Verbis phucare tyrannos? Selbstanspruch und Leistungsspektren von zeithistorischer Epik als panegyrischem Medium im 15. Jahrhundert

Christian Peters

Abstract

An unusually successful aspect of Neo-Latin epic was the practice, increasingly common beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, of composing grand historical epics about contemporary political and military figures. On account of its content, this panegyric verse can be considered a special case of biographical or historical writing. The question then arises what historical circumstances brought forth this specific form of the literary portrayal of rulers and what was required of the authors. This article aims to shed light on these issues by means of a close reading of a few significant texts of the fifteenth century: epic poems as well as treatises and programmatic statements on poetics. In particular it will investigate just how binary the opposition between historia and poesis was thought to be in the period, and it will consider the possibility that contemporary politics was decisive for the genre and its discursive rules.

Verbis phucare tyrannos? Selbstanspruch und Leistungsspektren von zeithistorischer Epik als panegyrischem Medium im 15. Jahrhundert

From the book Portraying the Prince in the Renaissance

Abstract

Chapters in this book (23)