Loading...

Litanic Verse II

Britannia, Germania et Scandinavia

by Witold Sadowski (Volume editor) Magdalena Kowalska (Volume editor) Magdalena Maria Kubas (Volume editor)
©2016 Monographs 267 Pages
Series: Literary and Cultural Theory, Volume 46

Summary

The book contains comparative analyses of the development of litanic verse in European poetry, from medieval to modern times. Litanic verse is based on different syntactic devices, such as enumeration, parallelism, anaphora and epiphora. However, it is not to be seen merely as a convention of versification as the popularity of different variants of the verse in Europe reflects the religious, intellectual, social and political history of various European regions. The essays in the second volume focus on litanic verse in the Germanic languages. They discuss predominantly the literatures of Protestant countries (Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Norway), but also Austrian poetry.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Britannia
  • “That order of apostles is widely honoured by the nations”: Pre-Chaucerian English Poetry
  • “Thy name I sall ay nevyne”: Fifteenth-Century England and Scotland
  • “O Lord, deliver us from trusting in those prayers”: Early Modern England
  • “Hail! the Heaven-born Prince of Peace!”: The Eighteenth Century and Romanticism in England
  • Our Lady of Controversy: Defamiliarization of Litanic Verse in England between 1837 and 1937
  • Germania et Scandinavia
  • From Merseburger Charms to Minnesang: The German Middle Ages
  • Pietist Litanies in German Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Poetry. The Case of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
  • “You are the harp on which the player breaks in pieces”: German and Austrian Poetry between 1797 and 1914
  • Litany Undercover: Denmark and Norway from the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century
  • Litany in Retreat: Denmark from Romanticism to the 1930s
  • “Norway, Norway…” From the End of the Eighteenth to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
  • Litany in Swedish Literature and Culture: Preliminary Remarks
  • Transformations of Litany in Swedish Poetry: From the Middle Ages to the Modern Breakthrough (1100–1879)
  • “Why would you have to say a litany of your soul”: Swedish and Swedish-Language Poetry in the Period 1879–1940
  • Subject Index
  • Index of Names

← 6 | 7 →

Britannia

← 7 | 8 →

← 8 | 9 →

Anna Czarnowus
University of Silesia

“That order of apostles is widely honoured by the nations”: Pre-Chaucerian English Poetry

The Tradition of Litany in England1

In Priestly Women, Virginal Men: Litanies and Their Discontents Felice Lifschitz emphasizes the idea that “liturgists define ‘litanies’ rather broadly, both as repetitive supplications for divine aid and as the processions in which those supplications may be enacted.”2 In this paper the first part of the definition will be adopted, as it is particularly relevant in the context of Old English literature, in which litanic verse is more clearly observed than litany per se. Indeed, Old English literature includes various examples of litanic verse, which have in all probability been influenced by two traditions: the ancient Assyrian tradition of lists of monarchs, which was litanic, and the tradition of Christian litanies, first in Greek and then in Latin. Furthermore, it appears that the shape of Old English litanic verse was reinforced by the textual tradition of Old Icelandic thula, a mnemonic list, by the oral-formulaic diction that influenced the shape of Old English poetry even though it was not necessarily its only formative element, and, last but not least, by litanies themselves, which are called “Anglo-Saxon” rather than “Old English” by Michael Lapidge since they were circulated in Latin not Old English, as the extant manuscripts prove.3 In fact, Old English litanic verse is viewed as being more interesting than litanies themselves, which are according to Joseph P. McGowan “fairly simple texts […] interesting for the saints mentioned and their possible insular origins for the Western church.”4 Indeed, Old English and early Middle ← 9 | 10 → English litanic verse does not simply list names and Middle English literature before the time of Chaucer is more similar to the French model in terms of the topics and forms of its litanic verse.

