchange Agreement between the British and the Hungar- Christian-humanist orientation, and s t r o n g didacticism. It c l e a r l y ian Academies in 1996 and 1998 at the Warburg Institute, London. I wish to thank r e p r e s e n t s the author’s concept o f t h e emblem, a s w e l l a s his personal the staff of the Warburg Institute and the Librarian of the Stirling Maxwell Col- v i e w s and a t t i t u d e s . ” Zsamboky’s concept of the emblem is part of lection, Glasgow, for their help at all times. | am grateful to U. Sdunnus, J. B. h i s wider poetic Trapp and P.M. Daly for their help in improving the translation, made by Zsuzsa theory which focusses on allegorical imitation. Boronkay. The translations of Latin quotations from Whitney's book derive from Zsamboky’s foreword, with i t s emphasis o n how t h e emblem c o n - Index Emblematicus; otherwise, the translations are my own. veys hidden meanings, r e v e a l s a profound knowledge o f the i d e a s o f On Latin Poetry and vernacular traditions, see Binns, ix, 58; Laurens and Alciato, Bocchi, Giovio, and Ramus: t h e esoteric nature o f t h e em- Balavoine; Kuhlmann; Wiegand; and Jones. blem i s meant to challenge t h e r e a d e r to reflect about its meaning 2. See Varga 1963, 1964 and 1965; and Téglasy, 185. 4. Cf. Daly 1993, 1984; Daly a n d Silcox. O n Shakespeare and Whitney, s e e Klein; Richards; Horden; Rusche; Wilson; a n d Fabiny. 3. See Whitney's Choice of Emblemes. A Fac-simile reprint., 248f. | used the Index Emblematicus facsimile edition: G. Whitney, “A Choice of Emblemes and Other 5. S e e Homann, and t h e review by T . Klaniczay, Irodalomtérténeti Kézlemények, Devises” (hereafter W with page number). See also Green, and Dézsi. 1975, 246f. 264 EMBLEMATICA GABOR TUSKES 265 and, as a result of such understanding, to strive for the improvement back to the first edition.” With the exception of the 1599 Lyons edi- of his behaviour and his life.° tion, all editions including the translations were published by Chris- The emblem pictures were commissioned in part by Zsamboky topher Plantin of Antwerp. himself and in part by his publisher, Plantin, after the epigrams had Readers’ notes® and carefully coloured woodcuts’ in many surviv- been written. As a result, the images have a largely supporting or il- ing copies testify that the work was widely disseminated and inten- lustrative role in relation to the written word. Pictures and texts stand sively used. The Emblemata were often bound with the emblem col- in a figurative and analogical relationship to each other. Zsamboky’s lections of Alciato!” and Hadrianus Junius." Recognition of Zs4m- epigrams are written in numerous individual variations of different boky and his book by fellow authors is illustrated in a number of con- ancient metrical forms, thus showing his wide knowledge of classical temporary works. Mignault, for instance, included an appreciative authors. Most of his topics also have ancient literary origins. They are reference in his commentary on Alciato,!? and Hadrianus Junius taken from the human world, usually from everyday life, and from na- dedicated a heraldic emblem to Zsdmboky.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Redating Pericles: a Re-Examination of Shakespeare’S
    REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY A THESIS IN Theatre Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS by Michelle Elaine Stelting University of Missouri Kansas City December 2015 © 2015 MICHELLE ELAINE STELTING ALL RIGHTS RESERVED REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY Michelle Elaine Stelting, Candidate for the Master of Arts Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2015 ABSTRACT Pericles's apparent inferiority to Shakespeare’s mature works raises many questions for scholars. Was Shakespeare collaborating with an inferior playwright or playwrights? Did he allow so many corrupt printed versions of his works after 1604 out of indifference? Re-dating Pericles from the Jacobean to the Elizabethan era answers these questions and reveals previously unexamined connections between topical references in Pericles and events and personalities in the court of Elizabeth I: John Dee, Philip Sidney, Edward de Vere, and many others. The tournament impresas, alchemical symbolism of the story, and its lunar and astronomical imagery suggest Pericles was written long before 1608. Finally, Shakespeare’s focus on father-daughter relationships, and the importance of Marina, the daughter, as the heroine of the story, point to Pericles as written for a young girl. This thesis uses topical references, Shakespeare’s anachronisms, Shakespeare’s sources, stylometry and textual analysis, as well as Henslowe’s diary, the Stationers' Register, and other contemporary documentary evidence to determine whether there may have been versions of Pericles circulating before the accepted date of 1608.
