Chapter 24 – Neo-Latin Literary Genres and the Classical Tradition: Adaptation and

Inventions

Jan Bloemendal

Much of Neo-Latin bonae litterae is oriented towards classical literature. In the various

genres, as they are traditionally called, this literary production looked back to Latin — and to

a lesser extent Greek — literature of antiquity, but it was innovative in two ways. It both

adopted and adapted classical genres from several periods, and invented new ones.

Here we use the term genre to denote types or classes of literature. Since Plato and

Aristotle, literature has been divided into lyric, epic or narrative, and drama. Other terms that

were invented in antiquity are still employed, such as tragedy, comedy, satire, and ode.

Besides these generalising terms, more specialised classifications were also used in the

classical world, such as ‘encomium’, ‘propempticon’ and ‘bucolic’. Most of these genres were

also employed in early modern Latin. In antiquity, the genres were rather strictly separated.

Each genre had its own history, main features, metre, and principal representatives. Thus, for

instance, Gerardus Johannes Vossius in his Poeticarum institutionum libri tres (1647) was

able to systematically divide and define these genres. It was unusual to transfer characteristics

from one genre to another. Many of the genres will be treated separately in the next chapters.

Here a short survey will be given of the literary genres and their ties or lack thereof with the

classical tradition.

Epic Poetry

Early modern Latin literature was as strict as classical writing. In antiquity, heroic or epic

poetry was considered one of the most important genres. Early modern authors adopted it,

including the ‘heroic metre’, viz. the dactylic hexameter, and also the mixture of narrative and

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direct speech, Homeric comparisons and the choice of lofty characters. However, the subjects

were either taken from antiquity, or from the Bible or other Christian themes, or from

contemporary events. The first manner of dealing with epic, adopting classical subjects, can

be exemplified by the thirteenth book of the Aeneid (1471), a supplement to Virgil’s epic

written by Maffeo Vegio (1407-1458), treating of the events after Aeneas killed his opponent

Turnus, the legendary hero of the Italic people. It was included in some editions of the Aeneid,

and was even commented upon by Jodocus Badius Ascensius (1501) and Nicolaus Erythreaus

(1538-1539) in their editions of the Aeneid. The ‘Father of Humanism’ Francesco Petrarca

(1304-1374) wrote an epic on the Second Punic War entitled Africa (1st edition 1501). For

biblical epics, Caelius Sedulius’s Carmen paschale may have been the model, but in most

cases the style and tone is more Virgilian. Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530) found his

inspiration in the Bible for his treatment of the birth of Christ in De partu Virginis (1526). We

might also mention Marcus Hieronymus Vida’s Christias (1535) and Emanuel Jesus de

Oliveira Ferreira’s Poema epicum de conceptione B. Mariae (1749). Old Testament figures

could also be chosen, such as David in the Davidias of the Croatian poet Marcus Marullus

(1450-1525), as well as the saints, such as Baptista Mantuanus’s Libri tres de vita Dionysii

(1505). In the more secular forms of epic, heroes from antiquity could be the protagonists,

such as Scipio Africanus in Africa, but also mediaeval heroes and heroines like Joan of Arc in

Valerandus Varanius’s De gestis Ioannae virginis francae egregiae bellatricis (c. 1500) or

contemporary heroes, princes and kings, such as in Joannes Narsius’s Gustavidos [...] libri

tres and Gustavidos [...] liber quartus (1632 and 1634) in praise of Gustaf II of Sweden;

Georgius Benedicti’s De rebus gestis Guillielmi Nassovii (1586) on William of Orange, Pater

patriae of the Low Countries; and Giulio Cesare Stella’s Columbeis (1585), on the exploits of

Columbus.

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Translations also have an important place in Neo-Latin epic. Homer’s Iliad was

translated, but also the animal epic Renard the Fox, Dante Alighieri’s Divina commedia, and

John Milton’s Paradise Lost, translated in the eighteenth century by William Dobson as

Paradisus amissus.

Didactic Poetry and Heroides

In Neo-Latin epic we often see a classical form and style with Virgil as the main model but

with new subject matter. The same holds true for the other genre written in dactylic

hexameter, didactic poetry. However, here both Virgil’s Georgics and Lucretius’s De rerum

natura served as important sources of inspiration. A few examples may be mentioned, such as

Marcellus Palingenius’s Zodiacus vitae in twelve books, each treating one sign of the zodiac

(1531); Girolamo Fracastoro’s Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus, a didactic poem in three books

on the ‘French disease’ as it is now called after the hero of this poem (1539); Daniel

Heinsius’s De contemptu mortis in four books (1621); and Melchior de Polignac’s

Antilucretius (1745). Other works were written in elegiac couplets, a combination of a

hexameter and a pentameter, the most commonly used metre in the early modern period.