The tradition of litany in Western Europe expanded into other countries from the British Isles, as is seen in the research conducted by Lapidge. In Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints he demonstrated that Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, brought the litany of the saints with him to England from the East in 668 C.E. and that this is when litany started as a liturgical form in the Western church.5 Lapidge identified “a tenth-century copy of what is arguably the earliest surviving litany of the saints known to the Western Church, and from which all later litanies derive their origin,”6 — it is found in the so-called “Athelstan Psalter”7. The original booklet of prayers that Theodore owned and that contained Greek litanies is referred to by Mechthild Gretsch as “the germ from which the litany of the saints of the western church developed.”8

Old English Versification and Secondary Orality of Litanic Verse

Old English literature was able to be influenced by litany due to the inherent qualities of versification that stemmed from its association with Old Germanic and Old Norse poetry. Anglo-Saxon verse was not accentual-syllabic, as the length of the lines differed, but it represented accentual verse. Indeed, Maria Dłuska believes that the best example of accentual verse is provided by litanies.9 Having said that, Anglo-Saxon verse was an example of the so-called “beat verse,” thus accentual verse, from its initiation, as Margaret Schlauch points out, since the number of syllables was never regular.10 This Old Germanic characteristic in Old English ← 10 | 11 → verse may have permitted the adoption of litany as a literary form. Furthermore, Old English literature may even demonstrate that the literary phenomena that led to the creation of litanic verse were older than the awareness of the existence of litany itself, at least in the Anglo-Saxon context.

Equally important was the influence of oral-formulaic diction, although when discussing versification, we cannot limit ourselves to the view that this literature was only oral.11 Bartłomiej Błaszkiewicz writes about medieval English literature as a combination of both oral and literary elements,12 thus developing the argument of Francis P. Jr. Magoun, who elaborated upon the oral-formulaic nature of this poetry.13 Błaszkiewicz indicates the more literary character of medieval Latin poetry and its “secondary orality,” while Old English poetry is described as being mainly, but not exclusively, oral.14 However, it is in litanic verse that this “secondary orality” is visible: it was inspired by texts that were written, because this is how litany arrived in England, but which acquired their oral character once again when litanic verse entered Old English literature, as it was largely oral. Hence, the oral-formulaic influence should neither be over- nor underestimated in the case of Old English litanic verse.

Catalogue Poems

In Litany and Poetry. On the Body of Material of Polish Literature from the Eleventh to the Twenty-First Century, Witold Sadowski writes that the catalogue poem developed from litany.15 Nevertheless, in English literature not only does litanic verse symbolically end the tradition of litany as it does in other literatures, but it also commences the literary tradition in Old English. After all, one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon poems is Widsith, which goes back at least to the seventh, if not the sixth, century despite being preserved in the tenth-century Codex Exoniensis. It is a catalogue poem with no obvious allusions to Christianity, and appears to be ← 11 | 12 → grounded in the tradition of listing monarchs that began within the Babylonian culture.16 It is the account of a traveller who calls himself Widsith and includes lists of various pagan rulers and conquerors. The stage has not yet been reached at which the two traditions, that is, the “mythological heroic themes” and “the scriptural, devout, and monastic themes,” as Minkova notes,17 converge with each other, so the scop limits himself to the following enumeration:

Ætla weold Hunum,Eormanric Gotum,
Becca Baningum,Burgendum Gifica;
Casere weold Creacumond Celic Finnum,
Hagena Holmrygumond Heoden Glommum;
Witta weold Swæfum,Wada Hælsingum,
Meaca Myrgingum,Mearchealf Hundingum;
þeodoric weold Froncum,þyle Rondingum,
Breoca Brondingum,Billing Wernum;
Oswine weold Eowumond Ytum Gefwulf,
Fin FolcwaldingFresna cynne.
Sigehere longestSædenum weold,
Hnæf Hocingum,Helm Wulfingum […].18

[Attila ruled the Huns, Eormanric the Goths, / Becca the Banings, Gifica the Burgundians; / Caesar ruled the Greeks, Caelic the Finns, / Hegena the Holnrygir, Heoden the Glomman; / Witta ruled the Swabians, Wada the Hælings, / Maeca the Myrgings, Mearchealf the Hundings; / Theodoric ruled the Franks, Thyle the Rondings, / Breca the Brondings, Billing the Wernas; / Oswine ruled the Eowas, Gefwulf the Jutes, / Finn, son of Folcwalda, the Frisian folk. / Sighere longest governed the Sea Danes / Hnæf ruled the Hocings, Helm the Wulfings […].19]

The list of names, even though the verb “weold” (ruled) is not repeated in consecutive phrases, demonstrates that what stands behind this lengthy passage is not necessarily oral-formulaic verse. It could just as well be the above-mentioned tradition of lists of rulers that influenced the idea behind the poem. Michael Swanton calls both Widsith and Deor “cleverly constructed catalogues, as it were, of the scop’s materials of trade.”20 Deor from The Exeter Book is not such an elaborate ← 12 | 13 → catalogue of names, since it is five short narratives based on the names that begin each section: Weland, Beadohild, Maethhild, Theodoric, and Eormanric.21 The sixth narrative reveals the identity of the poet himself: Deor. It could be said that the poem is also litanic in the sense of being similar to Assyrian lists of rulers, but only in this sense.