    [Show full text]
  • By Lindsay Ann Reid a Thesis Submitted in Conformity with the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Depar
    BIBLIOFICTIONS: OVIDIAN HEROINES AND THE TUDOR BOOK by Lindsay Ann Reid A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Lindsay Ann Reid (2009) ABSTRACT ―Bibliofictions: Ovidian Heroines and the Tudor Book‖ Lindsay Ann Reid Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Graduate Department of English, University of Toronto This dissertation explores how the mythological heroines from Ovid‘s Heroides and Metamorphoses were catalogued, conflated, reconceived, and recontextualized in vernacular literature; in so doing, it joins considerations of voice, authority, and gender with reflections on Tudor technologies of textual reproduction and ideas about the book. In the late medieval and Renaissance eras, Ovid‘s poetry stimulated the imaginations of authors ranging from Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower to Isabella Whitney, William Shakespeare, and Michael Drayton. Ovid‘s characteristic bookishness—his interest in textual revision and his thematization of the physicality and malleability of art in its physical environments—was not lost upon these postclassical interpreters who engaged with his polysemous cast of female characters. His numerous English protégés replicated and expanded Ovid‘s metatextual concerns by reading and rewriting his metamorphic poetry in light of the metaphors through which they understood both established networks of scribal dissemination and emergent modes of printed book production. My study of Greco-Roman tradition and English ―bibliofictions‖ (or fictive representations of books, their life cycles, and the communication circuits in which they operate) melds literary analysis with the theoretical concerns of book history by focusing on intersections and interactions between physical, metaphorical, and imaginary books.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Zika
    zeitenblicke 1 (2002), Nr. 1 Charles Zika Images of Circe and Discourses of Witchcraft, 1480-1580 [*] <1> The discourses of sorcery and witchcraft which developed throughout much of western and central Europe from the middle of the fifteenth century involved the production and circulation not only of literary and archival documents, but also of pictorial artifacts. As woodcut illustrations for theological or philosophical treatises, for historical chronicles or contemporary news-sheets, as single-leaf woodcuts or stand alone drawings, engravings, or even paintings, visual images of witchcraft must have played a significant role in developing this new discourse about witchcraft and the direction of the debates which it spawned. But precisely how pictorial images contributed to this process, to what extent they were implicated in it, and what impact they made on its direction, are questions which historians have barely begun to address. Traditionally, historians have tended to confine the significance of visual images to that of illustration or decoration. Consideration of the visual images of witchcraft has suffered a similar fate, with the exception of images produced by notable artists. But with a mounting level of interest over the last twenty-five years in the work of artists such as Hans Baldung Grien, the subject of witchcraft is no longer ignored by art historians.[1] There is nevertheless a tendency by art historians to limit attention to the aesthetically significant and novel work of recognised artists, and to ignore the cruder
    [Show full text]
  • Early Modern Visual-Verbal Esoteric Imagery and the Theatre: Julius Caesar 1.3
    Early Modern visual-verbal esoteric imagery and the theatre: Julius Caesar 1.3 Svenn-Arve Myklebost, Volda University College Abstract Adopting a method which combines close readings of iconography and playtext with broader historicist and cultural investigations, this article attempts to contribute to the field of visual-verbal Shakespeare studies through outlining how polysemous images and imagery are recombined within circular designs (wheels, spheres, globes, playhouses) upon which ‘actors’ are ‘staged’, in order to facilitate spiritual and practical insight into the micro- and the macrocosm. All these elements—or equivalents thereof—are present in the Renaissance theatre also, and Act 1 Scene 3 of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar contains a striking range of esoteric verbal-visual imagery offering an opportunity to analyse its compositional design and to assess its effects. This article argues that the esoteric visual tradition plays a major role in the composition and generation of meaning within that play, and that studying these aspects of Julius Caesar and the stage upon which it was performed aids us in seeing how it approached societal and political issues in Elizabethan England. Key words: early modern, Renaissance, Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, the Globe, western esotericism, magic, occult, alchemy, emblems, astrology, Frances Yates The visual poetics of the Early Modern period are sometimes quite strange. One reason for this is that many figures—verbal as well as visual—were appropriated by and formulated through the esoteric arts: alchemy, cabbala, astrology, Hermetic philosophy and ‘magic’.1 The painter, the poet, the emblematist and the dramatist utilised the same stock of symbols and devices as the astrologer, the alchemist and the cabbalist.