Petrus Bloccius’s Praecepta formandis puerorum moribus perutilia (1559) is an example of

this form, which goes back to another famous didactic poem from antiquity, Ovid’s Ars

amatoria. Here, too, classical forms and styles are used for new subject matter, just as in the

Heroides. This Ovidian genre consisting of letters between heroines and their lovers was also

adapted in early modern Latin form, for instance by the Jesuits for Christian purposes. Well-

known examples are Heroum epistulae (1630) and Heroidum epistulae (1638) of the German

Jesuit poet Jakob Bidermann and the Flemish Jesuit Balduinus Cabillavius’s Epistolae

heroum et heroidum (1636).

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Epigrams, Emblems and Eclogues

From the epic, didactic poetry, and heroides we turn to epigrammatic poetry, a genre often

used by humanists to define themselves, as Karl Enenkel puts it in his introduction to The

Neo-Latin Epigram. Differing from the antique epigram, which was usually very short and

more often than not pungent, Neo-Latin epigrams could be both short and long, both pungent

and non-provocative. They had in common the predominant use of the elegiac couplet. Even

lyrical odes could be written in this metrical form. The main sources of inspiration for short

and poignant epigrams were the poems of Martial. The Greek Anthology, which saw many

translations in the Renaissance, was also frequently imitated. See, for instance, Marc-Antoine

Muret’s translation of the Anthologia Palatina 7.669:

Stella meus, stellas dum suspicis, ipse utinam sim

Caelum, oculis ut te pluribus aspiciam.

(My Star, when you look up at the stars, I would like to be

The Sky, that I may look at you with more eyes.

(Hutton, Greek Anthology, p. 124)

A new form of the epigram invented by the humanists consisted of a long series of epigrams

on the same topic. Curious examples are the Merita principis Auraicae in Belgas (1620) and

the Hispanus redux (1622) of the Haarlem poet Jan van Foreest, consisting of over 150

epigrams. In Rome, lampooning epigrams were addressed to a fictitious Pasquino or

Pasquillus and attached to his statue near Piazza Navona. The Jesuits and members of other

religious orders also wrote religious and moralistic epigrams.

A special type of the epigram was constituted by the emblema, which is an illustration

accompanied by an epigram and, in most cases, bears an aphorism as a title. As such, this is a

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new invention by the humanists. The relationship between word and image is very intricate.

The epigram may describe the illustration or interpret it in a moral, religious or satiric way.

Andreas Alciatus’s Emblematum libellus (1531) is the first and most famous collection of

emblems, but many were to follow. A famous Dutch one is the Sinne- en minnebeelden

(Images of Sense and Love, 1627) by Jacob Cats, containing fifty-two emblems each with

three different explanations — with respect to love, morals and religion — in Dutch, Latin

and French, and in some instances also English and Spanish. The fourth emblem shows an ape

with her young, with the motto: ‘Amor, formae condimentum’ (‘Love, the spice of beauty’).

The three Latin epigrams run (they can be found online in the edition by Hans Luijten on the

website of the Emblem Project Utrecht: emblems.let.uu.nl) (fig. 1):

Nunquam deformis amica est.

Dulcis amor furor est. Stupet ebria simia prolem,

Nilque suis catulis pulchrius esse putat.

Nescit amans vitium (nimis id licet exstet) amicae,

Quasque alius dotes non videt, ipse notat:

Fucus amor vehemens, omnique potentior herba est;

Hoc duce facundae garrula nomen habet.

Quisquis amat, mentes agitante Cupidinis oestro,

Omne bono vitium proximiore tegit.

(Never a girlfriend is ugly

Love is a sweet fury. An ape is stupefied by her young, and thinks that nothing is more

beautiful than her offspring. A lover does not know the vice (even though it is

conspicuous) of his girlfriend, and he observes good qualities which someone else

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does not see. Love is a potent make-up and more powerful than any herb. Under the

guidance of love a loquacious women is called eloquent. When Cupid’s horsefly

stimulates the minds, everyone who loves, covers every vice with the nearest virtue.)