As for Widsith, yet another tradition is identified, this time more ancient than the litanic tradition, as the source of catalogue poems:

There follows a long list of such early heroic rulers. At first sight this seems a jumble of apparently heterogeneous material, a geographical sweep from Burgundian in the west to the Huns in the east, embracing in one bewildering moment the whole ethnic melting-pot of Migration Age Europe […]. We can recognize a coherent syntactic and thematic structure, a generically balanced sequence of two-line formulae of the kind: ‘X ruled Y, PQ, ST, and VV,’ accelerated and intensified by omission of the verb after the first hemistich. Repeated over and over again, with variation, this formula patently represents an ancient form of mnemonic name-list, or thula […]. Any attempt to unravel a precise geographical or historical programme is unprofitable and irrelevant, the list serves merely to whet the appetite by its very variety, displaying the rich wares of the minstrel’s repertoire — a mnemonic interspersed with brief but tantalizing narrative expansions, a n y o f w h i c h m i g h t b e e n l a r g e d u p o n t h e r e q u e s t o f a p a t r o n [emphasis mine — A.C.]. The bulk of references are to heroes who flourished between the opening of the fourth century and the third quarter of the sixth […].22

The tendency to catalogue that was obvious in mnemonic lists called thula may have influenced both the formation of litanies and that of Old English catalogue poems. Whatever its source, the ability to extend the list of names almost endlessly is shared both by Widsith and the Anglo-Saxon litanies.23 Lapidge comments on the latter as follows: “since they were chanted during processions […], they might need to be extended indefinitely, and the extension was accomplished by inserting more names;”24 in the case of Widsith, the relatively brief list was developed by the ← 13 | 14 → inclusion of longer references to Ælfwine, Eormanric, Ealhild, and Eadwine. The ancient lists of monarchs also frequently provided an exercise in writing, but in these examples the function of the text is more than writing practice.25

Old English Litanic Verse: Fates of the Apostles and Charms

The Vercelli Book,26 from the tenth century, includes twenty-three prose texts whose content is either homiletic or hagiographic. An example of the latter is The Fates of the Apostles, an early eighth-century liturgical text that lists the twelve apostles and their feast days. Treharne indicates that “church litanies […] also contain the apostles in their lists […] [and litanies] may have influenced the composition and the intended use of the poem” in tandem with the genre of martyrology.27 The entire poem, with its repetition of Hwæt, which appears to be an idiosyncratically Old English litanic marker in this instance despite occurring elsewhere without such a function, consists of a list of apostles: Peter and Paul, Andrew, John, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Simon, and Matthew. All are given a storyline, which makes the poem a martyrology, quite apart from its similarity to litanies. It finishes with a laudation, including epithets:

Nu a his lof standeð,
mycel ond mære, ond his miht seomaþ,
ece ond edgiong, ofer ealle gesceaft.28

[Now and forever his glory remains, / great and splendid, and his strength will continue, / eternal and invigorating, throughout all creation.]

The phrase “Is se apostolhad / wide geweorðod ofer werþeoda” (15–16, “That order of apostles is widely honoured by the nations”)29 demonstrates that the author composed the poem with an awareness of the litanic tradition that already existed both in Britain and on mainland Europe. The poem closely resembles the lists of saints that can be found in the Latin litanies created in Anglo-Saxon times, as exemplified by the list from Cambridge which addresses: “Iohanis, Petre, Paule, ← 14 | 15 → Andrea, Iohanes, Iacobe, Thoma, Phillippe, Bartholomee, Mathee, Symon, Iudda, Luca, Barnaba, Marcialis” as “omnes sancti apostolic et evangeliste.”30 However, if litanies themselves are interpreted as “acts of scholarly compilation,”31 The Fates of the Apostles can be considered to be more than that, as it represents litanic verse rather than a litany per se. Furthermore, the text appears to be an illustration of a vision that later materialized in the visual arts. Thus, gothic cathedrals, such as that at Reims, have vault mosaics with God in the centre, surrounded by the twelve apostles, which was a visual representation of the description in The Fates of the Apostles, namely a hierarchal enumeration of saints with God as the beginning and the end of everything.32 The text develops in a manner similar to the construction of a rose window: it describes the apostles before hailing God as the centre of the religious image. The Fates of the Apostles demonstrates what Sadowski observed, namely the openness of medieval litanic verse to narrative, which was a quality later discontinued when litanic verse started to appear in more pure forms.33

