European Litanic Verse: A Different Space-Time (Literary and Cultural Theory) 9783631756249, 9783631760734, 9783631760741, 9783631760758, 3631756240

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Literar y and Cultural Theor y

This fifth volume in the Litanic Verse series is centered upon the poetics of European litanic verse (genre structure, rhythm, rhetorical figures), as well as its philosophy and cosmology, with a particular focus on the space-time matrix within which the litanic world is depicted. The content of the book moves beyond an analysis of enumerations and parallelisms as it provides an insight into relevant cultural processes, including the history of religion and literary conventions from Antiquity to Early Modernity. This allows seemingly distant topics, such as comparative versification and European identity, to be related. Theoretical considerations are accompanied by examples mostly taken from Latin, English, French, German, Iberian, Italian, Scandinavian and Slavic poetry.

ISBN 978-3-631-75624-9

LCT oBd01_275624_Sadowski_SG_A5HC 151x214 globalL.indd 1

Witold Sadowski · European Litanic Verse: A Different Space-Time

Witold Sadowski heads the Section for the Poetics of Verse at the University of Warsaw. He specialises in the theory of verse and the history of literary genres. In his book Litany and Poetry (2011, in Polish) he applied the paradigm of poetic analysis to the liturgical form of the litany and introduced terminology for its description.

Witold Sadowski

European Litanic Verse       A Different Space-Time

www.peterlang.com

13.09.18 17:32

Literar y and Cultural Theor y

This fifth volume in the Litanic Verse series is centered upon the poetics of European litanic verse (genre structure, rhythm, rhetorical figures), as well as its philosophy and cosmology, with a particular focus on the space-time matrix within which the litanic world is depicted. The content of the book moves beyond an analysis of enumerations and parallelisms as it provides an insight into relevant cultural processes, including the history of religion and literary conventions from Antiquity to Early Modernity. This allows seemingly distant topics, such as comparative versification and European identity, to be related. Theoretical considerations are accompanied by examples mostly taken from Latin, English, French, German, Iberian, Italian, Scandinavian and Slavic poetry.

Witold Sadowski · European Litanic Verse: A Different Space-Time

Witold Sadowski heads the Section for the Poetics of Verse at the University of Warsaw. He specialises in the theory of verse and the history of literary genres. In his book Litany and Poetry (2011, in Polish) he applied the paradigm of poetic analysis to the liturgical form of the litany and introduced terminology for its description.

Witold Sadowski

European Litanic Verse       A Different Space-Time

www.peterlang.com

LCT oBd01_275624_Sadowski_SG_A5HC 151x214 globalL.indd 1

13.09.18 17:32

European Litanic Verse

literary and cultural theory General Editor: Wojciech H. Kalaga

Witold Sadowski

European Litanic Verse A Different Space-Time

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. This publication is financially supported by the grant from The National Science Centre of Poland (decision No. DEC-2012/07/E/HS2/00665).

Translated by Dominika Ruszkiewicz in collaboration with the author Reviewed by Rafał Borysławski and Władysław Witalisz Editor: Ann Cardwell (Pedagogical University of Cracow) Assistant editor: Katarzyna Jaworska Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck. ISSN 1434-0313 ISBN 978-3-631-75624-9 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-76073-4 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-76074-1 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-76075-8 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/b14341 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 2018 All rights reserved. Peter Lang – Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

Contents Acknowledgments�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������9 Abbreviations���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������11 Note on Texts and Translations���������������������������������������������������������������������13 Introduction�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������15 Part I:  The Origins of Litanic Verse������������������������������������������������������������27 1

Ancient Experiments with the Metrical Litany����������������������������33

2

Litany and Mathematics��������������������������������������������������������������������������37

3

The Origins of Litanic Verse in Song�������������������������������������������������45

4

The Origins of Litanic Verse in Prose������������������������������������������������57

5

Litanic Verse as an Embryonic Form of Verse�������������������������������71

Part II:  The Genre of Litany���������������������������������������������������������������������������81 6

Terminological Considerations�����������������������������������������������������������83

7

The Litanic Genes���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������99

7.1 The Ektenial Gene������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 103 7.2 The Chairetismic Gene���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 113 7.3 The Polyonymic Gene����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 136 7.3.1 The Egyptian Henotheistic Hymn��������������������������������������������������� 137 7.3.2 Benedictions in the Monotheistic Hymn��������������������������������������� 145 7.3.2.1 The Hymn of the Three Youths������������������������������������������ 149 7.3.2.2 Psalm 136���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 157 5

7.3.2.3 The Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian����������������������������������� 162 7.3.2.4 A Return to the Bible��������������������������������������������������������� 166 7.3.3 On Balance����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 172 7.4 Merging the Genes����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 176 7.4.1 The Byzantine Salutations: The Polyonymic and Chairetismic Genes��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 177 7.4.2 The Litany of the Saints: The Polyonymic and the Ektenial Genes����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 188 7.4.2.1 The List of Maxims������������������������������������������������������������ 201 7.4.2.2 The List of Heroes�������������������������������������������������������������� 206 7.4.2.3 The Cataloging Charms and Lorica��������������������������������� 212 7.4.3 The Litany of Loreto: The Polyonymic + the Ektenial + the Chairetismic Genes��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 224

Part III:  The Generic Worldview of the Litany����������������������������������� 231 8

The Structure of the Generic Worldview�������������������������������������� 233

8.1 What is the Generic Worldview?����������������������������������������������������������������� 233 8.2 The Concentric Space-Time������������������������������������������������������������������������� 241 8.2.1 The Paradox of the Circle����������������������������������������������������������������� 242 8.2.2 Artistic Conceptualizations of the Concentric Space-Time�������� 247 8.3 The Semantics of the Litanic Components������������������������������������������������� 253 8.3.1 The Basic Two-Component Scheme����������������������������������������������� 253 8.3.2 Three- and Four-Component Schemes������������������������������������������ 257 8.3.3 Tendencies to Introduce One-Component Schemes�������������������� 264 8.3.4 Conclusions and Consequences������������������������������������������������������ 270 8.3.4.1 The “Circle Sector Technique” and the “CrossSection Technique”������������������������������������������������������������ 270 8.3.4.2 Non-Litanic Enumerations����������������������������������������������� 273 8.3.4.3 Theological Consequences����������������������������������������������� 277 8.4 The Communication System within the Litany����������������������������������������� 279 8.4.1 The Superaddressee��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 279 8.4.2 The Authorized Speaking Voice������������������������������������������������������ 280 6

8.4.3 The Semantic Content of the Apostrophe�������������������������������������� 284 8.4.4 Mediation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 286 8.5 The Issue of Time������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 291

9 Antonomasia��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 297 9.1 Antonomasia in the Rhetorical Tradition�������������������������������������������������� 298 9.2 Antonomasia in the Context of Other Tropes and Linguistic Phenomena����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 304 9.3 Wonderful Names������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 311 9.4 Multinamedness��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 315 9.5 Antonomasias in Practice����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 323 9.6 Litanic Narration������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 331

Part IV: The Emergence and Development of the Poetic Litanies��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 347 10 Divisions in the Church, Divisions in Poetry����������������������������� 349 10.1 The Ektenial Gene in the Church and the Poetic Litanies����������������������� 353 10.2 The Chairetismic Gene in the Church and the Poetic Litanies��������������� 354 10.3 The Poetic Litany in the Context of Private Piety�������������������������������������� 360

11 The Parallel Existence of the Polyonymic Gene in Poetry����� 363 12 Versification in the Church Litanies and Poetic Litanies������ 379 13 The Art of Paraphrase, Commentary and Self-Commentary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 387 13.1 Poetic Paraphrases of the Church Litanies������������������������������������������������� 388 13.2 Poetic Commentaries on the Church Litanies������������������������������������������� 391 13.2.1 The Medieval Period������������������������������������������������������������������������� 391 13.2.2 The Post-Reformation Period���������������������������������������������������������� 394 13.3 Self-Commentary as a Specific Technique of Litanic Verse��������������������� 401 7

14 The Litany’s Relation to Other Genres������������������������������������������� 407 14.1 The Litany versus the Sonnet����������������������������������������������������������������������� 407 14.2 The Litany and the Remaining Medieval Genres�������������������������������������� 412 14.3 The Litany versus Early Modern Genres���������������������������������������������������� 418

15 Interpretations—Reinterpretations—Experiments���������������� 427 15.1 Interpretations of the Generic Resources��������������������������������������������������� 427 15.2 Reinterpretations of the Generic Resources����������������������������������������������� 437 15.3 Experimenting with the Generic Worldview��������������������������������������������� 445

Conclusions��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 457 Selected General Bibliography�������������������������������������������������������������������� 461 Index of Subjects����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 475 Index of Names��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 481

8

Acknowledgments The book is the fifth volume in the Litanic Verse series. In the previous volumes, which covered the period from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, the history of litanic verse was described based on a division into particular European regions, the names of which are indicated in the titles of the books: –– Litanic Verse I: Origines, Iberia, Slavia et Europa Media, eds. Witold Sadowski, Magdalena Kowalska, and Magdalena Maria Kubas (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016). –– Litanic Verse II: Britannia, Germania et Scandinavia, eds. Witold Sadowski, Magdalena Kowalska, and Magdalena Maria Kubas (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016). –– Magdalena Kowalska, Litanic Verse III: Francia (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2018). –– Magdalena Maria Kubas, Litanic Verse IV: Italia (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2018) While the previous four volumes are focused on specific regions of Europe, in this book the poetics of European litany is taken as a whole and addressed in comparative analyses. All of the five volumes have been produced as part of the research project Litanic Verse in the Culture of European Regions, which was realized in the years 2013–2018, thanks to the support of the National Science Center of Poland. As the leader of the project I am greatly indebted to my excellent collaborators, whose research presented in the publications listed above as well as in papers listed on the project’s website (www.wiersz.uw.edu.pl) has provided essential information which is developed and commented upon in this book. Without the generous guidance of the team, upon whose help and expertise I have always been able to rely, it would not have been possible to reconstruct a coherent poetics of the litany from as many national literatures as have been included in my research. The contributions of particular members of the team are explicitly acknowledged on the relevant pages of the book. This book has a single author’s name on its cover, an author who bears sole responsibility for any weaknesses it may have. Yet it would have been impossible to characterize the poetics of European litanic verse, or to reconstruct its genesis, or even to describe the development of the poetic litanies from Antiquity to the nineteenth century, had not these studies benefited from the achievements of generations of scholars. Therefore, I owe much to the many editors of old poetry for their painstaking work over the past two hundred years on ancient, medieval 9

and early modern manuscripts. In the era of the Internet their efforts have unexpectedly been rewarded, for the body of texts that includes all the most important examples within the European culture is now accessible to all. Therefore, the anonymous creators of the Internet databases and libraries, too, deserve a vote of thanks. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to Dominika Ruszkiewicz and Ann Cardwell, whose outstanding work contributed greatly to improving the quality of the explication in this book.

