Original scientific paper
Janus Pannonius’ Andromeda-Poem as an Ethopoeia
László Jankovits
; University of Pécs
Abstract
Janus Pannonius’ poem represents the speech of Andromeda, the mythical Aethiopian princess who is bound to a rock as an offering to a sea monster and is watching Perseus, the hero, as he is fighting the beast. The aim of this paper is to show the role of different classical sources in the poem’s composition. Besides the phrases and ideas in various works by ancient poets, there are the Hellenistic rhetorical manuals used in the school of Janus that could provide a generic model for the poem. It is an ethopoeia, a speech that represents a person through his/her words, which is a possible groundwork for an elaboration of the mythical theme. The speech of Andromeda is built on personal topoi in order to show that it is not worth risking the hero’s life to rescue her; at the same time the speech is arranged according to the rhetorical means of remotio. In contrast to a regular ethopoeia, in the last part of the speech the poet does not hint at future events but leaves open the end of the fight in order to emphasize the passion of love that prevails over fear: whatever her fate will be, the heroine of the poem wishes only for the survival of the hero with whom she has suddenly fallen in love.
Keywords
Janus Pannonius; Andromeda; generic composition; progumnasma; ethopoeia; remotio
Hrčak ID:
120308
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2014.
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