Macaronic Literature

L’ouvrage de Cervantes, L’Ingénieux hidalgo don Quichotte de la Manche, se présente comme une traduction fictive, la supposée traduction d’un manuscrit arabe, réalisée par un traducteur morisque, et s’inscrit ainsi dans la longue tradition des pseudo-traductions si fréquentes dans les livres de chevalerie où le prologue bien souvent présente le récit à suivre comme ayant été traduit du grec, ou du latin, de l’arabe, de l’allemand, etc….
La pseudo-traduction suppose l’existence d’un autre texte, non édité, qui précèderait celui que le lecteur tient entre ses mains, un livre fantôme dont le lecteur ne peut qu’imaginer la beauté et la richesse, à partir de leur supposée transcription. L’ouvrage présenté comme une traduction est toujours sujet à caution, et fait du lecteur un être soupçonneux. Ou un être qui va se sentir libre de poursuivre la manipulation à laquelle a déjà été soumise le texte : c’est ainsi que le Don Quichotte n’a pas seulement été traduit en anglais, français, italien, etc… mais a également été traduit et édité en des langues parfois peu reconnues ou acceptées, notamment en latin macaronique, ou, plus récemment, en spanglish deux exemples intéressants de lectures et recréations particulières ayant débouché sur des éditions peu conventionnelles.

The main purpose of this article is re-open the question of middle-age Latin translation of Master John Hus's Оld Czech Cycle of sunday sermons. This translation can be found in two manuscripts located in Moravian Library in Brno. Origin of these manuscripts is from 15th century. This is evidence of the translation from Czech into Latin.

discusses the circumstances of composition, contents, language, style and criticism of the text (as a macaronic work of Arabic and Persian and as a prosimetric work of prose and verse, as a supposed manual of moral advice), its influence in Iran, Anatolia and South Asia (as well as in Europe).  It also covers the transmission history of the Persian text in manuscript, the printed and lithographed editions. Critical editions.    With extensive bibliography

If we in the English-speaking world today are conscious of how much in the life of the mind depends on translation, we owe this realization in large part to George Steiner. His inspiring 1975 book, After Babel, did in less technical, more vivid, more affecting language, grappling with the thorny insights of Kafka and Benjamin, what scholars such as André Lefevere or Itamar Even-Zohar had been doing for some years already, but addressing themselves only to the more restricted public of those professionally interested in linguistics or literary theory. Steiner insisted that translation is a creative and consequential activity, no mere service function to be performed by anonymous menials, much less computers. And by raising translation to a new prominence, Steiner contributed to making it available for broad metaphorical use. Translation is one of the favorite metaphors of our time. People ask how a slogan is to translate into reality, or how to translate Islamic morals into liberal-democratic form; my university boasts an Institute of Translational Medicine, the task of which is to speed up the practical application of biological discoveries. Such operations have little to do with translating among languages. The use of the word 'translate' here is more of an unsecured promise that these mediations will occur in the same way and with the same regularity that interlinguistic translation does.

L’invention d’une langue et d’une littérature macaroniques en Italie s’épanouit comme une forme plaisante et académique de raillerie de l’épique qui produit en 1517 un chef-d’œuvre, le poème héroïque-comique Baldus, composé par le moine bénédictin Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544). Étant donné qu'à partir de la deuxième édition de 1521, la présence du religieux dans le poème devient de plus en plus importante, on analysera dans ce chapitre des passages principalement de l’édition de 1552, soulignant des passages où la religion occupe une place centrale dans le fil de l’action.

i rivolgimenti sociali e linguistici seguiti al Sacco di roma del 1527, che portarono alla progressiva sprovincializzazione e scomparsa del cosiddetto 'romanesco di prima fase' favorirono, nella produzione letteraria, una "latitanza" del dialetto nei testi post-cinquecenteschi (trifone 56). Seguendo un percorso che va dall'iscrizione di San clemente fino ai sonetti del Belli, il romanesco era, per usare una formula dello stesso poeta, la "lingua abbietta e buffona" che nel migliore dei casi aveva la funzione di creare un effetto bizzarro e divertente nei personaggi che se ne servivano (trifone 59). nel teatro romano del Seicento, dunque, il dialetto è appannaggio dei servitori o dei "bulli," come la fortunata maschera di iacaccia, portata in scena da Giovan Battista Pianelli nei Falsi mori (1638) e riproposta da Giovanni camillo Peresio nel poema eroicomico Il Maggio romanesco (teodonio 24; 65-71; trifone 58), mentre in generale la consistenza linguistica delle commedie rimane sostanzialmente caratterizzata da un "ermafroditismo" linguistico romanesco -toscano (62).