10

Abbreviations The Akathist Hymn and Little Compline Arrangement: The Greek Text with a Rendering in English (London: Williams & Norgate, 1919). AHMA Analecta hymnica Medii Aevi, eds. Guido Maria Dreves and Clemens Blume (Leipzig: Reisland, 1886–1922). ANF The Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Buffalo: The Christian Literature Company, 1885–1886). ASLS Lapidge, Michael, Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1991). HAA Meersseman, Gilles Gérard, Der Hymnos Akathistos im Abendland (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1958–1960). LP Sadowski, Witold, Litania i poezja: Na materiale literatury polskiej od XI do XXI wieku [Litany and poetry: On the body of material of Polish literature from the eleventh to the twenty-first century] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszaw­ skie­go, 2011). LV 1 Litanic Verse I: Origines, Iberia, Slavia et Europa Media, eds. Witold Sadowski, Magdalena Kowalska, and Magdalena Maria Kubas (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016). LV 2 Litanic Verse II: Britannia, Germania et Scandinavia, eds. Witold Sadowski, Magdalena Kowalska, and Magdalena Maria Kubas (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016). LV 3 Kowalska, Magdalena, Litanic Verse III: Francia (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2018). LV 4 Kubas, Magdalena Maria, Litanic Verse IV: Italia (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2018). NPNF A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo: The Christian Literature Company, 1886–1900), series II. PG Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: Migne, 1856–1866). PL Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: Migne, 1841–1855). AH

In the case of multivolume series, the first number refers to the volume number, the second to the page number. 11

Note on Texts and Translations Unless stated otherwise, the translations of the poetic works are by Witold Sadowski. Poems in foreign languages are accompanied by their translations if the verse structure is commented upon together with its content. However, translations are omitted if the analysis focuses on historical tendencies and the poem only serves as an example. Citations from the Septuagint are from the following edition: Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes, ed. Alfred Rahlfs (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1965). The quotations from the Greek New Testament are from Novum Testamentum Graece, eds. Eberhard and Erwin Nestle, Barbara and Kurt Aland (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1979). All translations of the Holy Scripture are from the King James Bible and are taken from the following edition: The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testament (Oxford: Wright and Gill, 1769).

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Introduction This book is aimed at those who are familiar with the two kinds of texts quoted below, or at least one of them. The first group of texts consists of poetic works, as exemplified by the following passages: We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth, O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee, By the sealed and secret ages of thy life; By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces; By the songs of stars thy sisters in their courses; By thine own song hoarse and hollow and shrill with strife; By thy voice distuned and marred of modulation; By the discord of thy measure’s march with theirs; By the beauties of thy bosom, and the cares; By thy glory of growth, and splendour of thy station;1 Sommeil! — Râtelier du Pégase fringant! Sommeil! — Petite pluie abattant l’ouragan! Sommeil! — Dédale vague où vient le revenant! Sommeil! — Long corridor où plangore le vent!2 Sleep!—A hay rack for the restive Pegasus! / Sleep!—A little rain that tames the hurricane! / Sleep!—A misty maze which is haunted by a phantom! / Sleep!—A long corridor in which the wind cries!]3

The second group is composed of texts used in the church: Divine Mercy, in which we are all immersed, I trust in You. Divine Mercy, sweet relief for anguished hearts, I trust in You. Divine Mercy, only hope of despairing souls, I trust in You. Divine Mercy, repose of hearts, peace amidst fear, I trust in You. Divine Mercy, delight and ecstasy of holy souls, I trust in You. Divine Mercy, inspiring hope against all hope, I trust in You.4

1 Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Litany of Nations,” in Songs Before Sunrise (London: Ellis, 1871): 73. 2 Tristan Corbière, “Litanie du sommeil,” in Les amours jaunes (Paris: Glady frères, 1873): 171. 3 Translation by Witold Sadowski. For another English translation cf. Corbière, “The Litany of Sleep,” in The Centenary Corbière, trans. Val Warner (New York: Routledge, 2003): 59. 4 Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul, 949, trans. Adam Pasicki, Danuta Pasicki, and George Pearce (Kraków: Misericordia Publications, 2012): 233.

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That it may please thee to make wars to cease in all the world; to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord; and to bestow freedom upon all peoples, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. That it may please thee to show thy pity upon all prisoners and captives, the homeless and the hungry, and all who are desolate and oppressed, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. That it may please thee to give and preserve to our use the bountiful fruits of the earth, so that in due time all may enjoy them, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. That it may please thee to inspire us, in our several callings, to do the work which thou givest us to do with singleness of heart as thy servants, and for the common good, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.5

While the second group of texts is conventionally known as the litanies, the first may be called litanic verses. Both are referred to by means of similar terminology, for they are both composed in a similar manner and using similar devices, devices known in poetic nomenclature as enumeration, parallelism, and anaphora. Some of the passages quoted above also contain a device which could be classified in three different ways: as a refrain, an epiphora, or a responsorial answer. Such devices, however, are not the exclusive property of the church and poetic litanies. It is not necessary to be interested in twentieth-century politics, for instance, to be familiar with the historic speech delivered by Martin Luther King in August 1963, or at least with its famous litanic anaphora “I have a dream.” Likewise, it is not necessary to be a popular music enthusiast to recognize its predilection for obsessively recurring refrains, as in Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” or to remember the series of questions and responsorial answers, as in Enya’s “Only Time,” or to notice the frequently occurring musical practice of either opening many lines with the same phrase, as in Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” or closing them with the same name, as in ABBA’s “Fernando.” All the verses, prayers, political speeches, and songs given as examples differ from one another in terms of their thematic concerns and the purposes they serve. What they all share, however, is the same structure, which currently seems to enjoy great popularity. In fact, in some European countries, as well as in both North and South America, the litany is among the most popular literary conventions. Indeed, over time, it has become a kind of universal lingua franca which is commonly understood in many countries around the globe. The litanic language

5 “The Great Litany,” in The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, Together with The Psalter or Psalms of David, According to the use of The Episcopal Church (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2007): 151.

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is treated as the common property of representatives of various nations and religions, as well as those with different attitudes toward faith. What is more, our poets, preachers, politicians and pop stars do not seem to pay any attention to the fact that the litany is a very peculiar, if not bizarre, convention. In litanic texts, the same words are repeated ad nauseam, appearing in analogous positions within the sentence, either initial or final, almost as if they were deprived of their verbal force and reduced to transmitters of the rhythmic effect. Why is it the case then, that in so many national literatures such flaws are accepted? That question is difficult to answer without further specialist and multidisciplinary knowledge. Among the possible reasons, the peculiarity of the recurrent form may be included, which—on the one hand—corresponds to man’s natural psychological needs, and on the other conceals behind its words a deeper, even mysterious, sense. We can also consider the esteem for and attachment to the litanic poetics inculcated by our cultural tradition. It cannot be denied that all the different texts mentioned above not only share an external resemblance, but also a common source. This source forms the basis of our thinking and feeling, a basis which is inscribed into our identity and is so personal that we refuse to admit it to others. Yet in an attempt to understand this particular way of thinking and feeling, we need to transcend everyday reality in order to place ourselves in the world from which this source derives. The reason for this is that the litanic convention is embedded in a different space-time, a space-time which is so remote from that which is acknowledged by modern science that contemporary readers find it difficult to explain why such a monotonous form maintains its popularity. This unusual space-time should be understood in two different ways. First of all, litanies were established in a remote place and time, the Near East and the depths of Antiquity, respectively. Hence, in order to understand their structure, it is necessary that readers should become familiar with the culture of this particular place and time. Even though the texts quoted above date from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the primary focus of this book will be on the preceding centuries, for the litanic convention as it is known today can only be understood in the context of earlier cultural reality. Second, the litany itself contains its own explanation of the spatial and temporal structure of the world. As is well known, the category of space-time can be approached from different perspectives, and our knowledge of its nature evolves with each breakthrough in science, with physics and astronomy being the main sources. Therefore, a decidedly different concept of space-time emerges from the thoughts of Einstein than from the theories of Copernicus and Newton, a 17

still different picture resulted from Euclid. Another well-known philosophical problem is based on Immanuel Kant’s question as to whether space and time are possessed of objective existence in a formal reality, or whether they merely represent the means of ordering the external reality produced by the human mind in the process of cognition. The assumption behind the litanic convention is that the space-time exists objectively, yet it is decidedly different from the way spacetime was perceived by any of the four scientists mentioned above, that is, Euclid, Copernicus, Newton or Einstein. This is because the litanic space-time is not so much three-dimensional, as concentric in nature. It is governed by paradoxes which can be described by an analogy with the geometry of a circle, the most important being the paradoxical status of God, whose indivisible oneness is the source of the infinity of the world. It is also important that the perception of the concentric space-time is mirrored in the rhetorical devices characteristic of the litany, which were listed above, such as enumeration, parallelism, anaphoras and refrains. Therefore, it can be said in short that the paradoxical structure of the litanic space-time leads to the peculiar poetics of the litany. These two ways of understanding the litanic space-time determine the argumentation in this book. The first two parts return to the place and time in which the litanic genre came into existence. The next two parts, in turn, examine the works which acknowledge the litanic perspective regarding the spatial and temporal structure of the world. The litany may be approached using various methods, yet none grasps the phenomenon in its entirety. Instead, each exposes some of its aspects with greater clarity and precision than the other methods, while at the same time failing to discern others. Our task as researchers is not to pretend that our method is perfect for the comprehensive examination of a certain phenomenon, but rather to demonstrate how it leads to certain conclusions. Also, for the purposes of this book, a particular method was singled out. To start with, in order to understand the peculiar form of the litany, it should be approached in a similar manner to the analysis of any other work of literature. It is for this reason that the church litanies are primarily described in terms of their artistic features, with most attention being devoted to poetic examples. Apart from ancient prototypes of the litany, we also attempt to focus on works of literature which are representative of all the European regions and all the main linguistic branches. We thus take into consideration different Romance, Germanic and Slavonic languages, even though litanic verse gained its greatest popularity in the French, English, and Italian literatures, from which most of our examples have been taken. Since the book is written from the perspective of 18

literary studies, other concerns—which are addressed in fields such as music research, the history of the liturgy, the sociology of religious life, etc.—will be treated in a purely contextual manner, which is what is expected of literary studies.6 6 Before the beginning of the twenty-first century, the litany was approached almost exclusively from the perspective of either liturgical history or the theory of spirituality, which involved a confessional strategy. It is not our intention to enter into polemics with such approaches, but to replace the methods applied in earlier research in presenting a different aspect of the litany. As a result, the treatment of theological issues may seem insufficient to some readers, whom we refer to the following publications: Manuel Vélez Marín, Dissertación sobre las letanías antiguas de la Iglesia de España (Madrid: Domingo Fernández de Arrojo, 1758); Theodor Schermann, “Griechische Litaneien,” Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte 17 (1903); Anton Baumstark, “Eine syrisch-melchitische Allerheiligenlitanei,” Oriens Christianus 4 (1904); Louis Duchesne, Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution. A Study of the Latin Liturgy up to the Time of Charlemagne (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1904): 58–63, 164–167, 198–201, 285–289; Edmund Bishop, “The Litany of Saints in the Stowe Missal,” in Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918); Fernand Cabrol, “Litanies,” Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, eds. Idem et al. (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1930), vol. IX 2; Maurice Coens, “Anciennes litanies des saints,” Analecta Bollandiana 54 (1936); Marcel Boval, Les Litanies de Lorette. Histoire, symbolisme, richesses doctrinales (Paris: Dupuis, 1946); Stanisław Szymański, “Litania do Najświętszego Serca Jezusowego” [“The Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus”], Ateneum Kapłańskie 62 (1961); Paul Maas, and Constantinos Athanasios Trypanis, “Introduction,” in Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica. Cantica Genuina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963); Robert F. Taft, “The Litany after the Great Entrance,” in A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Roma: Pontificio Instituto Orientale, 2004), vol. 2 (The Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and other Pre-anaphoral Rites): 311–349; Idem, “The Evolution of the Byzantine ‘Divine Liturgy’,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 43 (1977); Rainer Scherschel, Der Rosenkranz, das Jesusgebet des Westens (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1979); Ignacio Calabuig, “Les Litanies de la Sainte Vierge,” Cahiers Marials 142–143 (1984); John F. Baldovin, “The Stational and Processional Liturgy of Constantinople,” and “The Development of Christian Worship in an Urban Setting,” in The Urban Character of Christian Worship (Roma: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987): 205–251; Walter Dürig, Die Lauretanische Litanei: Entstehung, Verfasser, Aufbau und mariologischer Inhalt (Sankt Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, 1990); Giuseppe Santarelli and Giorgio Basadonna, Litanie lauretane (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997); Balthasar Fischer, “Litanei,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. Walter Kasper (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1997), vol. 6; Иван П Давыдов, Православный акафист русским святым (религиоведческий анализ) [The orthodox akathist of Russian saints (a religious studies analysis)] (Благовещенск: Библиотека журнала «Религиоведение», 2004); HAA; ASLS.

