Original scientific paper
The Treatment of the Lyric Poem: Methodological Hybridism and the Poetic Canon in Đurđević’s Vitae Illustrium Rhacusinorum
Gorana Stepanić
; Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli
Abstract
The bio-bibliographic piece of writing by Ignjat Đurđević (1675-1737) Vitae illustrium Rhacusinorum (Vitae et carmina nonnullorum illustrium civium Rhacusinorum) was created in the period between 1707 and 1716 and printed in Belgrade in 1935 (P. Kolendić). It is part of a series of Latin modern bio-bibliographic works in the area of local literature (Ambroz Ranjina, Ambroz Gučetić, Ignjat Đurđević, Serafin Marija Crijević, Đuro Bašić, Sebastijan Slade Dolci, Franjo Marija Appendini). The lexicon Vitae et carmina includes entries about 105 Dubrovnik writers and scholars, from medieval writers to authors of the seventeenth century. The entries vary in their length (from two lines to eight pages). The irregular structure of the entries, the variable length and the lack of consistency in the argumentation within the entries suggests that the work was not complete, or that in the form in which it has come down to us it only represents material for a more systematic biographical lexicon. In the entries, a total of 137 poetic texts of thirty eight named authors are referred to, together with six anonymous authors, in Latin, Croatian and Italian, ranging in length from one verse to 208. Apart from the verses of Dubrovnik writers, the verses of nine foreigners are cited. The verses of the actual addressee of the entry or another author are quoted in 43 out of 98 entries, and most of the entries in which verses are quoted relate to th century authors. The purpose of quoting a large quantity of verses is twofold: on the one hand Đurđevic the biographer, in the absence of real documents, takes (mostly occasional) verses as source of biographical data; the poetry, as well as artefact, is also perceived as document. On the other hand, he cites poetic material as a kind of storehouse of anthological poetry of Dubrovnik early modern writing.
Perceptibly fewer verses are quoted form the 17th than from the previous century: the cinquecento poets dominate, it seems, as poets of a century that was already understood to be the golden age of Ragusan literature: these are well-known authors, which tradition had preserved via copies and put into the local canon. In his lexicon, Đurđević reinforces this canon and gives an anthology of representative verses.
The authors whose verses are represented are the names of older literature, among others: Miho Monaldi, Frano Lukarević Burina, Marin Kaboga, Nikola Nalješković, Oracio Mažibradić, Sabo Bobaljević Glušac, Miho Bunić, Nikola Primović, Karlo Pucić, Ludovik Paskalić, Mavro Vetranović, Ilija Crijević, Dinko Ranjina, Dominko Zlatarić, Šišmundo Menčetić, Džore and Marin Držić. The authors most quoted are Ilija Crijević (17 poems), after which come Didak Pir (13), Šiško Menčetić (12), Dinko Ranjina (11), Dominko Zlatarić and Miho Monaldi (9 each), Džore Držić (8), Sabo Bobaljević (7), and finally Marin Držić and Nikola Nalješković with four poetic texts each. The authors in whose entries there are the most poetic texts cited are Ilija Crijević (14), Šiško Menčetić (12), Dominko Zlatarić and Miho Monaldi (10), Dinko Ranjina (9), as well as Džore Držić (6) and Sabo Bobaljević (5). The poetic texts that are quoted are quite often paratexts of editions with a strong communicational component and reveal a professional and private connection of the great names of Dubrovnik and Italian poetry in the 16th century.
Keywords
Split Poetic Miscellany of the Trogir Chapter; Croatian 16th century literature; Marko Marulić; poetic translations; hymns; folk devotionalism
Hrčak ID:
51582
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2010.
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