A corpus of texts that can clearly be categorized as litanic verse which was inspired by Christian litanies includes charms, and these are found in Cotton Caligula, Harley MS 585, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Royal MS 4 a. XIV, British Museum.34 They represent a genre, which used to be considered pagan, albeit with Christian elements inserted within it, but today it is thought that the genre was largely “adapted for use in a Christian era.”35 The text — which without any doubt can be interpreted as being inspired by the Anglo-Saxon litanies of the saints — is Æcerbot, known in translation as Charm for Unfruitful Land. It is included in MS Cotton Caligula AVII, in which the goddess “Erce” is invoked:

Erce, Erce, Erce,eorþan modor,
geunne þe se alwalda,ece drihten,
æcera wexendraand wridendra, ← 15 | 16 →
eacniendraand elniendra,
sceafta hehra,scirra wæstma,
and þæra bradanberewæstma,
and þæra hwitanhwætewæstma,
and ealraeorþan wæstma.
Geunne himece drihten
and his halige,þe on heofonum synt,
þæt hys yrþ si gefriþodwið ealra feonda gehwæne,
and heo si geborgenwið ealra bealwa gehwylc,
þara lyblacageond land sawen.36

[Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of earth, / May the All-Wielder, Lord Eternal, / Give flourishing acres of sprouting shoots, / Acres bountiful bringing to harvest / Tall stalks and shining growth, / Acres of broad harvest of barley, / Acres of white harvest of wheat, / And all the harvests of earth. / May Eternal God and His saints in heaven / Defend earth’s growth from every foe / That it may be shielded from every evil, / And every sorcery sowed through the land.37]

Elements of supplication are obvious in this text, but it was Richard North in Heathen Gods in Old English Literature who identified Erce. North considers the charm to be an early eleventh-century text,38 and it includes the phrases “eorþan modor, geunn” and “scirra wæstma,” which suggest a common ancestry with Terra Mater in Tacitus’s Germania, the Norse goddess Iðunnin in Haustlông and Lokasenna and Freyr’s mediator Skírnir in Skírnismál.39 Terra Mater was “the earth-goddess whom the continental Angli appear to have worshipped in the first century AD,” but for North the verb gunnan has its equivalents in the Norse sagas about gods, which include the subject of how to make difficult land fertile.40 Additionally, “scirra wœstma” and “on godes fœme” allude to Skírnismál, and the three uses of geunnan in the invocation to the Lord is a development of the pagan agrarian theme of hieros gamos.41 North even views this as “one of the most vital elements of the natural religions on which Anglo-Saxon paganism was based,”42 but, importantly for this discussion, he also notes that certain ecclesiastical sources must ← 16 | 17 → have influenced Æcerbot.43 Since the charm reads like a litany of the saints, with the invocation of a pagan goddess followed by that of the Christian God and his saints, the litanic tradition, together with the idea of supplication, can clearly be identified.

However, the impression of a Christian provenance in the text is enhanced by the instructions preceding the invocation of Erce and the other deities: four sods of earth from the four corners of the land are to be collected, mixed with edible ingredients and holy water, before being “sanctified” with a verse from Genesis, an invocation of the Trinity, and the Pater Noster. Then a priest in the church is to sing four masses over them. Interestingly, crosses need to be inscribed on their crossbar with the names of the four evangelists and must then be buried in pits. Following this the priest should bow down to the earth nine times and invoke “the truly holy Mary.” What is the most fascinating with respect to this discussion is his recital of the litany, which is followed by other prayers.44 It is important not to overestimate the pagan Germanic influence on the composition, since the text was written mainly in the tenth- and eleventh-century. Edward Pettit claims that the text “might be intended for the use of a wealthy tenth- or eleventh-century secular […] lord or, more likely, his physician.”45 Thus, the pagan genre was realized in a largely Christian culture. Rodrigues emphasizes the “inauthenticity” of this charm, as it is grounded in Christian rather than pagan convictions and: it “invoke[s] the help of either a deified being or of God and His saints, whereas authentic charms evince the personal power of the protagonist and generally assume the form of commands rather than of supplications.”46 The syncretism of Anglo-Saxon culture is visible in the litanic form that is found in a pagan textual form.

