CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Orbán, Áron |
|---|---|
| Title | Born for Phoebus. Solar-astral Symbolism and Poetical Self-representation in Conrad Celtis and his Humanist Circles |
| Summary | Fifteenth-sixteenth-century Germany – and Renaissance Europe in general − witnessed a growing interest in natural philosophy (including occult disciplines), the laws of nature, and the correspondences between micro- and macrocosm. On the other hand, the enhanced self-consciousness or even pride of the Renaissance author compared to that of the earlier medieval one is a long established commonplace; indeed, humanist poets were inclined, in varying degrees, to self-fashioning, self-mythologizing. My interdisciplinary study focuses on the junction of these two basic habits of mind of German humanists around 1500. I reveal solar and astral (mainly astrological) symbolism in Neo-Latin poetical works and visual artworks of this period, and investigate how this cosmic symbolism was used for self-representative purposes. Among the German humanists I focus on Conrad Celtis (1459-1508), the “„ ;arch-humanist& #x201d; of Germany, the first poet laureate of his nation, the "bringer of the muses" to the German land. Celtis's personality, poetic talent, ambition, scientific-philosophical interests, his assumed role − all this resulted in various interesting ways of "cosmic" self-representation; I argue that this is a core area of his whole poetical oeuvre. In the investigated period of German humanism (c. 1485-1510), some other poets who were friends of Celtis also employed astronomical, astrological, cosmological imagery in the construction of their (or the group's) humanist identities, in various ways, to various extent: Jakob Locher, Laurentius Corvinus (Rabe), Johannes Tolhopf, Augustinus Moravus; I involve in my research representative works of these authors, too. The first chapter reviews the poetological background of the enhanced vates-ideology of the German humanists: the humanist revaluation of poetry in the Renaissance and the “„defense of poetry” tradition. The second chapter overviews Celtis’s ideas about astronomy-astrology, micro- and macrocosm in general. Chapters 3-6 explore Celtis’s and his firends’ strategies of “„cosmic” self-representation through analyses of specific works. Humanists could support their vates-role by means of their (idealized) birth horoscope or the horoscope of laureation (ch. 3-4); or they could develop a complex Phoebean symbolism based on Phoebus, the solar god who supports the poet in various ways (ch. 5). Humanist group-identity could be strengthened through a Phoebean-Bacchic symbolism and the mythologizing of humanist feasts (ch. 6). |
| Supervisor | Szőnyi, György Endre |
| Department | Medieval Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/orban_aron.pdf |
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