Qualis mater, talis filia.

Ex asinis asinus, bubo bubone creatur;

Et similes catulos simia mater habet:

Non leporem catulus generat, non falco columbam:

Arboris indomitae fructus acerbus erit.

Nosse cupis qualis tibi virgo futura sit uxor?

Matris ad ingenium respice, certus eris.

Dissimilem licet arte sui se monstret amanti,

In vitium tandem nata parentis abit.

(As the mother, thus the daughter

An ass produces an ass, an owl an owl, and an ape mother has similar young; a dog

does not produce a hare, nor a falcon a dove: the fruit of a wild tree will be bitter. Do

you want to know what kind of wife your young girl will be? Look at the character of

the mother, and you will know for sure. Even though she will cunningly show herself

differently to her lover, in the end the daughter will have the vices of her mother.)

Delicta operit charitas.

Gaudia pertentant tacitum tibi, Simia, pectus,

Dum gremio catuli membra pudenda foves;

Arcet ab amplexu non te sine crinibus alvus,

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Non simae ante oculos crimina naris habes.

Displiceat multis, placet hac mihi Simia parte,

Ah! niger est, si quis pandere crimen amat.

Livida lingua sile; vitium tegit ille sodalis,

Imbuit aethereus, si cui pectus, Amor.

(Love covers sins

Ape, joy pervades your silent breast, when you fondle the ugly body of your young on

your lap; the hairless belly does not stop you from embracing it, nor do you look at the

awful ape nose. Even though many hate the ape for this, I like her. Alas! Who makes

much of a crime, is bad. Jealous tongue, be quiet; the friend covers the sin. If someone

has a heart, heavenly Love pervades it.)

Related to the emblems were the affixiones (affichages) by the Jesuits. The Jesuit fathers

annually organised exhibitions, drawings and poems by their pupils, mostly in the classes of

Rhetorica and Poesis. Many of them were emblematic, nicely drawn and distinguished by

their careful calligraphy.

To the epigram belongs also the aenigma, or riddle. Antiquity left us collections of

such riddles, as did mediaeval authors and humanists. The chronogram (time writing) is also a

kind of riddle in which all the letters of the Roman numbering together (M, D, C, L, X, V, I)

formed a year. For instance, the church of Rupelmonde in Flanders contains this text:

‘gLorIose VICIt DraCoNeM’; the sum of the capitalized letters forms the year of the

completion of the building, 1758. Neo-Latin authors also wrote epigrams in alba amicorum, a

type of book production that flourished in the early modern period. On their peregrinatio

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academica students or scholars would take a notebook with them in which others wrote a

sentence, an aphorism, or a short poem.

The epigram also gave rise to Spielereien such as alliterative poems (for instance,

Johannes Placentius’s Pugna porcorum) and figure poems (for example, Pierio Valeriano’s

Ovum dactylicum in the form of an egg). Another form of Spielerei is macaronic poetry, with

a humorous mixture of Latin and vernacular words and freely invented neologisms, perhaps in

imitation of Plautus’s Poenulus (The Carthaginian), in which in the fifth act a Punic character

speaks in a mixture of Latin and Punic. The term macaronicus stems from the Italian

maccarone (noodles). Johann Fischart (1546/47-1591), for instance, wrote in a combination of

Latin and German: ‘Caseus und Schinckus die machen optime trinkus’ (‘Cheese and ham

make one drink a lot’).

Other poetic genres were freely adapted, such as bucolic poems converted into

fishermen’s pastorals (Piscatoriae eclogae, 1526) by Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530), in which

the shepherds were replaced by fishermen, or the Eclogae sacrae (1659) by the French Jesuit

René Rapin (1621-1687). Purely Christian poetry was written in original hymns and

paraphrases of the Psalms and other biblical poems. Famous examples are the Psalm

paraphrases by George Buchanan (Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica, 1580) and

Marcantonio Flaminio’s Paraphrasis in triginta Psalmos versibus scripta (1545).

Drama and Dialogues

Another genre that became important in early modern times was drama. Thousands of plays

must have been written in the tradition of Roman comedy and tragedy and, to a lesser extent,

of Greek drama. Their role, however, was completely different. Whereas Roman comedy was

written merely to entertain an audience, Neo-Latin drama was written for educational and

spiritual purposes. Again, the subjects changed from a farcical comedy of errors to more

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edifying plays on biblical, hagiographical and other religious subjects, or school life and

mediaeval farcical subject matter, which contained a moral, ethical or religious admonition.