The charm Wið foerstice, and indeed the entire collection of remedies or (medical) charms, Lacnunga (from MS Harley 585) to which Wið foerstice belongs, provides a similar perspective on the syncretism of the culture to which they belong. The most famous charm included in the collection, Charm for a Sudden Stitch, appears to be similar to the litanic content of Æcerbot in that it ends with the supplication “helpe ðin drihten” (“So help thee Lord”),47 but it also includes parallelism in the supplication “Ut, lytel spere” (“Out, little spear”), which is repeated three times ← 17 | 18 → with no alteration and finally as “ut, spere” (“Out spear”).48 The simultaneous anaphora and apostrophe suggest that litanies may have inspired the poetic part of this metrical charm.49 This demonstrates that the primary objective of litanies, namely supplication (as Lapidge reminds us, the Greek word itself means “supplication” or “petition”),50 was also present in what were originally pagan forms such as charms, and when these include references to Christian holy persons, they demonstrate their authors’ awareness of the existence of litanic forms. Even though it has been suggested that a narrative relating an attack by witches and the apostrophes to the spear may be two charms instead of one, Elliott van Kirk Dobbie views them as a single poem.51 The charm is not “predominantly Christian in spirit,” like Æcerbot, but it may have been subject to similar litanic inspiration.52 However, it is not entirely Christian due to the conviction that help from deities is not necessary. It is enough to say the text and perform the gestures indicated in order for the charm to work, and thus the ultimate agency is attributed to the speaker.

Other charms from Lacnunga demonstrate even more clearly both the syncretism and the openly litanic provenance of many of these texts. In text XXIX a salve is discussed firstly as “se halga drænc wið ælfsidene 7 wið eallum foendes costungum” (“the holy drink for (?)elfish magic and for all the temptations of the Devil”) before being viewed as something that should be taken to church, to the accompaniment of “gebedsealmas” (precatory psalms) such as “letanias.”53 Another allusion to sung litanies being necessary to increase the effectiveness of the charms is found in text XXXI, where “þ(æt) gebed, Matheus, Marcus, Lucas, Iohannes” (the prayer “Matthew, Mark Luke, John”) is to be sung together with other prayers.54 This shows how much litanies were a part of rituals that at first sight seemed pagan.

Text LXIII contains a supplicatory fragment in Latin that contains the litanic: ← 18 | 19 →

“D(omi)ne mi, rigo[sic! — A.C.] te, Pater te deprecor, Filii obsecro te, D(omi)ne et Sp(iritu)s S(an)c(tu)s, ex totis uirib(us), s(an)c(t)a trinitas, ut delas omnia opera diaboli ab isto homine” (My Lord, I ask you, Father I entreat you, Son I implore you, Lord and Holy Spirit, that by all your powers, Holy Trinity, you obliterate all the works of the Devil from this man).55 The speaker is also instructed that he or she should say: “inuoco s(an)c(t)am trinitatem in adminilu(m) meum” (“I invoke the Holy Trinity to my aid”) and then “Libera D(omi)ne animam famuli tui N. et redde sanitatem corpori famuli tui N. p(er) nomen s(an)c(tu)m tuum” (“Free, o Lord, the soul of your servant, Name, and restore health to the body of your servant, Name, by your holy name”).56

Text LXV also involves supplications, which coexist in two linguistic versions, Old English and Latin:

“gefultmige seo þrinis seo annis / Suffragare trinitas unitas” (“Help (me), O Trinity, O Unity”) and “ðære annisse gemildsa me seoþinnis / unitatis miserere trinitas” (“Have pity, O Trinity of Unity”).57

Apart from the apostrophe, the particle “o” contributes to the impression of the litanic provenance of this excerpt. Similar observations may be made about the supplicatory text CL:

Contra oculor(um) dolor(um):

D(omi)n(e), s(an)c(te) Pater, om(ni)p(oten)s aeterne D(eu)s, sana oculos hominis istius N. sicut sanasti oculos filii Tobi et multorum cecorum q(uo)s […]; D(omi)ne, tu es oculos caecor(um), manus aridorum, pes claudor(um), sanitas egrorum, resurrectio mortuorum, felicitas martyr(um)/ et omnium s(an)c(t)orum; oro, D(omi)ne, uteregas et inlumnas oculos famuli tui N.; in quacumque ualitudine constitum medelis celestibus sanare digneris, tribuere famulo tuo N., ut armis iustitiae munitus diabolo resistat et regnum consequatur aeternum […].58

