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The Biographic Elements in Marulić’s Epistolary Texts
Branko Jozić
orcid.org/0000-0003-2490-148X
; Marulianum, Split
Sažetak
Frane Božićević has left us a succinct but invaluable description of the life and work of the celebrated writer of Split Marko Marulić. Nevertheless a mosaic of Marulić and his world can be very well built up from elements from his own writings, his epistolary compositions being here extremely important and rewarding. A vast amount of important data about our poet, and the time in which he lived and his contemporaries, emerge from them.
Literary and cultural subjects, historical and social topics and many autobiographical elements can be discerned in them. We learn with whom the author kept company, with whom he was in contact, and how he conceived of the content and purpose of his work, what he thought of his own productions. Although they are tricked out with many commonplaces, the epistles are also a source of valuable data concerning the reason for writing the works, the author’s attitude to the addressee, the connections with other authors and the publishing network. They are documents of the author’s understanding of his own writing (of his poetics). We can also find out which topics really occupied him, the issues that concerned both him and his interlocutors.
In addition, the epistolary corpus is full of bibliographic information that is interesting since it is the only reference to some of his works or because it contains expressions concerning or details useful for establishing a chronology of his oeuvre.
In general, his extant epistolary corpus is in the cultivated and polished expression used by Marulić for his social or cultural circle of correspondents. It tells us of Humanist friendships among persons of different professions, not limited by the boundaries of the cities and states that divided them, and thus indirectly tells of a kind of republic of letters. It shows to us a network of friendships and gives a partial insight into its origin, when we are concerned with persons who probably never met in person.
The available biographical and bibliographical data are a point of departure for further research in other literary and historical sources, and we may hope for new discoveries to provide a more complete and truthful picture of Marulić and his world.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
23919
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.4.2008.
Posjeta: 1.927 *