Tragedy was aimed at older students, more likely with a university setting. Most of them were

written in the manner of the gruesome tragedies of Seneca or attributed to him. In these

tragedies passions were depicted to deter the audience from such strong emotions. Here, too,

Christian humanists had to cope with the difficulty of writing tragedy, which by definition has

an exitus infelix, in a Christian context in which God turns everything to the good of the

faithful.

The humanists and other playwrights also changed comedy in a formal sense, by

adding choral songs to some of their plays, which were not used in ancient comedy. Its

advantages were obvious: moral lessons could be made explicit in them, and more students

could participate in a performance. Its theoretical basis could be found in Horace’s comments

on the chorus in his Ars poetica: ‘Actoris partis chorus officiumque virile / defendat, neu quid

medios intercinat actus, / quod non proposito conducat et haereat apte’ (Let the Chorus sustain

the part and strenuous duty of an actor, and sing nothing between acts that does not advance

and fitly blend into the plot’). Its practical basis was found in the occurrence of choral songs

in Seneca’s tragedies. The form of the odes, however, often was strophic, unlike Seneca’s

plays. Also the humanists added prefaces and other preliminary texts. At the performance of

Latin plays, the authors, who were often also the directors, added music, dance, ballet and

other forms of spectacle to the text staged. The Jesuits especially made drama into a

‘multimedia’ theatrical event.

The early modern Neo-Latin playwrights also invented new forms of theatre. Lofty

plays with a happy ending were called tragicocomoediae or comicotragoediae. Pastoral plays

were also invented, a mixture of Virgilian eclogae, of which the odd ones were dialogic in

nature, and ancient comedy. The influence of vernacular pastoral poetry can also be discerned,

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in particular that of Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (c. 1580) and Battista Guarini’s Pastor fido

(1590). Examples of such pastoral plays can be illustrated in the Jesuit father Mario Bettini’s

Ludovicus (1622), which has as its subtitle Tragicum sylviludium (sylvan tragedy) and his

Rubenus (1614), which has the subtitle hilarotragoedia satyropastoralis (cheerful, pastoral

tragedy full of satyrs), and Father Claude Roillet’s Diana, sive satyri (1556).

As drama, so dialogues often had an educational context. This genre already existed in

antiquity, its most famous examples being the dialogues of Plato in Greek, in the early

modern period known in Latin translations, and those by Cicero and Seneca in Latin. But

these were dialogues in a philosophical setting. The humanists wrote shorter and longer

dialogues to teach Latin conversation. The best-known examples are the Colloquia familiaria

of Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536), the Exercitatio linguae Latinae of Juan-Luis Vives

(1492/93-1540), and the Protestant Colloquia scholastica of Mathurin Cordier (1479/80-

1564).

Prose Writings, Novels

In prose, also, new genres were invented and old ones used in new forms or new contexts.

One of the achievements of the humanists was the Latin spoken word in orations, speeches,

declamations, sermons, etc. In these forms, they followed the advice of ancient rhetoric. These

orations were held both in epideictic and academic settings.

In written prose, ancient biography was adopted, as well as a new form, namely

autobiographical works were written. However, while in ancient biography the ‘truth’ of the

biographical story did not conform to actual facts, but to a ‘true-to-life’ characterisation of the

person described, in Neo-Latin biography the truth of the facts was of greater importance.

Epistolography was of immense importance in Neo-Latin literature. Humanists,

scientists and others wrote numerous letters to exchange knowledge, gossip, and ideas, and to

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maintain their networks with others. The importance attached to letters is also substantiated by

the fact that many humanists — and others — chose to collect their letters, and then either to

reorganise them, rephrase them or even rewrite them. This was their main means of

‘fashioning’ themselves in the Greenblattian sense. These letters could be ‘private’ or

‘public’, such as, for the latter, letters of dedication to other works. However, the boundaries

between private and public were permeable, since ‘private’ letters often were included in

‘publicly’ published collections. The correspondences imitate the famous letters by Cicero —

partly rediscovered by Petrarch, who himself wrote letters to classical authors — and those by

Seneca (Ad Lucilium) and Pliny the Younger.