[Lord, holy Father, omnipotent (and) eternal God, heal the eyes of this man, Name, just as you healed the eyes of the son of Tobit and many other blinded men who […]; Lord, you are the eye of the blind, the hand of the poor, the foot of the lame, the health of the sick, the resurrection of the dead, the joy of the martyrs and of the saints; I pray, Lord, that you raise up and illumine the eyes of your servant Name; you may deign to heal him with celestial remedies in whatever state of health he may be, to grant it to your servant, Name, that, fortified with the arms of justice, he may resist the devil and reach the eternal kingdom […].] ← 19 | 20 →

The Latin supplication uses a number of antonomasia, i.e. stand-alone phrases in which both a noun and an epithet appear; it also involves apostrophes and multiple requests. The antonomasias are phrases that can function on their own and enrich the meaning of a line but are not an integral part of it. The creation of the text was clearly influenced by litanies and the impression is strengthened by the language of this part of Lacnunga. Another text within the collection, CLXXIII, contains similar instances of antonomasia. “Deo celi” (“To the God in heaven”) is followed by the antonomasia “regi regum” (“the king of kings”) and the epithets “pium dignu(m) ueru(m) su(m)mu(m) adque optimu(m)” (“holy, worthy, highest and best” — said three times)59. Indeed, the ending of this excerpt is the most litanic in form:

S(an)c(t)e Rehhoc & S(an)c(t)e Rehwalde & S(an)c(t)e Cassiane& S(an)c(t)e Germane & S(an)c(t)e Sigismundi regis gescyldað mw wið ða laþan poccas 7 wiðealle yfelu. Am(en)60

[Saint Rehhoc and Saint Rehwald and Saint Cassian and Saint Germanus and Saint Sigismund the king, shield me against loathsome pocks and against all evils. Amen]

The supplication, along with the litanic enumeration, begins in Latin, but finishes in Old English, as if the Latin names of the saints were directly taken from a litany. It is, therefore, not surprising that Willy L. Braekman stated that “in the Lacnunga charms a certain amount of Christian influence was at work.”61 The litanic list in this last excerpt confirms Talbot’s intuition that the charms were derived from many sources, “Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Celtic, and Teutonic.”62 Thus, even though the charms were “originally conceived and finally preserved in writing as medical documents,”63 they were much influenced by Christian liturgy, with litany an indispensable part.

A Journey Charm, which was preserved in the margins of an eleventh-century copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, was written “by a hand other than the two of the Bede text” and can be read as containing reverberations of litanic verse.64 It contains the following litanic list:

Details

Pages
267
Year
2016
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631694459
ISBN (PDF)
9783653057492
ISBN (MOBI)
9783631694466
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631663493
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-05749-2
Language
English
Publication date
2016 (November)
Keywords
European poetry Germanic languages Protestantism
Published
Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2016. 267 pp.

Biographical notes

Witold Sadowski (Volume editor) Magdalena Kowalska (Volume editor) Magdalena Maria Kubas (Volume editor)

Witold Sadowski heads the Section for the Poetics of Verse at the University of Warsaw. He specialises in the theory of verse and the history of literary genres. Magdalena Kowalska obtained her Ph.D. from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. She specialises in the history of the romantic period and Polish-French literary relations. Magdalena Maria Kubas obtained her Ph.D. from the University for Foreigners of Siena. She specialises in the twentieth-century Italian literature and the relations between poetry and music.

Previous

Title: Litanic Verse II
book preview page numper 1
book preview page numper 2
book preview page numper 3
book preview page numper 4
book preview page numper 5
book preview page numper 6
book preview page numper 7
book preview page numper 8
book preview page numper 9
book preview page numper 10
book preview page numper 11
book preview page numper 12
book preview page numper 13
book preview page numper 14
book preview page numper 15
book preview page numper 16
book preview page numper 17
book preview page numper 18
book preview page numper 19
book preview page numper 20
book preview page numper 21
book preview page numper 22
book preview page numper 23
book preview page numper 24
book preview page numper 25
book preview page numper 26
book preview page numper 27
book preview page numper 28
book preview page numper 29
book preview page numper 30
book preview page numper 31
book preview page numper 32
book preview page numper 33
book preview page numper 34
book preview page numper 35
book preview page numper 36
book preview page numper 37
book preview page numper 38
book preview page numper 39
book preview page numper 40
269 pages