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Secondly, our book is focused exclusively on the poetics of the litany. We move back in time and place to when and where the litanic genre came into being, but only for the purpose of extracting the litanic poetics from its history. Considerable attention will be devoted to the origin of particular litanic elements, and this process will go as far back in time as ancient Egypt. However, a comprehensive history of the litany will not be presented, for we will only concentrate on the historical issues that may account for the formal assumptions behind the genre. As has already been mentioned, these assumptions will be examined using a wide range of poetic material, including—amongst others—examples that are representative of the approximately two thousand years of European poetry. Within this long time span, certain languages died, whereas others developed; the role of a universal lingua franca passed from Greek to Latin, and then from Latin to French, before other European languages—such as German, Spanish, and English—became dominant in different European regions. Over the course of time, Catholic priests turned from Latin to Italian, whereas the Eastern European elites turned from Polish to Russian; peoples were driven away from their home territories; empires fell, giving way to others. Against the background of all these transformations and diversifications, we intend to extract features of the litanic poetics that are common to all European literatures, and to argue that litanic verse may be perceived as a common European convention and an important factor uniting Europe in spite of its political and religious divisions. Therefore, our use of adjectives such as “British” or “Iberian” will apply to geographical areas rather than to particular countries. By the same token, terms such as “English,” “French,” or “Danish” will also be used with respect to linguistic, and not national, communities. As previously stated, the book will be divided into four main parts. The first part of the book describes the litany as a form of versification. It reconstructs the origins of certain rhythmic elements which are typical of the form, such as the segmentation into distinct, clear-cut modules, the focus on counting and enumerating, or the division into different voices. Litanic verse is based on the syntactic arrangement of text rather than on the phonetic features that form the basis of the differentiation between languages. Therefore, it can be easily adapted from one language to another, as well as between language families. It is for this reason that litanic verse is to be found in such distantly related languages as Syriac (the Afro-Asiatic family), Croatian (the Indo-European family) and Hungarian (the Uralic family). Ultimately, however, neither the ease with which the litanic verse spread nor its ensuing popularity promoted the litanic convention to the level of a major verse system that could be compared 20

with such established European verse systems as accentual, syllabic or accentualsyllabic. The first part of the book will attempt to explain the reasons for this puzzling situation. The second part takes as its starting point the differences when defining the litany that are observed in particular regions of Europe. Three distinct literary conventions will be highlighted, which in Orthodox Christianity are still treated as being separate, yet in Western Christianity comprise a common genre. Following the results of our earlier research,7 these conventions will be referred to as ektenial, chairetismic, and polyonymic. Their origin will be considered in detail, as well as their independent development in the period preceding their consolidation into a Western-European form, together with the process during which they gradually became closer. Conventions typical of the chairetismic and polyonymic traditions coincide in the Byzantine masterpiece, the Akathist Hymn; the polyonymic convention combines with the ektenial in the Litany of the Saints; and all three conventions are to be found in the Litany of Loreto, as well as in similar medieval litanies to Mary. By contrast, the Lutheran Die Deutsche Litanei and The Great Litany, which is Anglican, contain only the ektenial gene. Since all the three main litanic conventions were imported from the East, the second part of the book examines the phenomena which contributed to the adaptation of this rich litanic tradition in Western Europe. The third part of the book is devoted to the generic worldview, which arises from the structure of the litanic enumeration. As has already been noted, the litany is a genre in whose form a particular concept of the space-time has been encrypted, a concept which operated in accordance with medieval philosophy and which was derived from contemporary scientific knowledge. Accordingly, every verse which bore the external markers of the litany was furnished with a certain system of irremovable ontological and axiological assumptions. The semantic overtones of the genre, which are different from the content of a particular poem, are referred to as the generic worldview.8 The litanic worldview is expressed through both the versification features of the verse—the parallelisms and enumerations, as well as the propensity for anaphoras and refrains—and 7 Cf. Witold Sadowski, “Geneza litanii w aspekcie formalno-kompozycyjnym,” [“The Genesis of Litany from the Formal and Compositional Perspective”] in LP 25–68; Idem, “Some Necessary Preliminaries,” in LV 1: 11. 8 This term was first used with reference to the litany in the following publication: Witold Sadowski, “Fenomen narracji litanijnej wobec stereotypu gatunkowego litanii” [“The Phenomenon of Litanic Narration against the Generic Stereotype of the Litany”], Przestrzenie Teorii 12 (2009): 219. It is also discussed in the monograph: LP 12–16.

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the privileged position of the antonomasia—a rhetorical figure, which probably has its most profound philosophical raison d’étre in the litany. It is for this reason that the third part of the book contains a separate chapter dedicated to the traditional version of antonomasia. This chapter may in fact be treated as a selfcontained unit, for it provides a detailed theoretical description of the trope. The fourth part of the book addresses the issue of the division of the litany into two distinct branches: the church and the artistic. This brings us back to the two groups of texts, with which we began this Introduction. In the original litanies, the liturgical and literary elements were perfectly and inextricably intertwined. The division into two branches began in the late Middle Ages, yet it did not coincide with the division into the two distinct sets of features which are considered by current research to be typical of the religious and the poetic discourses, respectively. In fact, the “focus on the message for its own sake” and the predilection for repetition, which were underlined by Roman Jakobson in his classic study9 as the main criteria of poetic language and its most important principles, are in equal measure characteristic of both the church and the artistic branches of the litany. This means that the division into two distinct branches was based on decidedly different markers, markers which are discussed in detail in the fourth part of the book. An important conclusion is that the major events of church history were not as significant in the division of the litany as the internal evolutionary tendencies within the poetics of European literature. Even though, as was already noted, each part of the book is structured chronologically, this chronological arrangement never becomes the narrative axis of the book. Therefore, the material presented in the four successive parts tends to overlap to a considerable extent. Parts I and II cover the period from biblical times to the first half of the Middle Ages, that is, approximately to the twelfth century. This period is dominated by literature composed in classical languages. Part III begins around the fourth century, whereas Part IV starts with the Great Schism of 1054. The third and fourth parts conclude with the dawn of Early Modernity, with the exemplary material provided in the main by poetry composed in modern European languages. The book does not extend as far as the present day. This is because from the beginning of the nineteenth century, the litanies were composed in a fundamentally different philosophical, political, religious, and social context. As such, they

9 Cf. Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Language in Literature, eds. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987): 69, 82–85.

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deserve a separate monograph, one which is yet to be written. In the present book, it is our intention to close with the end of Early Modernity. Since, however, the litanic phenomenon continues beyond this period, and since the literary epochs developed differently in various countries, this allows us to take advantage of the fluid nature of the term Early Modernity. Therefore, our examination includes the eighteenth century, but the literary examples extend as far as the mid-nineteenth century. This is because, in our understanding, the period which starts at the beginning of the eighteenth century and ends in the middle of the nineteenth century can be treated as a transitional stage, in which—on the one hand—certain elements of the litanic convention are still in use—and on the other—new elements appear. This book presents the former and leaves the latter for further investigation. In this way, we close avant Baudelaire.10 The last point on our introductory agenda is an explanation of the two main terms which recur in the book: the litanic verse and the litany. The former usually refers to works of poetry, whereas the latter is most often used in the context of church litanies. In this book, however, the terms are furnished with slightly different meanings, meanings associated with the two subdisciplines of poetic studies: the theory of verse and the theory of literary genres. These two subdisciplines adopt different perspectives with respect to the same phenomenon. Metaphorically, the discrepancy between the two perspectives can be compared to the difference between a verb and a noun. The theory of verse is interested in the build-up of a text. Thus, its primary focus is on litanic verse in action, which is treated as a repertoire of linguistic devices contributing to the regular shape and characteristic rhythm of the poem. The litany is still in sight, but it is perceived from a distance and from a broader perspective. From the prosodic point of view, the litany is one of the elements that form the background to

10 Litanic verse in later periods has been the subject of the following publications: Isabelle Krzywkowski, “La litanie: une écriture sans fin de la fin,” in Anamorphoses décadentes: l’art de la défiguration, 1880–1914, eds. Eadem and Sylvie Thorel-Cailleteau (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2002): 67–80; LP 239–383; Witold Sadowski, “Prosodic Memory: Claudel—Eliot—Liebert,” Prace Filologiczne: Literaturoznawstwo 3 (6) (2013), Part 1: 11–30; Idem, “Le texte en dialogue avec son genre: Les litanies de Laforgue,” Poétique 179 (2016); Maria Judyta Woźniak, “Entre tradición y modernidad: modificaciones del poema litánico en la poesía de Juan Ramón Jiménez,” Neophilologus 101 (2017), no. 2; Magdalena Żmuda-Trzebiatowska, “På spaning efter en halvglömd genre: Litaniaminnen i ‘Bön till solen’ av Karin Boye,” Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia 19 (2016); The history of litanic verse until the beginning of the twentieth century is discussed in the earlier volumes of the series: Litanic Verse: LV 1, LV 2, LV 3 and LV 4.

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litanic verse. As such, it is placed within the context of adjacent genres, such as catalogs of gods and rulers, lists of maxims, genealogical trees, laments, incantations, cataloging charms, counting games, lullabies and a number of other poetic conventions peculiar to specific cultures which will be mentioned in our book. In all of these genres, we encounter devices characteristic of litanic verse, such as anaphora, epiphora, parallelism and enumeration: they enhance the syntactic order and turn single phrases and even words into self-contained units, thereby bringing the poem (or some of its passages) closer to accentual verse. However, the final melodic “finish” of the text depends on a given genre, that is, on the semantic purpose that the rhythmic repeatability serves. On the basis of who is allowed to speak and who the addressee and the audience are, it is determined whether the poem should be sung or recited and whether this should be done individually, chorally, antiphonally or responsorially. The theory of verse thus examines language in action, which is why it can be compared to thinking in terms of verbs. Conversely, the theory of poetic genres focuses on the conceptual object; in our case—the litany, which is approached as a poetic pattern with clearly distinguishable features. The question the theory of genres poses is: why when reading different litanic works do we experience a familiar feeling, namely of dealing with examples from the same class? The study of poetic genres takes into account the shape of the poems and therefore it cannot exclude observations on litanic verse, even though this is relegated to the background of such studies. From the generic perspective, litanic verse is a natural consequence of the worldview adopted in the litany, which—on the one hand—is so widely shared as to guarantee the integral continuity of the genre throughout the ages, yet—on the other hand—possesses its own logic which demands particular prosodic solutions delivered by litanic verse. As suggested thus far, the twofold issue of litanic verse and the litany should be analyzed in a monograph with a twofold content. The origin of the form in particular cannot be reduced to a genealogical observation of merely one of its aspects. What needs to be presented is the interdependent development of litanic verse and the litany, including the markers of their distinctiveness. This may not be entirely feasible as each phenomenon sheds light on the other, but it is hoped that by tracing their origins in two separate parts of our book (i.e., Part I and Part II) we can avoid falling into the trap of only considering the two extremes. For, on the one hand, litanic verse in the church litanies is merely a by-product of the theological goals for which the prayer is recited. Even if visually the liturgical text displays a more or less close affinity with pagan registers, this does not prove that the church adopted a pagan way of thinking about the world. On the other 24

hand, the litany is a West European form that grew out of the Christian worldview, which is not to say that the same worldview is represented by Hebrew, Islamic, Manichaean, and Mandaean prayers, all of which employ litanic verse. Thus, the term “litany” draws attention to the cultural context of Western Christianity, whereas the adjective “litanic” denotes a versification technique with a very broad application.

