Funeraire poëzie in de Nederlandse Renaissance

Enkele funeraire gedichten van Heinsius, Hooft, Huygens en Vondel bezien tegen de achtergrond van de theorie betreffende het genre

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summary

Part one

The Renaissance conception of poetry as idealizing imitatio cannot be separated from the Aristotelian point of view ascribing to the poet the function of rendering things as they ought to be. The rendering οἷα εἶναι δεῖ by far surpasses ‘imitation’ in the sense of copying reality: the artist does not make a copy of reality; rather, he presents an ideal representation of human life. Starting from this Aristotelian notion of art imitating nature as it potentially is, the poets finally arrived (with the help of neo-platonic ideas) at a radicalization of that notion, that is, at the idea of a free and new creation, while endowing the poet with a divine, creative power.

Despite the significant role which poetry thus could play, it remained one of the arts which ‘could be learned’ (provided a certain native ability was present), belonging to those artes whose medium is language: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric (the trivium). These are the arts which had the same didactic goal, viz., to teach man to speak correctly and act justly. The poet is first of all the one who points the way to attaining the highest virtue and he does so by means of making the events more striking than they are in reality and by leaving aside the particular for the sake of emphasizing the general, the ‘stereotype’. Clearly, the poet has a pedagogical task, which at the same time serves as a basis for the humanist defence of poetry against those who, appealing to Plato, not only expose the poets as liars but also claim that they exert a corrupting influence on moral life. The poet thus serves the public and he shall have to work in such ways as to make his poetry ethically most valuable. In this way, that is, by directing his work towards the public, the poet of the Renaissance accepts a tradition

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which had existed since classical antiquity. For poetry had of old been closely related to the ars oratoria (wholly directed towards the public) and can be considered an integral part of it. Accordingly, one notices time and again that during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the boundary lines between the two artes of rhetoric and poetry become blurred, and that Cicero, Quintilian and the Aristotle of the Rhetoric appear as authorities in poeticis. Although there are considerable differences between the art of the orator and the art of the poet, a strong affinity between the two is nevertheless discernable and the artes poeticae repeatedly serve as evidence of its existence.

Since the time of the Roman Empire rhetoric had been concerned with the right choice of the ideas and the correct way of formulating them and, consequently, one notes that throughout the ages poets demonstrated an awareness of affinity with orators. This holds good for the periods of Christian Antiquity and the Middle Ages as much as for the time of the Rederijkers and the Renaissance. A book like De poeta by Minturno, the prominent sixteenth century theoretician of poetry, presupposes a knowledge of rhetoric on the part of the reader. The instructions, for instance, given with regard to the structure of the principium and the narratio, the two partes which he distinguishes in the poem, are fully in accordance with the ideas on the principium and the narratio as the two first parts of the oration, as they are taught by the classical rhetoricians and especially by Quintilian. It is necessary, however, to keep in mind that neither in Antiquity nor in later times has rhetoric been fitted into a definitely established system, so that with respect to various points there remains a great deal of differentiation. During the period of the Renaissance things become even more complicated as the inventio¹ is brought under the head of dialectic. In rhetoric the ‘finding’ of the subject matter (inventio) is considered a technique developed of old according to a method derived from dialectic: with the help of an extensive collection of loci one can unearth the necessary argumenta (subject matter, particularly the material for the evidence advanced in the orations of jurists). Now, in the second half of the seventeenth century dialectic underwent a considerable change; a strictly systematic way of thinking was developed and this, at the same time, meant a systematization of the inventio of the rhetorical tradition.

1 Inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronunciatio are the five parts which constitute the ars rhetorica.

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Most significant at present, however, is the fact that from Antiquity on rhetoric and the theory of poetry are inseparable. Whatever differences there might be between poet and orator, the poet time and again has to deal, whether briefly or extensively, with rhetoric. The art of rhetoric had to be mastered by the poet as well as by the orator.

Also for the ‘funerary poetry’ there exist rules with respect to the structural build-up of the poem. Scaliger in the third book of his Poetices libri septem (1561), Thomas Corraea in his De toto eo poematis genere quod epigramma vulgo dicitur ... libellus (1569) and Jacobus Pontanus in the third book of his Poeticarum instutionum libri iii (1594) - they all discuss the funerary poem, indicating its subject matter of which three main parts can be distinguished. These parts are laus (laudation), luctus (lamentation) and consolatio (consolation). This structure appears to be wholly determined by the centuries-old practice of the funeral oration which is divided in the same manner. The funeral oration with its laudatory remembrance of the deceased makes it possible to classify it under the bonestum and this carries it into the province of the genus demonstrativa (the genre of the ceremonial oration). The genus demonstrativa, the genus iudiciale (to which belong the orations held in court) and the genus deliberativum (to which the political oration belongs) together constitute the three genera dicendi of the ars rhetorica.

In addition the classical funerary poetry should be taken into account; theoreticians of the Renaissance have used it as a norm when drawing up rules and giving advice concerning the writing of this type of poetry. Famous specimens of funerary poetry, like Virgil's fifth Ecloga, the Cornelia elegy by Propertius, Ovid's poem on the occasion of the death of Tibullus, the Consolatio ad Liviam, and the funerary poems of Statius were generally known among humanists. Their familiarity with the structural elements laus, luctus and consolatio was to a great extent due to the fact that they were acquainted with these famous poems.