La imagen de cubierta corresponde al frontispicio de un panfleto redactado por Johannes Cochlaeus: “Las siete cabezas de Martín Lutero”. Editado en latín y alemán en 1529, en Leipzig, Sieben Kopffe Martini Luthers o Luther septiceps intentaba contrarrestar las consecuencias de la polémica iniciada por Lutero en 1517. Una Reforma que comportaría la destrucción de un mundo.

Este monstruo, que sugería asociar a Lutero con la bestia del apocalipsis, resume cómica y severamente el conjunto de objetivos que aborda este libro: entrever las raíces del movimiento reformado como reacción a una teología escolástica, a una eclesiología gregoriana y a prácticas monacales, evangélicas y rituales específicas; debatir sobre el hecho moderno de la implosión del cristianismo, sobre la inimaginable conversión de herejías en Iglesias y sobre la posible influencia de los idearios radicales tanto teológicos como políticos en nuestra cultura actual; atender a la expansión de la prédica protestante y católica −oral, escrita e iconográfica− hacia áreas geográficas cada vez más amplias, a la relación de las nacientes confesiones entre sí y a las diversas lecturas que hacían de las creencias ajenas, las conocidas y aquellas por conocer.

Las cabezas recuerdan también uno de los rasgos más salientes de la Reforma: la violencia. Brutal, marcial y −en ocasiones− hasta preternatural, se expresó también mediante tratados, imágenes, revueltas y legislaciones, signos de una suspensión gravitatoria de la palabra revelada.

Mediante la reflexión de destacados especialistas, esta obra pretende mostrar
la Reforma como un movimiento policefálico, bajo una luz más receptiva
que aquella que iluminó el encarnizamiento brutal de Cochlaeus y los suyos: ajenos a sus odios y preocupaciones, lejos de la contingencia, estamos todavía hoy, a 500 años de la puerta de Wittenberg, viviendo sus consecuencias.

As a phenomenon that involves using one or more languages other than your primary in literature, literary translingualism is ubiquitous in almost all cultures and at all times. Traces of the earliest Persian literary translingual practices are explored since the dawn of the earliest Persian empires. Translingual scribes and translators were useful tools for ancient Persian kings in commemoration and administration. Arabo-Persian language contact following the Arab conquest of Persia has had long-standing impact upon Persian literature. Literary bi/trilingualism is also evident in literature by Urdu-speaking poets of the Indian subcontinent. Translingual practices of the Persian-speaking diaspora writers such as Satrapi, Baraheni, Hosseini, and Rahimi are also investigated.

Riassunto • L'intervento intende indagare le implicazioni tematico-narrative dovute alla natura agonistica delle prime edizioni del Baldus di Teofilo Folengo. A partire dalla peculiare delegittimazione dell'astrologia e dell'alchimia all'interno del poema, oggetto d'analisi è il complesso gioco di responsabilità autoriali orchestrato da Folengo soprattutto nella seconda edizione dell'opera. L'intervento dimostra, inoltre, la natura parodica della lectio astrologica del Baldus in relazione all'Urania di Pontano, e le ragioni militanti di questa parodia.

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: The present paper aims to situate Macaronic Latin, a peculiar type of linguistic mixture that was used in literary works in early modern Europe, within the context of phenomena such as code-switching and borrowing, as well as mixed and constructed languages. The main objective is to see whether and how it can be compared to various instances of linguistic structures originating from more than one source language. Design/Methodology/Approach: After a description of its historical background and sociolinguistic features, main linguistic traits of Macaronic Latin are sketched and, compared to other language contact phenomena, with particular reference to the fusion hypothesis. Data and Analysis: The main data for the analysis are sixty samples from macaronic works belonging to eleven language pairs. The analysis shows that mixed words in Macaronic Latin have properties of both borrowings and loans, being very similar to nonce formations. When compared to mixed and constructed languages, Macaronic Latin shows peculiarities that set it apart from either group. Findings/Conclusions: Although individual structural aspects of Macaronic Latin align its individual aspects with various outcomes of linguistic contact, the sociolinguistic pattern of its creation and later development make it a rather untypical case of linguistic mixing. Originality: Latin served as the main language of learned communication in medieval and early modern Europe; yet, this paper is the first study devoted to putting it in the context of mixed language debate. Significance/Implications: The study suggests that the preservation of the widespread use of a language with no native speakers requires sociolinguistic forces so strong so as to override many trends of what has been established as regular linguistic development. This implies that in investigating such cases we might need a modified research methodology and an extended terminology.