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Part I:  The Origins of Litanic Verse Certain cultural processes can only be seen from a great distance, and as a result we pay the price of far-fetched simplification, but at the same time gain data that is far from simplified. In the areas where the Western Church had an advantage, the prayers took on the present-day shape of the litany before the seventh century. It was at that time in all probability that Theodor, archbishop of Canterbury, popularized the Litany of the Saints, which may have been based on a Syrian prototype, across the British Isles. The span of six hundred years—calculated from the moment when the first church structures were established in Jerusalem to the moment when this prayer was crystallized in its basic shape—witnessed profound, and in at least two cases revolutionary, changes in the repertoire of versification systems—changes which affected the four languages crucial to the development of the litany. Out of the four languages, three adopted syllabic verse. The first language to do so, between the first and the third centuries, was the Syriac dialect of the Aramaic language,1 which concretized the tendencies2 based mainly on syntactic

1 Cf.  Albrecht Dihle, “Die Anfänge der Griechischen Akzentuierenden Verskunst,” Hermes 82 (1954), no. 2: 191; Sebastian Brock, “Syriac and Greek Hymnography: Problems of Origin,” Studia Patristica 16 (1985): 77–80; Jonas C. Greenfield, “On Mandaic Poetic Technique,” in Studia Semitica Necnon Iranica: Rudolpho Macuch septuagenario ab amicis et discipulis dedicata, eds. Maria Macuch, Christa Müller-Kessler, and Bert G. Fragner (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1989): 102–103; Alphons S. Rodrigues Pereira, Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c. 100 B.C.E. – c. 600 C.E.) (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1997): 108. 2 According to some researchers, several aspects of syllabic verse may have played an important role in Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry: Cf. David Noel Freedman, “Acrostics and Metrics in Hebrew Poetry,” Harvard Theological Review 65 (1972), no. 3; Idem, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980): 191–193, 265–267, 304–306; Frank Moore Cross, “Prose and Poetry in the Mythic and Epic Texts from Ugarit,” Harvard Theological Review 67 (1974), no. 1.

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features3 that were employed in earlier versification. From the third century, syllabic verse began its gradual emergence into Latin at the expense of quantitative metrics, and from the seventh century into Irish versification at the expense of the Celtic alliterative verse.4 Only the Greek language, having lost the ability to sustain the moraic system, started gravitating toward accentual-syllabic verse in the second century.5 These transformations, some of which reached the level of prosody (Greek and Latin), took root within the context of the manifold cultural connections between the areas in which the four languages were spoken. Since the relations between Greece and Rome are well known, let us focus on the others, paying particular attention to significant figures, such as Roman the Melodist, a reformer of Greek verse who was, however, Syrian by birth. He was born in Emesa, a bilingual city,6 and educated in what is present-day Beirut. Another eminent Byzantine hymnographer, Andrew of Crete, was born in Damascus and educated in Jerusalem, with Antioch being the birthplace of probably the greatest preacher in Greek, John Chrysostom. During the period of Byzantine Papacy, several of the popes had Syrian backgrounds, and Syria is also thought to be the birthplace of two philosophers: Iamblichus and Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite. Even though only the latter can be classified as a Christian philosopher, their thought—inspired by Pythagorean and Plotinian teaching—corresponds closely to the generic worldview characteristic of the litany. Second-century Tarsus, located within the Patriarchate of Antioch, was the birthplace of Hermogenes, the author of a rhetorical treatise, On Types of Style, which provides an insight into the classical way of understanding antonomasias. Almost five centuries later in the same city, Theodor was born, thanks to whom the Litany of the Saints found its way to the British Isles. In terms of

3 Cf. Michael O’Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997): 65–67. 4 Cf. Gerard Murphy, Early Irish Metrics (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1961): 8–9, 18–20. 5 Cf. Martin L. West, Greek Metre (Oxford University Press, 1982): 163; Helena Sądejowa, “Zarys metryki greckiej” [“An Outline of Greek Metrics”], in Metryka grecka i łacińska [Greek and Latin Metrics], eds. Maria Dłuska and Władysław Strzelecki (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy Imienia Ossolińskich, 1959): 70. 6 Cf. José Grosdidier de Matons, “Questions Biographiques,” in Romanos le Mélode et les origines de la poésie religieuse à Byzance (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977): 159–163. William L. Petersen, “The Dependence of Romanos the Melodist upon the Syriac Ephrem: Its Importance for the Origin of the Kontakion,” Vigiliae Christianae 39 (1985): 172.

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descent he was Greek, but while still a child he was captured by Persian forces during their conquest of Syria and the neighboring countries. As an adult, he managed to reach Constantinople, where he obtained his education. In his later years, he moved to Rome, from where—although nearing seventy—he was appointed to the bishop’s seat of Canterbury. A detailed account of his efforts to disseminate the Litany of the Saints in the diocese is provided by Michael Lapidge.7 Another of Theodor’s accomplishments lay in his contribution to the attempt to familiarize the native inhabitants of the British Isles with the GrecoLatin legacy of advanced scientific knowledge. According to the testimony of the Venerable Bede, the so-called School of Theodore and Hadrian in Canterbury taught arithmetic, astronomy and metrics.8 The form of versification used in the school was the Latin octosyllable,9 and the school’s influence extended across Ireland.10 As observed by William Beare: Aldhelm, born c. 650 and made bishop of Sherborne in 715, and Bede, born in 673, not only composed Latin metrical poems (as well as rhythmical, now lost) but wrote treatises on the subject of metre.11

It can thus be said that the four great reforms of versification were realized in multilingual surroundings, and their course was not unaffected by the mutual interpenetration of cultures. Theodor of Tarsus, for instance, was able to become familiar with the languages and may even have spoken some if not all of them. Still, it is difficult to make reliable conjectures about the mutual dependence between the versification systems of these four nations. It seems certain that apart from Latin and Greek, which had much earlier formed a network of close connections, the languages in question were diametrically different, with the Aramaic dialect of Edessa on the one hand, and representatives of three distinct branches of the Indo-European family on the other. In such circumstances, the transmission of theological complexities, of the kind where a single expression

7 Cf. ASLS 20–21. 8 Cf. William Beare, Latin Verse and European Song: A Study in Accent and Rhythm. (London: Methuen, 1957): 265. 9 Cf. Michael Lapidge, “The School of Theodore and Hadrian,” Anglo-Saxon England 15 (1986): 45–47; Idem, “Theodore and Anglo-Latin Octosyllabic Verse,” in Archbishop Theodore: Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence, ed. Idem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2006). 10 Cf. Jane Stevenson, “Altus Prosator,” Celtica 23 (1999): 361, 366. 11 Beare, Latin Verse…, 265.

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could cause doctrinal strife and confusion, required a far-reaching and systematic knowledge of grammar and translation methods in particular—a knowledge which left its mark not only on the process of translating the texts of individual religious songs, but also their versification layer. Having said that, notwithstanding the theoretical training of the first British users of the Litany of the Saints, we cannot exclude the possibility that this single prayer—together with all the rhythmic conventions transported from the Mediterranean countries—constituted a challenge in terms of form. The church on the British Isles, whose leaders had multinational backgrounds, witnessed a confrontation between diametrically different ways of conceptualizing rhythm, ways which were characteristic of Greco-Roman Antiquity, the homilies and songs composed in Syria as well as Celtic and Germanic folk piety. The coming together of such multifarious traditions did not have to result in a merging of the foreign and native forms. Yet although the foreign rhythms may have been implemented, if only for the sake of the Holy Fathers and their authority, they may have remained incomprehensible and underappreciated. It cannot be excluded that the foreign convention might also have been distorted, as British authors could transfer it from genre to genre disregarding the semantic obstacles, or expand a phenomenon which in its native surroundings was only marginal. More than fifty years ago, William Beare, who was quoted above, advanced a thesis that rhyme in Latin poetry could become popular only among those poets who were non-native speakers of Latin. They not only disregarded the dissonance which a Roman poet would find unacceptable, but also perceived the Latin phonetics in terms of their native phonetic system. It is for this reason that the key role in the formation of the European rhyme was to be played by the inhabitants of the British Isles, and Irish monks in particular.12 The rhyme with its complex history is not to be the subject of this discussion. Still, it cannot be denied that Beare’s intuition may suggest an answer to the following question: why did the litany become popular in Latin, a language which cannot boast of a far-reaching tradition in this respect and which was never— that is, neither in the period when moraic prosody was used nor later—adjusted to excessive sound repetition. This is, in fact, a common denominator among the Romance languages, which inherited from Latin an aversion to a regular succession of strong stresses, even though—quite paradoxically—the largest amount of litanic verse in Europe was produced in Italian and, still more surprisingly, French literatures. The French language in particular has upheld the litanic genre 12 Ibid., 274.

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to the present day, going against the grain of an increasing tendency to run words into each other in speech. This testifies to the supremacy of religion, socio-cultural processes, and—maybe to an even greater extent—prosodic expectations, resulting from the convention of song, over language. The litany was in a way imposed upon the Romance languages, whereas interestingly, it also became an isolated phenomenon in the Germanic and Slavonic languages in which stress plays a greater role and which—despite the seemingly propitious conditions—did not allow for a complete assimilation of the genre within the forming versification systems. Accordingly, the litany does not fit in with the existing European categories of verse and can neither be approached by ancient or modern standards. It is for this reason that the studies on this form have been undertaken rather later than might have been expected. Despite its rhythmical expressiveness and distinctiveness, from a theoretical perspective the litany seems to lack clear-cut boundaries. It did not become one of the basic European versification systems; neither can it be classified as a variant of rhythmical prose, even if the most extreme, for it blatantly ignores the rule that prose is unfettered speech. Thus, the litany is to be found both in texts recognized as verse and those which are interpreted as prose. It is a homogenous phenomenon which moves between these two literary fields and yet remains out of place in each, despite the impression that we are still dealing with a single phenomenon. This explains why the relation between the litany on the one hand, and prose and verse on the other, seems makeshift and temporary, and also accounts for the centuries-old attempts to match the litany with period-specific versification systems—from the metrics of Antiquity, through modern regular verse to the most contemporary “free verse.” It will be shown that the litanic form was never fully integrated within the system of line division, quite the reverse, in fact. It was always a kind of foreign body, incompatible with the European conception of poetic rhythm.

