Sigmund von Birken, der Literaturbetrieb, Netzwerke und Werkpolitik

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-56
Author(s):  
Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
On Demand ◽  
Pastoral Poetry ◽  
Multi Media ◽  
High Standards ◽  
Manuscript Collections

AbstractSigmund von Birken belongs to the »Trio of poets from Nürnberg«, together with Georg Philipp Harsdörffer and Johann Klaj whose posthumous fame is mainly due to their pastoral poetry with fullsounding verses in praise of peace and love. Birken started his career with an enormous upshot as organizer of multi-media spectacles during the peace ceremony in Nürnberg in 1650. Apart from his hymns and pastoral love poems, Birken’s poetry does not belong to the canon of early modern literature in Germany. If he had lived longer, he would probably have edited later all those poems which he had written on demand for special occasions and immediately published as separate brochures or leaflets in at least four huge volumes. He would have properly arranged love poems, odes in praise of friendship, poems dedicated to noblemen and civilians, hymns and secular songs, starting like his famous predecessors with his Latin verses. This ambitious publication project is outlined in his manuscript collections, but was not realized during Birken’s lifetime. To correct for this oversight, the commented edition of Birken’s complete poetic manuscripts, which was recently finished by Hartmut Laufhütte, gives a broad impression of his talents as a playful virtuoso in all kinds of genres, teacher of poetry, advisor, ›ghostwriter‹ and promotor of young poets, male and female alike. His diaries and correspondence account for his enormous productivity and versatility, thus enabling modern readers to watch him during the creative procedure more closely than any other German poet of his time. The edition of Birken’s manuscripts is on the same scale as a few other recently completed long term editions of early modern German ego-documents and poetry and sets high standards for further editions.

Vizcaínos

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Gil-Osle
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Target Group ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Modern Period

What a Vizcaíno is in the literature of the 16th and 17th centuries has always been a puzzle due to the different uses given to the word. The connotation of the term Vizcaíno can go from an insult similar to "thief," "traitor," even "Portuguese," to, in other cases, "stupid," "gregarious," or simply different. In other words, the Vizcaíno is a paradigmatic Other, which seems to have become an insider Other (nothing could be more enervating for some in Spain, or more nostalgic for others than the "insiderness" of this quintessential Other). And unfortunately, in this case, otherness has been the companion of both hate and nostalgia, which seem to be extreme emotional expressions that justify numerous slanders, acts of violence, and overcompensations. "The Vizcaíno effect" has become a systemic mark in the understanding of Spanish and Basque identities in the long process of nation building, probably based on the long term construction of misperceptions, miscommunications, and opportunistic manipulations of all sorts. These misperceptions are not far away from hate speech. Many times comments about Basques pass by as humoristic in our readings of the early modern literature, but perhaps it is pertinent to locate them as a part of the so-called "Triangular Hate Scale" (Sternberg, The Nature 217). First comes the verbal negation of intimacy with the target group, later passions are verbalized; finally there is a commitment to act and propagate the sentiment of hate (Sternberg, The Nature 217). In this article, I aim to make a reflexion about the expression of hate surrounding the basque speaker in the early modern period.

The Undoing of a Man: Cuckoldry in Heywood's Edward IV

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-267
Author(s):  
Jonathan Wright
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Social Construct

Manhood was a complex social construct in early modern England. Males could not simply mature or grow from boys to men. Instead, they had to assert or prove they were men in multiple ways, such as growing a beard, behaving courageously in battle, exercising self-control in walking, talking, weeping, eating, and drinking, pursuing manly interests, exhibiting manly behaviors, avoiding interests or behaviors typically ascribed to women, marrying a woman and providing for her physical, sexual, and spiritual needs, and living and dying as a faithful Christian. Once a male became a “man” in the eyes of others, his efforts shifted from “making” himself manly to maintaining or defending his reputation as a “true man.” All men could undermine their manhood through their own actions or inactions, but the married man could also lose his reputation through his wife's infidelity. Numerous literary husbands in early modern literature live anxiously with the knowledge they might suffer a cuckold's humiliation and shame. Matthew Shore, who “treasures” his wife to a fault in Thomas Heywood's two-part play Edward IV, is an exceptional example of such a husband. This critical reading of Edward IV explores the complexity of manhood in Heywood's day by showing various males trying to assert or defend their manhood; explaining why husbands had reasons to fear cuckoldry; analyzing how Jane Shore's infidelity affects her husband; following Matthew Shore's journey from trusting husband to distrusting, bitter cuckold, to forgiving husband; and examining his seemingly inexplicable death at the end of the play.

St Paul's Cathedral Precinct in Early Modern Literature and Culture

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roze Hentschell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Performance Space ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Discrete Spaces

St Paul’s Cathedral Precinct in Early Modern Literature and Culture: Spatial Practices is a study of London’s cathedral, its immediate surroundings, and its everyday users in early modern literary and historical documents and images, with a special emphasis on the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Hentschell discusses representations of several of the seemingly discrete spaces of the precinct to reveal how these spaces overlap with and inform one another spatially. She argues that specific locations—including the Paul’s nave (also known as Paul’s Walk), Paul’s Cross pulpit, the bookshops of Paul’s Churchyard, the College of the Minor Canons, Paul’s School, the performance space for the Children of Paul’s, and the fabric of the cathedral itself—should be seen as mutually constitutive and in a dynamic, ever-evolving state. To support this argument, she attends closely to the varied uses of the precinct, including the embodied spatial practices of early modern Londoners and visitors, who moved through the precinct, paused to visit its sacred and secular spaces, and/or resided there. This includes the walkers in the nave, sermon-goers, those who shopped for books, the residents of the precinct, the choristers—who were also schoolboys and actors—and those who were devoted to church repairs and renovations. By attending to the interactions between place and people and to the multiple stories these interactions tell—Hentschell attempts to animate St Paul’s and deepen our understanding of the cathedral and precinct in the early modern period.

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