According to the Hasidic oral tradition, some of its multi-language songs based on the Slavic languages originated in the Cantonist milieu. Taking into account disruptions in the Hasidic tradition, scarcity of existing research, and paucity of written testimonies, we propose to examine the whole complex of linguistic, thematic, poetic and musical parameters in order to identify Cantonist songs in the Hasidic repertoire. The research allows us to determine the corpus of Cantonist songs and to outline the main features of the typical Cantonist song. The paper explores Hasidic doctrinal concepts and ideological motives, explaining their interest in these songs despite the foreignness of their language and the social-cultural distance from the Cantonists: the “uplifting of holy sparks” in language and melody, and also the Cantonists’ image as martyrs in the eyes of Hasidic leaders.

RESUMEN Este artículo contiene una descripción de la Metrificatio invectivalis de Tomás de Iriarte (1786) y un estudio de las fuentes literarias de este poema macarrónico. ABSTRACT This article contains a description of the Metrificatio invectivalis de Tomás de Iriarte (1786), and a study of the literary sources of this macaronic poem. KEY WORDS: Tomás de Iriarte. Macaronic poetry. Enlightement. 1. PECULIARIDADES DE LA POESÍA MACARRÓNICA DE IRIARTE La Metrificatio invectivalis contra studia modernorum de Tomás de Iriarte, desde el punto de vista temático, se presenta como una sátira contra los represen-tantes del aristotelismo tomista, dogmático y contumaz, que dominaba las univer-sidades españolas desde época medieval, y es adalid, por tanto, de una visión del mundo, la ilustrada, que reacciona críticamente contra los aspectos «irracionales» del longevo Barroco. En el siglo XVIII español se enfrentan, de hecho, dos con-glomerados ideológicos-a veces dentro del mismo individuo-, el de la España postridentina y el de las Luces, que deberá recurrir en muchos ocasiones a los sibilinos recursos del humor para ejercer el criticismo (que es como su esencia) sobre su oponente, dado el enorme poder coercitivo socio-político que éste poseía. La Metrificatio es un claro ejemplo de este tipo de estrategia. No es ocioso, en verdad, el hecho de que apareciera por primera vez en una publicación perió-dica, que era el vehículo que empleaban los ilustrados hispanos para exponer su ideas al tener cerradas las puertas de las universidades, convertidas como estaban en terruño escolástico. Son también estos fines satíricos los que llevan a su autor a aprovechar cier-tos elementos de la estructura literaria de las macarroneas folenguianas, con vistas, sobre todo, a la elucidación de la parodia del latinus grossus empleado por los teólo-gos escolásticos.

Premessa. Cap. I. Lo storico e il profeta. L’età di Savonarola nella visione di Guicciardini (1. Dal dubbio al silenzio. 2. De futuris contingentibus ». 3. «Pertinacia» e «ostinazione»).
Cap. II. Un’orazione per i posteri. Della Casa e Carlo V (1. Le due ragioni ». 2. Dopo Lorenzino. 3. «Questa pestilenziosa vipera»).
Cap. III. La tradizione del macaronico nell’età della Riforma. Dagli “erasmiani” a Rabelais (attraverso Folengo) (1. Il Chorus porcorum ». 2. Le Epistolae obscurorum virorum. 3. Gli umanisti e i pedanti. 4. Gargantua e le campane di Notre-Dame. 5. Prima e dopo Folengo. 6. Epilogo).
Cap. IV. La Vergine e il «rio furore». Ferrante Carafa e l’epopea di Lepanto (1. Nel segno dell’imperatore. 2. Sonetti epici. 3. «Maria, madre della Vittoria»).
Cap. V. ‘Contro gli astrologi’. Il trattato di Savonarola attraverso il commento di Tommaso Buoninsegni (1. Prologo. 2. Buoninsegni lettore di Savonarola. 3. Gli astri inclinano. 4. Il senso della battaglia).
Cap. VI. Le rime di Tasso per Matteo di Capua (1. Il manoscritto Barberiniano. 2. Rime della Terza Parte. 3. Tra Apollo e Marte. 4. L’«alta fortuna» alla «virtù congiunta»).
Cap. VII. L’ultima frontiera. La crisi dell’Occidente cristiano nella ‘Malteide’ di Giovanni Fratta (1. Una «vanteria frodolenta». 2. L’assedio assente. 3. Ottavio bifronte. 4. Belsole. 5. Indietro tutta).
VIII. Appendice. L’immagine “generativa” nel Quaresimale di Giacomo Lubrano (1. Il Quaresimale sulla scena. 2. Una mappa. 3. Il cannocchiale di loto. 4. La zecca del diavolo). Indice dei nomi.

