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Friedrich Spee's “Arcadia” Revisited

1974; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 89; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/461370

1938-1530

Frederick M. Rener,

Literary historians and critics from the nineteenth century to the present have attributed Friedrich Spee's descriptions of nature to his personal experience. Except for a few instances of biblical influence, these passages are variations of the topos locus amoenus with many of its less common classical features: the park-orchard-garden varieties of landscape, typical epithets, and catalogs of trees and plants. In the Trutznachtigall , the section with the largest pattern of the topos are the laudes , commonly considered to be derivations of the Psalms, while the eclogues (“Arcadia”), a genre traditionally associated with the topos, has only a few samples of it. Rather than being a rigid formula the topos becomes an elastic pattern whose size and components Spee tailors to the individual poem, providing at the same time a distinct diction and a variety of formulations. This may be one reason why Spee, who is in every respect a poeta doctus , has been mistaken for a Pre-Romantic poet.