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CIVILIZATION OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY

From Jacob Burckhardt's 2nd edition of the Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy; edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

Part Three: The Revival of Antiquity

Neo-Latin Poetry

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Full Contents of this Part

Part Three: The Revival of Antiquity   » Introductory   » The Ruins of Rome   » The Classics   » The Humanists   » Universities and Schools   » Propagators of Antiquity   » Epistolography: Latin Orators   » The Treatise, and History in Latin   » Antiquity as the Common Source   » Neo-Latin Poetry   » Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century

Page 15

By what has been said hitherto we have, perhaps, failed to convince the reader of the characteristic value of this Latin poetry of the Italians. Our task was rather to indicate its position and necessity in the history of civilization. In its own day, a caricature of it appeared - the so-called macaronic poetry. The masterpiece of this style, the 'opus macaronicorum,' was written by Merlinus Coccaius (Teofilo Folengo of Mantua). Vi/e shall now and then have occasion to refer to the matter of this poem. As to the form - hexameter and other verses, made up of Latin words and Italian words with Latin endings - its comic effect lies chiefly in the fact that these combinations sound like so many slips of the tongue, or like the effusions of an overhasty Latin 'improvisatore.' The German imitations do not give the smallest notion of this effect.

 

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Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/renaissance/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * The Making of Europe