An edition of two Old Norse stanzas preserved in a C14th Icelandic learned miscellany (AM 732 b 4°): the first a scurrilous verse ridiculing the rejection of a failed suitor, written in a simple code; the second an ironic stanza apparently offering overblown praise to a leatherworker with a series of Latin honorific terms, some of which may have been culled from the Horatian Ode 'Iam satis terris nivis atque dirae'

We propose a comparative analysis of basic verb morphology in macaronic Latin, a peculiar family of artistic idioms that were used as a literary device in various parts of Europe starting in the Italian Renaissance and lasting until the present time. In macaronic Latin, a significant portion of the vocabulary is hybrid, generated by attaching Latin endings to lexical bases from several modern languages. In the present study we observe the frequencies of individual verb conjugations in a corpus of macaronic works and in a selection of ancient Latin texts. The results suggest a twofold conclusion. Firstly, the pattern of verb conjugation selection in hybrid verbs differs significantly from that in Latin verbs ; secondly, among the hybrid verbs, the selection preferences are affected by the morphonological properties of the language involved in combining with Latin.

Šime Demo Macaronic Latin is a peculiar style within Neo-Latin literature that has an unusually large number of hybrid words, wherein the endings are Latin and the stems come from another language. 1 Typical macaronic verses look like the following:

In this article I try to ascertain the aesthetic basis of poetic selection in an unusual chapter in Ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī's 9th-century anthology entitled Kitāb al-Zahra (The Book of the Flower) titled “poetry that is found elegant for going beyond the known limits” (ذكر الشعر الذي يستظرف لخروجه عن حد ما يعرف). The examples Ibn Dāwūd includes in this chapter consist poetic eccentricities such as palindromes, verses that intentionally employ dotted or undotted letters and connected or disconnected letters, pattern poetry, acrostics, cryptograms, poetry that incorporates gestures, prose poetry, and bilingual macaronic poetry.  I argue that the selections reflect an aesthetic of “intermediality” (mixing of media), giving us a glimpse into the “avant-garde” of the period.

Mantsjoes hebben meer dan 250 jaar geheerst over een
reusachtig rijk dat een groot deel van Azië besloeg, waaronder het
huidige China. In hun taal, die aan Mongools en Turks verwant is,
schreven ze miljoenen teksten die na hun ondergang in 1912 in de
doofpot zijn beland. Nu moderne Mantsjoes hun eigen taal en
traditie nieuw leven inblazen, probeert Mantsjoes toen en nu in
gedichten en gebeden aan de hand van originele teksten licht te
werpen op deze rijke cultuur.

"In nog geen honderd pagina’s slaagt Fresco Sam-Sin erin een
overzicht te geven van een complete literaire traditie uit een voor
westerlingen totaal onbekend taalgebied."
Piet Gerbrandy – dichter, classicus, poëziecriticus en essayist

"Een parel, klein en kostbaar. Fresco Sam-Sin vertaalt er lustig op
los, van sjamanenlied en keizerlijk gedicht naar moderne
Mantsjoe poëzie."
Remco Breuker – hoogleraar koreanistiek

"Als het weer eens vriest en iedereen Elfstedenjeuk krijgt, denk ik
niet meer alleen aan Friesland, maar ook aan de Mantsjoes en hoe
zij op hun grote ijzers stonden…of op hun plaat gingen. Dat heb ik
te danken aan die prachtige soepele en speelse vertalingen van
Fresco Sam-Sin."
Tsead Bruinja – dichter

The study analyzes the literary opus of dr. Joža Lovrenčič (1890–1952), a Slovenian poet, writer, translator, and classicist. Pointing out several details in his curriculum vitae, it deals primarily with his affinity for Graeco-Roman antiquity. A case in point is one of his early works, a story entitled Between Scylla and Charybdis, as well as his epic poem The Scholar from Trenta (1939). The Scholar from Trenta, in particular, employs a series of allusions as well as quotations from classical antiquity. It often blends Slovenian with Latin, sometimes changing the idiom completely. The literary style in these passages can be best described as macaronic Latin.