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1 Ancient Experiments with the Metrical Litany As has already been mentioned, efforts at incorporating the litany into European versification began in Antiquity, as can be illustrated by a hymn to Christ which closes Clement of Alexandria’s treatise, Christ, the Educator, dating from the end of the second century. This relatively short song is a meeting point between two conventions of versification. Its dual composition gives the lie to the assumption that a system of versification is a transparent form, for the overlap between the two conventions allows us to see the signs that indicate the origin of each. It is enough to quote a short passage: Βασιλεῦ ἁγίων, λόγε πανδαμάτωρ πατρὸς ὑψίστου, σοφίας πρύτανι, στήριγμα πόνων αἰωνοχαρές, βροτέας γενεᾶς σῶτερ Ἰησοῦ, ποιμήν, ἀροτήρ, οἴαξ, στόμιον,13 O King of saints, all-subduing Word of the most high Father, Ruler of wisdom, Support of sorrows, that rejoicest in the ages, Jesus, Saviour of the human race, Shepherd, Husbandsman, Helm, Bridle14

As early as 1926, Marvin Bascom Norwood drew attention to the fact that the hymn of Clement of Alexandria follows the prayer tradition used in the “GraecoEgyptian cult” of Isis. The similarity is based on analogies between the passage quoted and a litany addressed to the fertility goddess which predates it by only fifty years: In this comparison we find that not only is the form of the two hymns much the same, but there is considerable agreement in the general ideas. This agreement does

13 Clement of Alexandria, Le Pédagogue, ed. Henri-Irénée Marrou (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1970), vol. 3: 194, 196. The editor tends to refer to this piece in footnotes and commentary as “litanie au Christ,” “l’invocation litanique,” etc. Cf. pages 194, 198, 200, 205–207. 14 Clement of Alexandria, “A Hymn to Christ the Saviour,” in ANF 2: 296.

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not extend to exact verbal agreement, but is only in the general conception of the attributes of God.15

This affinity allowed Norwood to put forward a thesis that the litanic aspect of Clement’s hymn derives directly from the forms of prayer used by the adherents of the Isis-cult in Egypt: We are told that in the daily public worship of the Isis cult there were well defined rites of prayer, praise, sacrifice and adoration. Hymns, long litanies enumerating the names of the gods, their attributes, manifestations and powers, were chanted. This was the common practice of the Mystery cults, and it is inconceivable that Clement, as perfectly familiar as he was with Greek philosophy and all the contemporary thought and achievement, could have been ignorant of all these customs. And even though he might not have known this particular Invocation it is altogether probable that the author of the Hymn to Christ was modeling it after the liturgy of the Mystery cults, and it was doubtless intended to be sung or chanted in Christian gatherings of public worship.16

The litanic dimension of the hymn is not the only melodic layer at work in Clement’s hymn—a hymn enumerating a whole list of antonomasias which, to a greater or lesser extent, resemble the Egyptian forms of titling. It is also a song written in anapests, that is, a measure which was treated in the Greek tradition as a marching meter, used, inter alia, during the “entries and exits of the chorus.”17 In the last chapter of a different treatise, Exhortation to the Heathen, Clement mentions the Cithaeron mountain, which was a place where dramatic plays were performed and which is contrasted with the Mountain of Truth—a summit favored by God and climbed by the dancing followers of Christ. It may be assumed that a metrical foot associated with dramatic expression would not be used accidentally by a man of Greek, probably Athenian, origin to round off his treatise, Christ, the Educator. The endings of both texts seem to be a comment on the other, as each closes with a final dance. In Exhortation to the Heathen, dance is the object of description; in Christ, the Educator—the basis of the litanic rhythm. It is not only in the former, but perhaps also in the latter treatise that dance takes on a twofold aspect—the dance of the Greeks and the dance of the Christians, an ancient and a modern dance, good and evil. In Exhortation to the Heathen, this dichotomy is contained within the discursive plane of the last chapter. In Christ, the Educator, it is transposed onto the formal plane and refers 15 Marvin Bascom Norwood, The Hymn of Clement and the Isis Litany. MA thesis, University of Chicago (Chicago 1926): 15. Available at: https://archive.org (accessed September 22, 2015). 16 Ibid., 17–18. 17 West, Greek Metre…, 78–79.

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to the juxtaposition of anapest, known from classical drama, with a rhythmical pattern characteristic of the litany that was based on completely different rules. The enumeration of antonomasias, which gives way to parallel structures composed of either two nouns per line or a noun-epithet phrase, is not only imposed on the anapest, but is also treated as synonymous with the array of metrical feet, almost as if it could equally well serve as a basis for determining the boundaries between lines. In reality, however, Clement’s contemporaries must have seen the relation between these two compositional patterns in terms of a conflict, or at best a dichotomy, between the real and the artificial or purely decorative. The template of two words per line, which resembles certain Manichaean poems written in accentual verse in the Coptic language,18 provokes the question: in what way was Clement’s hymn performed in the multinational context of Alexandria? Could the anapestic foot be grasped at all by the listeners of the time? Does the existence of a pattern that competed with the Attic meter allow us to conclude that quantitative metrics was being treated as old-fashioned—to such an extent that it became a mark of artificiality? Did it testify to a decline of the Greek religious rites? Was the Dionysian rite associated with the same theatricality that infused the Greek language? The last question may be a legitimate one especially in the context of the elusive array of long and short syllables, which was remedied by brachycatalexis and the brevis in longo rule—versification licenses used by the author to save the meter.19 It is a well-known fact that at this point in the history of verse the Greek language was faced with the need to find a support for or an alternative to the moraic system, and indeed was not the only language to be forced to attempt to solve this problem. Similar experiments, which were based on applying the rhythmical conventions of Near Eastern Poetry to quantitative verse, are also to be found in Latin. The litanic hexameter was used either wholly or partially in Ennodius’s paraphrase of Letter 25 by Jerome (the turn of the fifth and sixth centuries), Ad Deum alia precatio by Paulinus of Nola (the fifth century), De laudibus Dei by Dracontius of Carthage (the turn of the fifth and sixth centuries)20 and certain other poems. The later the work, the more certainty we have that a 18 Cf. Torgny Säve-Söderbergh, Studies in the Coptic Manichaean Psalm-Book: Prosody and Mandaean Parallels (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1949): 3ff. 19 Cf. Agnieszka Heszen, “Paideia Klemensa Aleksandryjskiego: Na przykładzie jego ‘Hymnu do Chrystusa Zbawiciela’” [“Clement of Alexandria’s Paideia: On the Example of his ‘Dance of the Savior’”], Symbolae Philologorum Posnaniensium Graecae et Latinae 19 (2009): 130–131. 20 The works are discussed by Elżbieta Chrulska, “Litanic Verse in Latin,” in LV 1: 97–99.

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structure based on two versification systems aims to preserve the moraic system, using the litanic frame as a scaffolding of sorts. It is also a way of maintaining the coherence of verse at a time when prosodic features upholding the ancient meter were no longer audible. A case in point is a verse prayer to Christ composed in the eleventh century. Its author, Alphanus, archbishop of the southern Italian diocese of Salerno, was fluent not only in Greek and Latin, but also became famous for his translations from Arabic. His prayer exemplifies the mixing together of influences from different cultures and literatures. The elegiac distich marks the division into stanzas, which is in line with the rhythmical signals sent by the consistently repeated anaphora and syntactic parallelism: Christe Deus, quem, quidquid amare potest, amat illud,   Sive sit ignorans sive sciens, quod amat; Christe, pater clemens, cui verum non nisi mundos   Noscere perfectum et reperire placet; Christe, sator veri, per quem sunt omnia vera   Et per quem sapiunt omnia, quae sapiunt; Christe, pater clemens, perfectaque summaque vita,   Quo vivit summe, vivere quidquid habet;21 [Christ God, whom whatever can love does love, / Whether it does or does not know what it loves; / Christ, merciful father, whose truth, unless he pleases, / No world shall understand or find perfect. / Christ, the right creator, through whom everything is right / And through whom all who think do think; / Christ, merciful father and both perfect and highest life, / Who lives above everything what is supposed to live;].

However, the Greek and Latin versification map of the first millennium after Christ reveals that similar examples of transposing the litanic pattern onto metrical verse were not particularly common. In theory, litanic verse could be used as a coherence-preserving tool, as shown above; in practice, this hardly ever happened. The explanation seems to lie in the discrepancy between Hebrew and Graeco-Latin attitudes toward literary rhythm, and even—stretching the point further in space and time—between Semitic and European perceptions of poetic structure. The differences in perspective prevented Clement’s experiment on metrical litany from developing into a major trend. At the same time, they did not interrupt the anchoring of litanic verse in European culture—a verse which in national versification systems will always be treated as a transplant from a foreign organism.

21 Alphanus I, “Ad Christum precatio,” in AHMA 50: 330–331.

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2  Litany and Mathematics In the Middle Ages, European literatures began a move toward developing or standardizing those systems of versification which call for a fixed pattern of syllables or accents in consecutive lines or stanzas. Even though such systems are regarded as markedly different from ancient quantitative metrics, the general perception of a poem’s structure did not change, and the lines were still distinguished on the basis of phonetic repeatability. If we adopt this kind of approach toward versification in this study, litanic verse will always seem an unsuccessful verse system or at best a transitional stage in the development of systems which are considered to be more perfect. Therefore, a theoretical description of litanic verse requires a different perspective on European poetry, and in order to reconstruct its paradigm, we shall for a while move beyond the geo-cultural landscape of Europe. What we hope to achieve is not a detailed study of the literature written in Hebrew or Aramaic for its own sake, but for the sake of understanding the different perception of rhythm which was characteristic of these literatures and which found its continuation in the litanic form. It is our contention that we can treat as a cultural whole the rich and varied literary traditions that flourished over the centuries in Sumer, Akkad, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Israel and the areas inhabited by the Medes, Parthians and Aramaeans. From our perspective, the peculiarity of individual nations and the evolution of their art over centuries are not as relevant as the legacy they bequeathed to the Western world. This heritage encompasses, amongst others, a largely coherent and consistent poetics—a poetics that frames their achievements and recapitulates the accomplishments which their descendants found worthy of imitation. The elements of this artistic workshop were passed down to later generations in the litanic form. The Near East tradition of preparing inventories is well known and has been widely examined. Seemingly, it can be viewed in terms of a civilizational phenomenon. Having originated among Sumerian-speaking people, who used lists and registers as early as around 4000 B.C.,22 the tradition reached various Semitic nations, together with its rich repertoire of enumerative genres: cosmological, 22 Major reference works on pre-litanic Sumerian lists are included in Łukasz Toboła, “In principio erat enumeratio: The Origins of Litanic Patterns in the Ancient Near East,” in LV 1: 15–27.

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administrative, legislative, lexicological, mercantile, chronicling and, most importantly, genres connected with theology, liturgy and prayer. Culture-specific litanies can be found in ancient Egypt (the most famous being the Litany of Re, dating from the middle of the second millennium B.C.) and Ugarit. In the Bible, the long enumeration of blessings known as the Hymn of the Three Youths was probably a self-contained unit before it was incorporated into the biblical Book of Daniel.23 A similar yet distinct text named The Eighteen Blessings was an obligatory Jewish prayer, repeated three times a day, at the time of Jesus.24 In the temple of Jerusalem, the recitation of piyyut, composed of a series of calls and rounded off with a collective “Hosanna,” could be heard.25 Also, Psalm 136 is structured like a litany, and it seems likely that this structure applied to other psalms as well, even though the obvious congregational response was omitted in the written version.26 This brings us to the most important composer of Syrian syllabic verse—Ephrem, who showed a predilection for litanic devices. The bulk of his output, produced in the fourth century after Christ, consists of poems in which the leading phrase is either a call to thank God for His blessings, repeated a number of times, or—also frequently repeated—laudation, to express the joy that results from God’s grace which is bestowed on His church. The most important issue at this point is to identify the cultural-linguistic context which spurred the development of the earliest litanies in the Semitic languages. To achieve this, there must be a particular focus on the Mediterranean lands stretching from Antioch to Alexandria, that is, the context in which the Bible was written. The art of Hebrew versification, examined by Robert Lowth in the eighteenth century,27 was thereafter subject to numerous reconstructive

23 Cf. Łukasz Toboła, “Looking for the Origins of Biblical Litanies: The Hymn of the Three Youths in Daniel 3:52–90deut,” in LV 1: 30. 24 Cf. Jan Józef Janicki, Kultury antyczne w liturgii chrześcijańskiej [Ancient Cultures in the Christian Liturgy], (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2003): 167–168. 25 Cf. Joseph Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977): 146–148. 26 Cf. Łukasz Toboła, “Three Short Litany-Like Texts from Ugarit: Translation and Commentary,” in LV 1: 43. 27 Cf. Robert Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebræorum: Prælectiones Academicæ (Oxford: Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1753).

