Colloquia Maruliana ..., Vol. 10 , 2001.
Original scientific paper
The Paradigms of Marulić's Susanna
Cvijeta Pavlović
Abstract
There are three books in which Marulić relates in verse events of the Old Testament: Judith, Susanna and Davidiad. Little has been written about Susanna, and what there has is mainly in connection with Judith, it being looked at as a minor Judith, an intermezzo between Judith and The Davidiad. Instead of an epic, Susanna is a versified Bible story, a narrative poem on a smaller scale, a Biblical paragraph, a little thriller about Joachim’s lovely wife, from a short episode in the life of the prophet Daniel. The narrative and compositional premises of the epic for Susanna to be assigned a clear poetic and generic position are missing. But this does not mean that Susanna lets down poetic standards. Marulić has put a good deal of lyrical sensitivity into the poem, and in the particular ending shows us that we have to understand it as something different from the books of the church that he knew well and were his great inspiration (Old Testament, Thomas à Kempis, Petrus Riga et al.).
Susanna shows the author’s typical characteristics at several levels. Thereare four major poetic decorations, which show that the author was conscious at each moment of his departures from the Biblical narrative for poetical purposes, for the literary modernisation of the religious theme, some kind of updating of the narrative rut. Con notations with the galant, and Petrarchan stylisations of women appear; there are mythological associations in the manner of the enumerative catalogue of Humanist origin, and the author’s fondness for humour, inserts and stylistic references. Within the framework of the coordinates set by the Bible, the narrator wants to communicate with the reader. The best part of Susanna is the description of the garden, in which the surrounds of the protagonists’ place of residence are made concrete. Here Marulić follows the paradigms of the idyll, and puts that common place, the locus amoenus, into the local setting of them arvellous gardens of Split. From the short reference in the Bible, the author produces poetically sensitive verses that reveal great capacities for lyrical creation. It is clear that the author orients himself according to the Renaissance Utopian longing for Eden, but his amplification is a living and inspired evocation, which complements the erotic signal, creating a key node in the poem.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
8815
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2001.
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