Original scientific paper
A Versified Bible Story of Esther (16th century) in the Context of the Croatian Medieval Literary Heritage and the Marulić Poetic Circle
Amir Kapetanović
orcid.org/0000-0002-8013-9330
; Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The paper describes the dodecasyllabic verse poem On the History of Esther from a manuscript in Roman script in the National and University Library in Zagreb (shelf number R 6634) in which several undoubted poems of Marulić are recorded, as well as one by Petar Hektorović and one probably of Petar Zoranić. Some ten texts from this collection have not been published or described philologically, although such analyses could help in the attributions of texts to which no name, surname or initial of the compiler is attached. One such text is Od istorije Estera (On the History of Esther). The Biblical story was known to Croatian medieval writers who recorded it in a number of liturgical books written in Old Church Slavonic and in the glagolitic collections written in a hybrid of Chakavian and Old Church Slavonic. Some short readings from the book of Esther can be found in the hybrid Chakavian and Old Church Slavonic lectionaries of the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century. This first versified version of the story of Esther, in Chakavian, was written in the early 16th century, and contains 90 dodecasyllabic verses. The language of this text, looked at in the context of today’s known poems of the Marulić literary circle, shows southern Chakavian features, and the use of the language suggests that the compiler of this text might have been Marko Marulić. The facsimile of the pages from R 6634 and a transcription in Latin script are appended to the article.
Keywords
Esther; Bible; double rhymed dodecasyllabics; MS R 6634; Latin script; 16th century; Chakavian literary language; Marko Marulić; the Split or Marulić literary circle
Hrčak ID:
67292
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2011.
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