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hypotheses,28 none of which were widely accepted as valid or true.29 Nevertheless, a conviction remains that the rhythm of biblical poetry was largely based on sentence structure,30 and that the poetics of the Old Testament hymn offered a set of devices aimed at highlighting individual words, word-pairs31 or formulas32 in the context of the whole work. Those listening to a psalm were able to recognize the syntactic parallelism through knowing where in a sentence a given element appears.33 This does not mean, however, that Hebrew versification was based solely on the number of words in the hemistichs, which would suggest the form of the accentual verse. Still, the rhythm based on an equal number of words within a given phrase was, for instance, at the core of the previously mentioned piyyut prayer.34 Leaving aside the system of versification used in biblical poetry, let us focus on numerical symbolism, which seems more relevant in this context. Regardless of the cause-and-effect relation, the autonomy of the word in

28 An important classical work for our research is George Buchanan Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry Considered with Special Reference to the Criticism and Interpretation of the Old Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1915), especially chapters two (“Parallelism: a Restatement”) and three (“Parallelism and Rhythm in the Book of Lamentations”): 37–120. Gray’s theory was widely commented on by David Noel Freedman, “Prolegomenon to G.B. Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry,” in Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980): 23–50. 29 Cf. the survey of theories in Donn Walter Leatherman, An Analysis of Four Current Theories of Hebrew Verse Structure, PhD thesis, McGill University (Montreal, 1998). Available at: http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca/R (accessed September 22, 2015). 30 Cf. Terence Collins, Line-Forms in Hebrew Poetry: A grammatical approach to the stylistic study of the Hebrew Prophets (Roma: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1978): passim. 31 Cf. Yitsḥaḳ Avishur, Stylistic Studies of Word-Pairs in Biblical and Ancient Semitic Literature (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker, 1984); Wilfred G.E. Watson, “Word-Pairs,” in Traditional Techniques in Classical Hebrew Verse (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1994): 262–312. 32 Cf. Robert C. Culley, Oral Formulaic Language in the Biblical Psalms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967): passim. 33 On Hebrew parallelism cf. James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Abraham Mariaselvam, “Parallelism,” in The Song of Songs and Ancient Tamil Love Poems: Poetry and Symbolism (Roma: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1988): 51–56; Wilfred G.E. Watson, “Half-Line (Internal) Parallelism,” “Gender-Matched Parallelism,” “Other Types of Parallelism,” in Traditional Techniques…, 104–261; Luis Alonso Schökel, “Parallelism,” in A Manual of Hebrew Poetics, trans. Idem and Adrian Graffy (Roma: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 2000): 48–63. 34 Cf. Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud…, 140.

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a biblical verse corresponds with the respect paid in the Hebrew tradition to the numerical value of a letter, syllable, word or verse in the context of the whole sentence, pericope, hymn or book. In recent decades, researchers have done much to decipher and comprehend this numerical symbolism. The example which speaks most to the imagination comes from Ecclesiastes and was presented by Addison G. Wright.35 The symbolic value of the numbers assigned to the letters used in the well-known leitmotif of the book—“vanity of vanities, all is vanity”—is 216, which is the result of multiplying 6 × 6 × 6. The whole book contains 216 verses, excluding the epilogue which was a later addition (and which not unsurprisingly also contains six verses). However, from our point of view, what is even more significant than the number of verses is the number of individual words. As noted by Umberto Cassuto, the first verse of the Book of Genesis is composed of seven words, the second of fourteen (two times seven), then follow the six days of creation and day seven, which is described in thirty-five words—again a multiple of seven. Seven is also the central convention behind the distribution of individual words in this pericope. In the whole initial description of the Creation, the word God is used thirty-five times (7 × 5) and the words heavens and earth each twenty-one times (7 × 3). All three are introduced in the first verse of seven words.36 The examination of the so-called pivotal words, conducted by Jacob Bazak and Casper Labuschagne, is also very instructive,37 as it concerns not only words, but also phrases and formulas situated in the center of a given text. Left and right they are surrounded by an equal, and not accidental, number of words or syllables. In this way, pivotal words not only indicate the exact center of the hymn, but also serve as an anchor point—it is from this point that the rays which make up the frame of the whole work proceed. It is enough to quote a classic example from Jacob Bazak’s study. The numerical value assigned to the name of God is the sum of four constitutive letters: y (10) + h (5) + w (6) + h (5), which adds up to twenty-six. According to the scholar, the same number is hidden behind the structure of Psalm 92. The psalm is composed of an opening verse, followed by fifteen verses in the main body, comprising 108 words altogether. The medial and also the shortest verse, situated between the first and the last seven verses, 35 Cf. Addison G. Wright, “The Riddle of the Sphinx Revisited: Numerical Patterns in the Book of Qoheleth,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 42 (1980): 38–51. 36 Cf. Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961), vol. 1 (From Adam to Noah): 14–15. 37 A review of the research can be found in: Pieter van der Lugt, Cantos and Strophes in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 2010), vol. 2 (Psalms 42–89): 505–508.

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contains four pivotal words (“But you are exalted, O Lord, for all time”), including the Tetragrammaton. The remaining 104 words of the psalm are a fourfold multiplication of the number twenty-six: it is repeated twice before and twice after the central acclamation.38 In biblical poetry, the place of pivotal words in a given song and the role they play in the overall structure can be inferred on the basis of their semantics. As observed by Pieter van der Lugt, in the Book of Psalms alone the pivotal word refers directly to counting on more than a few occasions.39 Among a number of other interesting lexemes, the very heart of the song presents traditional allegories pointing to the center, such as the “womb” or “eye.”40 With time, the studies on pivotal words moved beyond the Hebrew Bible and were extended to the New Testament. In New Testament passages, the even, and not accidental, number of words on both sides of the center proves that a given pericope was not arbitrarily singled out by either the editors or commentators, but that it corresponds to the internal boundaries within a text—boundaries which were inscribed in the Gospel, or even purposefully calculated by the evangelist. The extensiveness of the method, used in all probability in Hebrew and Greek texts, seems to give credence to two hypotheses which are not mutually exclusive: the first postulates that an advanced numerical perception of a literary text was widespread in Mediterranean Antiquity; the second, that New Testament writers, although composing in the Greek manner, thought in a Semitic way. It is not our task to settle the dispute, but to draw attention to the way the biblical author and his contemporary readers approached the text. The words must have been perceived as units which should be counted because this allows the individual value of certain texts to be recognized. Accordingly, a single word, correctly identified by the reader, could determine the semantic tone of the whole: it constituted a prerequisite to recognizing not only the compositional, but also the semantic coherence. The respect and reverence paid to a single word will become an important factor in the rhythm of the Christian litany, although the role of rhythm will not be restricted to either aesthetic or utilitarian purposes. Indeed, its popularity does not result from its mnemonic value or its importance as a means of building a congregation; neither does it result from its pastoral or apologetic benefits. Even if these are considered together, such factors do not account for the popularity 38 Cf. Jacob Bazak, “Numerical Devices in Biblical Poetry,” Vetus Testamentum 38 (1988), no. 3: 335. 39 Cf. van der Lugt, Cantos and Strophes…, 547ff. 40 Cf. Idem, 544–545.

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of litanic rhythm. The building blocks of the litanic text are distinctive components—words and formulas. And this kind of rhythm could only come into being in surroundings which give precedence to words and formulas over other aspects of the text, sometimes to such an extent that the compositional and semantic weight of the whole seems to rest solely on such a unit. At this point, it is difficult to draw a line between theo-logy and verso-logy. The former will regard the phenomenon as a fusion of spirituality and aesthetics—a fusion which results not so much in the religion of the book as the religion of the word. The latter will consider it a fusion of aesthetics and spirituality, which has a particular bearing on the repertoire of versification forms and probably very old roots. It cannot be ruled out that the greater autonomy of words and phrases mirrors the very same philosophy of language which lay behind the tradition of ideographic writing. The postulate that the greatest possible amount of knowledge should be inferred from one term was considered by Johann Gottfried Herder to be the source of scientific thinking in his pioneering studies on Near East Antiquity.41 When a son is born to the prophet Hosea, God commands that the child should be named Jezreel, saying: “for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel” (Hosea 1:4). The process of composition reveals a deductive order, in which a single word develops into a story. It stands in direct opposition to inductive reasoning, prevalent in both ancient and modern European poetry, in which the poet first chooses a particular metrical scheme—pentameter or alexandrine—and then fills it with words that fit, occasionally subjecting it to certain transformations.42 In this sequence of actions, the word becomes a subordinate and replaceable element. It can be replaced by any other word as long as it fits the framework. In biblical poetry and the litany, the situation is slightly different: even though both are based on certain melodic conventions, this has never led to the subordination of the word. In a biblical text, the word could not be replaced as it formed the basis of a given rhythm and not infrequently even the compositional center of the whole poetic utterance. It is mainly for this reason that the theory of verse which belongs to the European tradition could never fully grasp Hebrew versification.

41 Cf. Johann Gottfried Herder, “Of the Origin and Essential Character of Hebrew Poetry,” in The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, trans. James Marsh (Burlington: Edward Smith, 1833): 15–16, 22–23. 42 Cf. Morris Halle and Samuel Jay Keyser, “A Theory of Meter,” in English Stress: Its Forms, Its Growth, and Its Role in Verse (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).

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The discrepancy between these two—in a manner of speaking—philosophies of rhythm has another far-reaching effect. It leads to an assumption that European litanic verse may have derived from biblical or near biblical prototypes, which can be classified as songs, as well as from those which appear to have been written in prose. European poetry was inspired by the literature of the Near East, but it did not assimilate it thoroughly, for a thorough assimilation would imply investigating the philosophical basis of its poetics. The appropriation of Near East poetry happened within the limitations of European literature and—to a certain degree—also within its rules. This explains why the origins of litanic verse should be discussed from two perspectives: taking into account both the sources classified as songs and the texts operating as rhetoric speech.

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3  The Origins of Litanic Verse in Song How psalms and biblical canticles were sung evolved over the ages. However, let us focus on one of the approaches which was popular in the first centuries after Christ and placed an emphasis on the structure of the biblical verse by means of a division into different voices. We can distinguish two major variants: the calland-response song and the song with a refrain, which correspond to two rhythmical aspects of the text that should be given precedence within this tradition, namely the inter-verse parallelism and the autonomy of a keyword. The first variant refers to inter-verse parallelism. This was given expression in antiphonal or alternate singing, in which two choirs, male and female or a soloist and congregation, between them share hemistichs.43 According to the testimony of Basil the Great, this was a custom common among all the Semitic nations.44 As shown in the book of Coptic psalms, dividing the song between the cantor and the congregation was also an important aspect of the Manichaean tradition.45 The second musical variant refers to the autonomy of a keyword or phrase. This was brought out in the refrain, which was common in the different religious groups of the Near East. In Christian, Manichaean and Mandaean literature the responsorial division of the song into a refrain and a second voice was subject to different artistic interpretations, which must have been connected with the distribution of voices in the musical space—a distribution which can be analyzed in terms of a foreground–background or before–after relation. The European reader, who tends to treat the refrain merely as an addition, is faced with a reversal of the convention in certain Manichaean songs. Indeed, there is a group of hymns which are characterized by such high frequency of repetitions that the refrain is no longer a phrase interrupting the main thread of the narrative, but instead moves into the foreground and dominates the whole prayer. However, even in poems in which the refrain does not gain such a prominent position, but remains in the background subordinated to the second voice, its place in the musical 43 Cf. Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West (New York: Norton, 1943): 92–93. 44 Cf. Ibid., 95. 45 Cf. Säve-Söderbergh, Studies in the Coptic Manichaean Psalm-Book… 41. Christopher J. Brunner, “Liturgical Chant and Hymnody Among the Manicheans of Central Asia,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 130 (1980): 344. Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975): 161.