    [Show full text]
  • Meaning and Trade in Some Early Modern Spanish and English Emblems1
    Meaning and trade in some early modern Spanish and English emblems1 Jesús López-Peláez Casellas, Universidad de Jaén Abstract Early modern emblems are based on the commerce between verbal and visual expression. By ‘commerce’ here I mean the dynamic relationship established within the emblem’s triplex, ie, image (pictura) and text (inscriptio and subscriptio), the meaning of which the reader has to negotiate. But commerce and negotiation also were, in their economic sense, topics of various English and Spanish emblems from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, by authors such as Whitney, Wither, Mendo or De Soto. In this article I will deal with commerce in this double way, trying to emphasize how emblems, through their typical combination of image and text, dealt with the different ways in which this other ‘commerce’—early modern trade in the context of nascent capitalism—was reproduced by some English and Spanish emblems. Keywords: emblems, early modern trade, nascent capitalism, negotiation, meaning, plurisignation. Introduction Published in Germany between 1623 and 1631, Daniel Meisner’s Thesaurus Philo-politicus2 is one of the very few emblem books specifically dealing with urban motifs. It is commonly agreed that Meisner’s eight hundred and thirty woodcuts have a general ethical- 1 A preliminary version of this article was presented as a paper at the 27th International Conference of the Spanish and Portuguese Association for English Renaissance Studies (Valladolid, Spain, 2016). I am deeply grateful to Professors Linda McJannet (Bentley University) and Ali S. Zaidi (SUNY- Canton), who read earlier drafts of this work and provided—as always— insightful comments.
    [Show full text]
  • Constancy, Genre, and Literary Tradition in the English Civil Wars Rachel Zhang Submitted in Partial Fulfi
    The Constant Paradox: Constancy, Genre, and Literary Tradition in the English Civil Wars Rachel Zhang Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Rachel Zhang All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Constant Paradox: Constancy, Innovation, and Literary Tradition in the English Civil Wars Rachel Zhang This dissertation interrogates writers’ references to “constancy” during the English civil wars, reading the debate surrounding this vexed and multifarious term as indicative of a broader examination of constancy as a concept. Through generic case studies of the emblem book, prose romance, epic, and country house poem, I show how writers used constancy’s semantic and contextual slippage to participate in key debates of the civil wars; Hester Pulter, Percy Herbert, John Milton, Thomas Carew, Mildmay Fane, and Andrew Marvell deploy constancy as they intervene in civil war polemic surrounding kingship, property ownership, liturgy, and England’s relationship with the wider world. These cases, I argue, show the interaction between writers’ reevaluation of constancy and their reevaluation of inherited literary traditions. In interrogating constancy, writers articulate and even inspire innovation in literary genre, thereby demonstrating not the destruction of literary form during the civil wars, but writers’ ability to accommodate established literary tradition to dynamic religiopolitical circumstances. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES
    [Show full text]