The article examines the problem of secondarity in a text considered secondary within the Nervalian corpus - his first of prose fiction, published in 1832 under the title "« La Main de Gloire, histoire macaronique ». One of two works bearing the imprint of the ephemeral camaraderie of the bousingo, this tale, dominated by the negation and autoparody characteristic of "disenchanted" writing, suggests a young Nerval struggling with the concerns of his generation.

L'article se penche sur la problématique de la secondarité dans une oeuvre considérée comme secondaire dans le corpus nervalien-son premier récit en prose, paru en 1832 sous le titre de « La Main de Gloire, histoire macaronique ». Trace de l'éphémère camaraderie du bousingo, ce conte, où dominent l'autoparodie et la dénégation caractéristiques de  « l'école du désenchantement » dont il est contemporain, laisse deviner un jeune Nerval aux prises avec les préoccupations de sa génération.

Gli ultimi cinque libri del Baldus di Teofilo Folengo sono incentrati sulla catabasi infernale dell’antieroe eponimo, Baldo, e dei suoi compagni: l’impresa del gruppo di ‘eroici furfanti’, finalizzata a debellare le forze diaboliche, è scandita dal cromatismo più acceso dell’ars macaronica, giocata sulla risemantizzazione di immagini e stilemi attinti da tradizioni diverse.
La struttura degli Inferi si rivela bipartita: prima di accedere all’Inferno della tradizione, i personaggi attraversano i Regni delle ‘streghe’, divinità ctonie pagane difese da personaggi minacciosi, sistematicamente demistificati dal riso beffardo maccheronico. Quando predomina l’oscurità, si acuiscono le percezioni uditive e tattili in corrispondenza delle cacofoniche manifestazioni diaboliche che ostacolano la catabasi; luminose epifanie e suoni dolci, invece, orientano il cammino attraverso questi luoghi in cui risalta l’opposizione tra forma mutabile ed essenza stabile.
La figura di Caronte introduce il gruppo nell’oltretomba classico, di cui risulta evidente la matrice virgiliano-dantesca, dal tipico locus horridus all’immagine della turba delle anime. I protagonisti sperimentano i diversi effetti della follia sugli uomini: nella Domus Phantasiae (nell’allusione ambivalente all’irrazionalità e alla creatività) l’affastellamento di pensieri nella mente determina l’alienazione e la perdita delle facoltà razionali, rappresentando la critica folenghiana all’inadeguatezza della cultura ufficiale rispetto alle istanze sociali; al seguito di un matto danzante, nella Zucca poetarum viene svelata la natura fittizia della letteratura e, sulla scorta di un probabile modello lucianeo, una reiterata estrazione di denti si configura come il contrappasso atto a punire i poeti bugiardi, incluso lo stesso Folengo.

Looks at the linguistic "taboo-breaking" of Engonopoulos's early poetry, specifically his mixing of high (Katharevousa), standard (Dimotiki) and argot in a manner guaranteed to annoy linguistic purists of any  stripe.  Draws a parallel with the "macaronic" style of Vladimir Nabokov's English.

Wie das „Heltauer Marienlied“ erhielt das „Mediascher Predigtbuch“ seinen Namen nach dem Ort, wo er im 19. Jahrhundert aufgefunden wurde. Anders als das Marienlied, dessen Abschrift von Heltau seit 1916 als verloren gilt , wird das Predigtbuch auch heute noch an seinem Entdeckungsort aufbewahrt. Auf die Sammlung bin ich im Zuge eines vor einigen Jahren anvisierten Forschungsprojektes aufmerksam geworden, das sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, die Geschichte der siebenbürgisch-sächsischen Literatur des Mittelalters auf der Grundlage der noch vorhandenen handschriftlichen Überlieferung in Form von Fallstudien zu beschreiben . Die dabei erarbeiteten Ausführungen hätten im Artikel „Weißkirch (Albeşti, Fehéregyháza, Alba ecclesia)“ des Ungarn und Rumänien betreffenden Bandes des „Lexikons der regionalen Literaturgeschichte des Mittelalters“ erscheinen sollen , konnten jedoch wegen der Beschränkung des Nachschlagewerkes auf die Zeit vor 1526 nicht berücksichtigt werden. Sie liegen der Miszelle zugrunde.