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space is still subject to adjustment and can interrupt the main thread of the song in different ways. Situated between two stanzas, the refrain seems to occupy an in-between place, whereas in fact, it might belong to either the preceding or the following stanza. Thus, the second voice, which guides the thought, may lead into the refrain, as for instance in the biblical Psalm 136 with the refrain “For His mercy endureth for ever” or in the Manichaean Psalm 228 with the refrain “Implore Him all.”46 However, the second voice may also lead out of the refrain, as is suggested in the Mandaean prayer known as “In the name of the great life.” In the latter case, each refrain, “Hear me,” is followed by a short antonomastic prayer.47 As can be seen, the refrain which is seemingly an uncomplicated and universal phenomenon, in fact has different functions, depending on its position within the musical space in which the song is performed, rather than its position within the text itself. This simple distinction is further complicated by the different roles the refrain plays in the religious systems of various cultures. With respect to Near East poetry, we can distinguish two characteristic roles. The first role of the refrain is to emphasize a word or phrase behind which is a hidden mystical conundrum or which is the subject of ritual initiation. One of the most popular repetitive formulas was the Trishagion, which consists in a threefold repetition of the same word—“Holy.” This acclamation, evoking the angelic song in Isaiah 6:3, was also used in a Jewish prayer known as Qedushah48 and in a system of beliefs based on the myth of Melchizedek.49 From the very beginning, it was also incorporated into Christian prayer, as can be noted in the Apostolic Constitutions 7:35,50 and echoed in the song Sanctus in the Eucharistic

46 Cf. “Psalm 228,” trans. Charles R.C. Allberry, in Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Alfred D. Lee (London: Routledge, 2000): 180. 47 Cf. Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans, ed. Ethel Stefana Drower (Leiden: Brill, 1959): 89. The prayer was previously published in German by Mark Lidzbarski in Mandäische Liturgien (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1920): 147. 48 Cf. Wout Jacques van Bekkum, “Anti-Christian Polemics in Hebrew Liturgical Poetry (Piyyut) of the Sixth and Seventh Centuries,” in Early Christian Poetry. A Collection of Essays, eds. Jan den Boeft and Anton Hilhorst (Brill: Leiden, 1993): 299. 49 Birger A. Pearson, “Introduction to IX, I: Melchizedek,” in The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices (Leiden: Brill, 2000), vol. 5: 26; Idem, “Baptism in Melchizedek,” in Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, eds. David Hellholm, Tor Vegge, Øyvind Norderval, and Christer Hellholm (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011): 135–137. 50 Cf.  Birger A Pearson, “Jewish Elements in Corpus Hermeticum I (Poimandres),” in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions: Presented to Gilles Quispel on the

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Liturgy.51 The worshippers of Hermes Trismegistos, as evidenced in the Poimandres hymn, as well as the Manicheans,52 repeated the word “holy” more than merely three times, so that it became transformed into an anaphora of litanic addresses recited in series. This seems to be the source of the anaphora in the Litany of the Saints. The most spectacular rendition of this acclamation can be seen in a poetic homily dating from the fifth century that was composed by Isaac of Antioch.53 As described in this work, the author once visited a temple, which was filled with a crowd of onlookers. Intrigued, he tried to merge with the crowd when suddenly he heard a parrot singing a Trishagion. Delighted, he decided to capture the moment in a poem, in which a bird repeats the words “Holy, holy God” several dozen times, and with each repetition a short sentence related to the Passion is added. Isaac’s homily not only provides an insight into how the earliest litanic texts were recited and treated—seemingly with a pinch of salt if the ritual resembled the squawking of a parrot. It also anchors the Trishagion within laments, for the work combines two leading threads: one concerns the holiness of God and the other the Cross. Before the author gives a voice to the parrot, he himself “gives a litany of the Cross as fire, source, bridge, stove, tree, wall, tower, ladder, wing, door, and key.”54 Isaac’s fusion of the two threads, namely the holiness and the Cross, adds to the Nestorian controversy surrounding God’s divinity and humanity, as reflected in the experience of the Passion. The truth concerning the hypostatic union is not

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Occasion of His 65th Birthday, eds. Raymond van den Broeck and Maarten J. Vermaseren (Leiden: Brill, 1981): 26. Cf. Pierre-Marie Gy, “Le Sanctus romain et les anaphores orientales,” in Mélanges liturgiques offerts au R. P dom Bernard Botte (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont César, 1972): 167–174; Bryan D. Spinks, The Sanctus in the Eucharistic Prayer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991): 5–7. As exemplified by the “Praise of the Lesser Ones,” preserved in the Parthian language. Cf. Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, “The Fair Form, the Hideous Form and the Transformed Form: On the Form Principle in Manichaeism,” in Studies in Manichaean Literature and Art, eds. Manfred Heuser and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit (Brill: Leiden, 1998): 152. The analysis conducted here is based on a Latin translation, published in the nineteenth century, which preserves the structure of the Syrian original as closely as possible. Cf. Isaac of Antioch, “Carmen de avi illa, quae antiochiae trisagion cantavit,” in Opera Omnia, trans. Gustavus Bickell (Gissae: Sumtibus J. Rickeri, 1873): 1. Other Syrian works, whose rhythm and semantics have not been examined to date, were subject to a similar approach in our analysis. Michel van Esbroeck, “The Memra on the Parrot by Isaac of Antioch,” Journal of Theological Studies 47 (1996), no. 2: 471.

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the subject of theological preaching in the homily, but the center around which the poetic meditation revolves. In the background to the meditation are words from the biblical Letter to the Hebrews55 in which the glory of God is simultaneously compared to the greatness of Melchisedek and derived from the Passion: So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedek. (Hebrews 5:5–10)

Isaac seems to understand why the biblical author combined these two threads in a single pericope. The celebratory Trishagion in his poem is placed next to a litany of antonomasias for the Cross, which is referred to as either a zither or a lyre on which a sweet song was played. Through his repetitive iteration of the apostrophe to the Cross, the author of the homily achieves the sense of “strong crying and tears,” which were also evoked in Hebrews. Isaac does not attempt to dress the scene of the Crucifixion in poetic garb. It was Christ himself who first sang out the litanic “supplications” on the Cross, and the story of the parrot could be seen in terms of a miracle, for the refrain movingly recited by a bird without rational thought opened the listeners’ ears to Jesus’s cry issued on the Cross at the moment mankind was redeemed. The homily abounds in anaphoras and parallelisms, which recall the scene. Their aim is to let the readers hear Jesus’s lament and then hear the choir of angels and all of creation sing in praise of God for His humility. The second tendency observed in Near East literature turns the refrain into the center around which the semantic value of the apostrophe is concentrated. The responsorial voice not only responds to the main voice, but also mirrors the condition of man, who plays two parts. In the refrains which form a supplication or deprecation, the voice is requesting or beseeching, respectively. Its presence in the prayer of the Mandaeans mentioned above is not surprising as their central rite was a baptismal ablution, recalling that administered by John the Baptist in the Jordan. The second part, however, appears more interesting, as it is connected with acclamatory and laudatory works, whose refrains call upon man himself to respond to God. The text elicits the response, at the same time demonstrating

55 Cf. Ibid. 470.

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the simple fact of responding. In this way, it is not only man who waits in expectation for God’s reaction to prayer, as God too longs for man’s response. Man’s duty is to join the whole of mankind in response to God’s voice, which is what the refrain seems to underline. A good example of this theological view is the “Dance of the Savior,” included in the Apocryphal Acts of John, which are conventionally connected with the Gnostic movement. The work was composed in the third century in either Egypt or Syria. It contains a hymn, sung by Jesus, together with His disciples, during the Last Supper, which was mentioned in passing by Matthew 26:30. In the Acts of John, before the hymn begins, Jesus instructs His disciples to respond to His voice with the word “Amen.” What follows is a long series of calls, to which the disciples respond twenty-eight times. The number of repetitions is not accidental and can be interpreted in two different ways. Twenty-eight may be the result of multiplying 4 × 7, as appears in Chapter Five of Revelation.56 But the number can also be divided into two cycles of seven pairs, for after the fourteenth repetition of “Amen” we hear the words: “Ὀγδοὰς μία ἡμῖν συμψάλλει”57 (The eight [Egyptian gods] sing praise with us). It is worth remembering that in Antiquity the number twenty-eight was perceived as perfect, for it is equal to the sum of its dividers. Our analysis of the refrain does not cover all its types and roles; only those which pave the way for the litanic responsorial phrase have been considered, namely, the meditative refrain, which stresses the key formula and has a tendency to move into the foreground and subordinate significant portions of text, and the refrain which stresses the apostrophe—such functions of the refrain will return in the form of calls such as “Have mercy” and “Pray for us,” etc. Yet, apart from 56 In Revelation 5, the number seven is first mentioned with reference to a scroll sealed with seven seals (5:1). It may be opened only by the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes which represent “the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (5:6). The Lamb receives seven privileges: “power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise” (5:12). The number seven is intertwined with the number four. With his blood the Lamb purchased for God people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9). The Lamb is worshipped by the four realms, i.e., “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea” with the following four acclamations: “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power” (5:13). In Chapter 5, four beasts as well as four and twenty elders appear, altogether 28 creatures, which is again the result of multiplying our two central numbers (4 × 7). 57 Acta Ioannis 95, in Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, eds. Richard A. Lipsius and Maximilian Bonnet (Lipsiae: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1898), vol. II 1: 198.

