Tod und Grabmal in der neulateinischen Eklogendichtung

Abstract

Since Theokrit and Vergil pastoral poetry and the idea of Arcadia as an ideal landscape build up a great pari of European literature and art. This paper discusses a Single branch ofthe tradition of bucolic poetry, eclogues written in lament of women, poets or late kings. The archetype of these eclogues was formed by Vergil's fifth ecloge, written on behalf ofthe shepheards' heroe Daphnis. Central motifs of Vergil's ecloge, the tombstone of Daphnis, his resurrection, his ascension to the stars and the eternal life given to his singers, are repeated in many of the later eclogues. On a subtextual level the figure of Daphnis could become a metaphor for the beloved woman, for Christ or for a dead member of the poets' sodality. Different examples, taken from medieval and early modern latin and from vernacular sources are demonstrating the variety of its use. While Petrarque or the italian poet Jacopo Sannazaro were transforming Daphnis into a donna, a perfect woman, like it was done by Petrarque's successors, Garcilaso de la Vega or Edmund Spenser, Sannazaros comtemporary Antonio Geraldini could take Daphnis as a model of the resurrected Saviour. Humanist poets like Eobanus Hessus oder Joachim Camerarius were alluding to the same classical archetype to praise local dukes or other poets.