Colloquia Maruliana ..., Vol. 10 , 2001.
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The Function of Prayer in the Structure of Marulić's Judith
Istvan Lokos
Sažetak
In his discussion, Petar Skok writes about Judith (On the style of Marulić’s Judith) that “from the epistle of Marulić’s Judith it appears that his religious epicis a restyled Bible story. This means that the narrative part is not original, only the style. In literary history this is the same phenomenon that we see in, for example, French classical tragedy. Its material is not original, only the style.” Accepting everything that Skok says about the originality of the style of Marulić’s Judith, we could add to this that in Marulić’s work apart from originality of style, there is also originality in the composition and the epic structure. A year ago at the Marulić round table we read a paper about Marulić’s having written his epic under the influence of the theory of artistic imitation (imitatio, mimesis) in the Renaissance meaning of the word. The Split poet, as poeta eruditus of the Renaissance, had inherited a complex Christian tradition, as well as, at the same time, the devices of the traditional technique of the epic (the invocation, epic narration, episodes, enumeration, the epic simile and so on), as well as the motifs of ancient mythology, history, literature, and the many Biblical motifs outside the Old Testament Book of Judith. Everything that Marulić had received comes from various traditions, enriching the Biblical material of his literary work. Apart from the elements of the structure mentioned, a very important rôle is played in the epic by the prayers, which will confirm the morality of Judith’s deed. On the one hand it supports her pretence vis-à-vis Holofernes, which is in a moral sense a lie. However, this lie is a pia fraus, so called, which is in harmony with the theoretical understanding about which Marulić writes in more detail in Book IV of Deinstitutione under the title of “De veritate colenda mendacioque fugiendo”. In asummary of the Biblical text of the Book of Judith, Marulić asks: “Quis tamen Judith viduae sutelas dolosque et mera mendacia audet accusare, quibus patriam obsidione, Iudaeam omnem, hoc est, Dei populum servitutis periculo liberavit?”And his answer: “Tot igitur bona illo figmento comparata sunt, quot sine illo mala secutura erant.“
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
8813
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Datum izdavanja:
22.4.2001.
Posjeta: 1.618 *