The humanists also re-invented the novel. Of course, in antiquity the novel existed in

later Greek literature. These Greek novels, such as Chariton’s Callirhoe (first century AD),

were a kind of comedy of errors or adventure story. This is also true for the Latin novels that

are preserved, Petronius’s Satyricon and Apuleius’s Metamorphoses (or ‘The Golden Ass’),

even though they are more of picaresque novels. In Neo-Latin, we could think of Thomas

More’s Utopia (1516), John Barclay’s Argenis (1628) and Ludvig Holberg’s Nicolai Klimii

iter subterraneum (1741). The Argenis, for instance, resembles the ancient novel, being a

romance about the loves of Poliarchus and Argenis, but it is also a political treatise and a

historical allegory, as Riley and Prichard Huber point out in their introduction to this novel.

Inspired by Montaigne’s Essais, some Neo-Latin authors also produced essayistic works.

Dependent on the broad or narrow definition of essay, either many of them were written or

only a few.

Another genre taken over from antiquity, but given its own colour, is facetiae:

anecdotes, stories and tales about human foibles. One of the earliest and best-known early

modern collections are the Facetiae (1470) by Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380-

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1459). The use of these often coarse stories is defended by the principle that they should teach

and delight (the Horatian utile dulci principle).

Concluding Remarks

In spite of, or through, its use of classical genres, Neo-Latin literature was as creative as Neo-

Latin language with its neologisms, and as innovative as any other literature. The

predominance of classical literature hindered the invention of completely new genres, and

even formed a barrier to variation on conventional forms. However, Neo-Latin authors

certainly did not completely abstain from changes. They adapted existing forms and changed

them for new purposes, and traditional forms received new functions in new circumstances.

One of the most important new circumstances was Christianity: ancient genres were used in a

Christian context. Genres were also adapted or invented in literary contexts, in some instances

under the influence of mediaeval types of literature or inspired by contemporary vernacular

literature, in other instances by a mixture of classical genres or by inventions of the humanists

and other Neo-Latin authors themselves. Moreover, the educational context of many works of

Neo-Latin literature also influenced their content or form. Latin literature of the early modern

and later periods still has many unexplored or under-explored fields, in which literary gems

may be hidden, that are crystallized in surprisingly new forms.

Further Reading

Barclay, John, Argenis, ed. by Mark Riley and Dorothy Pritchard Huber (Assen: Van Gorcum,

2004).

Beer, Susanna de, David Rijser and Karl Enenkel (eds.), The Neo-Latin Epigram. A Learned

and Witty Genre (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009) Supplementa humanistica

Lovaniensia, 25.

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Bloemendal, Jan, and Howard B. Norland (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama and Theatre in Early

Modern Europe (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013) Drama and Theatre in Early Modern

Europe, 3.

Cats, Jacob, Sinne- en minnebeelden, ed. by Hans Luijten, 3 vols. (The Hague: Constantijn

Huygens Instituut, 1996) Monumenta Literaria Neerlandica, 15, 1, 2 and 3.

Eickmeyer, Jost, Der jesuitische Heroidenbrief. Zur Christianisierung und Kontextualisierung

einer antiken Gattung in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012) Frühe

Neuzeit, 162.

Grafton, Anthony, Glenn W. Most, Salvatore Settis (eds.), The Classical Tradition (Harvard

University Press, 2010).

Hutton, James, The Greek Anthology in France and in the Latin Writers of the Netherlands to

the Year 1800 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1946).

IJsewijn, Jozef, and Dirk Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, Part II: Literary,

Linguistic, Philological and Editorial Questions (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1998)

Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, 14.

Landtsheer, Jeanine, and Henk Nellen, Between Scylla and Charybdis. Learned Letter Writers

Navigating the Reefs of Religious and Political Controversy in Early Modern Europe

(Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2013) Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 192.

Porteman, Karel, a.o., Emblematic Exhibitions (affixiones) at the Brussels Jesuit College

(1630-1685). A Study of the Commemorative Manuscripts (Royal Library, Brussels)

(Turnhout: Brepols; Brussels: Royal Library, 1996) Publications of the Belgian Royal

Library, 1.

Sacré, Dirk, ‘Macaronische Dichtung’, Der neue Pauly 15/1 (2001), col. 281-285.

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Van Houdt, Toon, Jan Papy, Gilbert Tournoy, and Constant Matheeussen (eds.), Self-

Presentation and Social Identification. The Rhetoric and Pragmatics of Letter Writing in

Early Modern Times (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002).

Warner, J. Christopher, The Augustinian Epic, Petrarch to Milton (Ann Harbor: University of

Michigan Press, 2005).

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