Part two

With this as a background study has been made of a small number of funerary poems written by important seventeenth century poets like Heinsius, Hooft, Huygens and Vondel. The basic structural pattern appears to be followed with a great measure of flexibility; the division laus, luctus, consolatio is adjusted to the way the poet wishes

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the particular poem to function. The poets apply variations according to the manner in which they desire to present their subject matter. At one time the poem may have as its major element the laus, at other times the luctus or the consolatio. Vondel's Over het verongelucken van den jongen keurvorst, for example, is determined by the luctus, Heinsius' Op de doot ende treffelicke victorie van de mannelicken helt Iacob van Heemskerck, etc., is determined by the laus and Huygens' Cupio dissolvi by the consolatio, whereas Hooft's Lijkklacht over Pieter Dirxz. Hasselaer or Vondel's Op het overlyden van ... Cornelis Pietersz Hoofd contain all three elements.

The consolatio literature placed many argumenta of comfort at their disposal but in the funerary poetry of the poets now being discussed we notice particularly the appearance of the vita post mortem argument drawn up as the reward for the qualities of the deceased.

In the laus as much as in the luctus and the consolatio the wording of the argumenta to be found in each of the parts is always of a very personal character and depends on the picture the poet wishes to give of a person or of a situation. To give but a few examples, the laus of Brechje Spiegels in the poem Hooft wrote for her in Dutch, finds its point of departure in her beauty, and this is also the case in the poem Huygens wrote on the occasion of the death of Lady Killigrew. But the locus a corpore where the argumenta for this beauty are to be ‘found’ has been appropriated by Hooft in a manner which differs considerably from that of Huygens. Hooft presents a picture in broad outline; his sketch is charming and at the same time reveals something real. Among the adjectives ‘cleen’, ‘aerdich’, ‘blanck’, ‘besneden’, there are two words, ‘aerdich’ and ‘besneden’, referring to a well-formed figure which is not described in greater detail, but the words ‘cleen’ and ‘blanck’ provide the reader with information of a more revealing nature and they ‘individualize’ the beloved one who passed away. This is not done, however, to such an extent as to make her picture fall short of the universality of a picture of the young girl in general. She still meets the requirements of the decorum with respect to the appearance of young girls - they have to be beautiful. Huygens, on the other hand, does present an extensive description of Lady Killigrew's beauty. He presents a Petrarchian portrait, repeatedly paying special attention to the details of her beautiful body. But as the picture is wholly traditional and since Huygens, contrary to Hooft, does not sketch any personal bodily feature, Lady Killigrew is not more than the beautiful woman. That the

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locus a corpore is elaborated in two ways contrary to one another is caused by the fact that each of the poems has a different function. Hooft's poem preserves the memory of a woman he has loved and the laudatory picture of her beauty is one of the aspects of it. On the other hand, the detailed picture of the deceased one which Huygens gives us is not written first of all for the sake of remembering an exquisitely beautiful woman; rather, it serves as a point of departure for the concettistic play which dominates the poem. The beauty argumentum here serves the elaboration of the paradox, whereas in the poem for Brechje it is autonomous and contributes to the image of the beloved one.

Taking the treatment of beauty as found by Hooft and Huygens as examples of the methods used by the poets of the Renaissance it becomes apparent that the poetic and creative activity to a great extent consists of a subjective use of established material. In this conclusion the term ‘subjective’ should be interpreted as ‘fitting both the picture and the situation which are designed for the reader’.

As regards the elaboration of the argumenta of the luctus one notices the same procedure. While depicting the mourning of the bereaved and inveighing against fate or ‘culprits’ who brought about death belong to the established material, it is the manner in which this material is used that makes clear what, precisely, characterizes, the luctus. The relation between the mourners and the deceased one, for instance, determines the form of the argumentum expressing the sorrow. In Hooft's Latin poem on the death of Brechje the Graces and Venus mourn for the beautiful, love-inspiring girl; the three socially underpriviledged groups which, according to Vondel, had received the strong support of ex-mayor Hooft, are the explicit mourners at his death; and at the death of Vondel's little daughter Saartje (whose life had consisted of playing with the little girls in the neighbourhood), her playmates are the ones who lament and cry. The sorrow proceeds from those who are most directly related to the status (position) of the deceased one (young girl, city administrator, child), not from those who are most closely linked to him or her on emotional grounds, e.g. because of consanguinity or feelings of love. This in part accounts for the fact that despite the many particulars one encounters in the funerary poem, it belongs to a type of poetry which, nevertheless, is universal in character.

The poet thus works in accordance with the idea that there is something ‘proper and becoming’ which has to be observed in

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whatever picture to be given and whatever situation to be described. It shows things not as they are in themselves but οἶα εἷναι δεῖ and it is directly related to the conception of idealizing imitatio, in other words, to the conception which determines both the theory and the making of literature during the Renaissance.

This conception, in my opinion, is the most important key to the understanding of the poetry discussed in the present study: occasional poetry, grounded in reality, in which the individual case is generalized by means of argumenta which are phrased in terms of universality.