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the responsorial part, they will also leave traces of themselves in other characteristic elements of the litany. In fact, the structure of the whole litanic address—i.e., the phrase which often begins with an anaphora, is constructed around parallelism and crowned with a responsorial affirmation—shows an awareness of an ongoing dialogue. It places man in the role of one who is allowed to beseech God and who waits for His response, as well as one who responds to God. As the opportunity to meet the Creator is neither simple nor immediately obvious, the faithful were initiated into prayer and the process of structured guidance, which leads them step by step, may have been mirrored in the versification. The structure of the litanic call unfolds logically by gradually limiting the number of words. Indeed, one of its prototypes may have been a two-tiered refrain, which seemed to appear in early Syrian Christian poetry. Ephrem the Syrian’s Madrasha 16, sung at Christmas, displays this kind of unusual structure. It is based on the repetition of “Glory to all of Thee from all of us,” which is sung twice between stanzas. Each stanza of the hymn is additionally closed off by an anaphora on “Blessed is,” which can also be treated as a refrain, albeit situated on a lower level. We can thus assume that each stanza was meant to move toward an internal refrain, which would respond to the content and prepare the way for an “upper,” external refrain to take up the dialogue with the internal refrain: Glory to all of Thee from all of us. Glory to all of Thee from all of us. It is a great marvel that the Son, dwelt wholly in a body;—abode therein wholly and it sufficed for Him; dwelt therein though not bounded thereby.—His Will was wholly therein; His bounds reached wholly to His Father.—Who is sufficient to tell, how though He dwelt wholly in a body.—He likewise dwelt wholly in all? Blessed is He Who though without bounds was bounded! Glory to all of Thee from all of us. Glory to all of Thee from all of us. Thy Majesty is concealed from us; Thy Grace is revealed before us.—I will be silent, O Lord of Thy Majesty; and I will tell of Thy grace.—Thy grace clove to Thee, and bowed Thee down to our vileness:—Thy grace made Thee a babe; Thy grace made Thee man:— it straitened, it enlarged, Thy Majesty. Blessed be the might that became little and became great! Glory to all of Thee from all of us. Glory to all of Thee from all of us.58

58 Ephrem the Syrian, “Hymn 16,” trans. Edward Johnston, in NPNF II 13: 255. For another English translation cf. Hymns, trans. Kathleen E. McVey (New York: Paulist

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The cited song, which was originally composed of fourteen eight-line stanzas followed by an internal refrain of one line, by no means belongs to the longest of Ephrem’s songs. However, the degree of its complexity seems to indicate that the performance of the madrasha took the form of a separate celebration which might have taken not several but many minutes to sing. On the one hand, the introduction of a two-tiered refrain brings into the foreground the shortest and syntactically simplest phrases, increasing the ratio of repeatable elements. On the other hand, it allows the possibility of incorporating—between the repetitions of the refrains— stanzas that are syntactically complicated and extensive. It might be said that the story with its length and richness is comprehensible to the listeners precisely due to the fact that it is separated by the refrains. It is worth noting that the internal and external refrains differ in terms of form as if they were supposed to be sung by different groups of people—those who do not need access to the transcript of the song, for they repeat the same acclamation, and those who are able to sing the different variants of the line which closes the stanza. Taking into account such structural complexity, Sebastian Brock’s opinion that “the stanzas were probably sung by soloists, while a fixed response was provided by a choir after each stanza”59 can be treated as a possible, rather than the actual, manner in which Madrasha 16 was performed, which must have been more sophisticated. Moving from stanza to internal refrain and from internal refrain to external refrain, the singers go through different stages of simplifying the prayer. Even though the scope of the main text is extensive, what matters in the end is the tendency to move toward simplicity. The words in the text are not assigned equal weight, and the essence of the song is captured in the external refrain. This does not stand in opposition to the narrative episodes but is based on the content abstracted from them. The reasoning that the poet employs can be called a “mathematical method,” to use a term that functioned within the Aristotelian tradition. Raoul Mortley observes that the method was popular among the Church Fathers: “When Clement of Alexandria recommends the way of abstraction, he uses the traditional mathematical model: we begin by abstracting the surface, and we are left with the line; we abstract the line, and we are left with the point.”60 Transplanted onto the field of Press, 1989): 187–188. The analysis of this and the following hymns by Ephrem was conducted on the basis of their translations into Latin and English. For the Syrian original and the Latin translation, cf. Hymni de Nativitate Christi in Carne III, in Hymni et Sermones, ed. Thomas J. Lamy (Mechliniæ: Dessain, 1886), vol. 2: 461–464. 59 Brock, “Syriac and Greek Hymnography…,” 78. 60 Raoul Mortley, “The Fundamentals of the Via Negativa,” American Journal of Philology 103 (1982), no. 4: 438.

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theology, this pattern of reasoning—according to the scholar—yields the following result: “in the face of a concept of sensible reality which saw it as a composite structure, evolving into an ever more massive state by the accumulation of layers, the method of abstraction which is borrowed from the mathematicians, seeks to undo the process of accumulation by removing the accretions until the continuous is found.”61 It seems that Ephrem the Syrian’s two-tiered refrains show the process of abstraction at work. Individual compositional parts of the text differ in terms of importance, with the greatest importance assigned to the external refrain, in which reason is detached from the level of sensual variety. Accordingly, the performers of the given parts also have different degrees of importance. Even if the soloist singing the main part can be called the leader, he does not occupy the highest position in the congregation: this belongs to the members of the congregation who repeat the external refrain and in whose choral performance the different voices are unified and reduced to the simplicity of repetition. The same rule applies when the relation between the main text and the two refrains is reversed. Madrasha 16 can be viewed as belonging to the group of poems mentioned above, in which the stanza leads to an acclamatory formula sung as refrain immediately following the stanza. Ephrem, however, also authored a hymn (Madrasha 18) in which it is the two-tiered refrain that leads to the stanza: Praise be to Him Who sent Him! Praise be to Him Who sent Him! Blessed art thou, O Church, that in thy festivals,—the Watchers rejoice amid thy festivity!—for one night the Watchers gave praise,—on the earth which withheld and refused praise.—Blessed thy voices that have been sown and reaped,—and in Heaven stored up in garners!—Thy mouth is a censer, and thy voices as perfumes, breathing vapour in thy festivals. Praise be to Him Who sent Him! Praise be to Him Who sent Him! Blessed art thou, O Church, that all oblations,—are brought unto thee in this feast.—The Magi once among traitors, offered them to the Truth.—Blessed thy abode that He bowed Himself and dwelt therein, Son of the King Who is worshipped with gifts!—Gold from the West, and spices from the East,—are offered in Thy Festivals. Praise be to Him Who sent Him! Praise be to Him Who sent Him!62

61 Ibid. 62 Ephrem, “Hymn 18,” trans. Edward Johnston, in NPNF II 13: 259. For another English translation cf. Hymns…, 200. For the Syrian original and the Latin translation, cf. Hymni de Nativitate… V, 483–486.

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Instinctively, the modern reader would probably treat the phrase “Blessed art thou, O Church” as an anaphora rather than the refrain and only readers familiar with hymns such as Madrasha 16 will become aware of the role these words play in the text. Madrasha 16 created the impression of an upward movement, starting with the main text and moving in steps to the simplicity of the refrains. In Madrasha 18, quoted above, the impression the reader gets is exactly the opposite as a downward movement leads us from the refrains, which play a primary role, to the main text that is gradually emerging from beneath them. In this way, the three-tiered pattern has been reversed, but not reduced. Thanks to this, the stanza does not immediately become an expansion on or an interpretation of the  paradoxical external refrain, which—similarly to Madrasha 16—expresses the unity of thought through its continuous repetition. Between the external refrain and the main text there is a medial stadium, which combines the functions of repetition and variation. Therefore, the listener is not torn between two extremes—between what is stable and what is changeable, or between two voices divided by a chasm. From the level of the paradoxical call “Praise be to Him Who sent Him!”—which revolves around the mystery of God in three Persons—the text leads us gradually to the level on which we can consider the events of salvation, which can be described and traced, but not exhausted. The stanzaic composition of Ephrem’s madrashas, encompassing the main text and the internal and external refrains, was not the only way in which the Syrian authors tried to achieve a multi-tiered stratification. Eastern Christianity was also able to use another, alternative method which yielded similar results, but by different means. A clear example is offered by a hymn ascribed to Simeon Barsaba, who in Ephrem’s days held the office of Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Latin translation of the poem reads: Laus tibi, Domine, qui nos proprio motu in principio creasti. Laus tibi, Domine, qui nos tuam imaginem viventem et similitudinem vocasti. Laus tibi, Domine, qui nos dono libertatis et intellectus ditasti. Laus tibi, Pater juste, cuius amor nos creare dignatus est. Laus tibi, Fili sancte, qui nostram carnem indutus nos redemisti. Laus tibi, Spiritus vive, qui nos tuis charismatibus ditasti.63

63 Simeon Barsaba, “Hymni et Antiphonae quae Tribuntur,” in Patrologia Syriaca, eds. Michael Kmosko et al. (Paris: Firmin-Didot et Socii, 1907), vol. I 2: 1049. The analysis of the poem was based on its Latin translation, which preserves the structure of the Syrian original as closely as possible.

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The poem, whose initial lines are quoted above, moves the stratification from the sphere of extended stanzaic construction, which was the case in the two previous examples, to the sphere of a relatively short, single beseeching call. Whether or not Barsaba and Ephrem drew upon each other’s versification is not relevant here. Instead, let us focus on certain assertions which result from a comparison of their poetry. What we observe is that in Barsaba’s poem, the place of the external refrain is taken by an anaphora on “Laus tibi,” which is repeated twelve times, a number which is not deprived of symbolic meaning. Immediately following are the names of God: they appear in a sequence similar to an internal refrain. The most frequently recurring phrase is the antonomasia “Domine”: in only three of the lines quoted is it replaced by other names of God. The remaining space is filled with relative clauses, in which the main text unfolds. The comparison between Simeon Barsaba’s and Ephrem’s hymns shows that the dialogue with God is perceived in terms of climbing a ladder. It leads in one of two possible directions—either upward, from the level of a lexically and syntactically varied utterance toward a greater simplification of the text—or downward, from the level in which the key phrase is repeated down the ladder to where it is expanded, varied and commented upon. This approach, which treats the text as a multi-tiered structure, can be applied to various compositional forms: songs with two-tiered refrains, such as those by Ephrem, as well as prayers resembling a church litany, such as those by Simeon. In both cases, however, stratification occurs under the same conditions: the text needs to be treated as a series of units which in due course are abstracted from the text. On the one hand, they then assert the fact they belong to the text, drawing attention to the repetitive scheme that does not allow for any divergence and in this way enhances the unity of the whole. On the other hand—yet still using the same poetic means—they aspire to a formal and semantic isolation. The same versification devices that here increase textual coherence determine the abstraction of individual portions of text: they loosen their connection with the context and single them out—if only for a while—as objects worth contemplating individually. In this way, the litany provides almost laboratory conditions for understanding that the textual unit becomes autotelic when the opposition between its self-sufficiency and its dependency on the surroundings is sharpened. Only those portions of text with strongly marked boundaries and equally strong connections with the remaining portions can form the basis for the construction of a conceptual pyramid in the singers’ consciousness. Hemistichs, lines and stanzas, as well as sequences of stanzas and refrains, not only constitute different spans and measures in the text, but they also correspond to the musical stratification, in which different motifs form phrases, phrases periods and periods sentences. 54

In litany, lines are not only uttered, but counted out and measured. The text is presented to the listener in portions and doses. Words, phrases and stanzas are subject to continual calculation; they themselves encourage the listeners to count them. As has already been said, Syrian poets did not invent this approach, but merely developed or reformulated the patterns adopted from earlier writers. In Ephrem’s poetry, the numerical structure of the verse and its modular composition was achieved by means of “the acrostic, either alphabetic, or spelling out the author’s name”64—a phenomenon known from both biblical poetry65 and from its extensive presence “in Iranian and Central Asian Manichean liturgy.”66 It was also relatively well received in European poetry and “was enthusiastically adopted by Hiberno-Latin hymnodists,”67 in the form of—amongst others—an Irish hymn, Altus Prosator from the second half of the seventh century and a few songs from the Antiphonary of Bangor. It seems that a similar role to the acrostic was played by the method of ordering stanzas according to the thirty years of Christ’s life, enumerated and described in Hymn on Nativity 13 by Ephrem.68 Both compositional rules—the acrostic and the internalized ordering of stanzas—prove that Syrian poetry was not only endowed with rhythm based on a fixed number of syllables, but also with numerical properties which lay at its core and which it proudly demonstrated.

64 65 66 67

Brock, “Syriac and Greek Hymnography…,” 78. Cf. Freedman, “Acrostics and metrics in Hebrew Poetry…,” passim. Ch. Brunner, “Liturgical Chant and Hymnody Among the Manicheans…,” 348. Stevenson, “Altus Prosator…,” 342. The scholar cites as examples the works by Augustine, Venantius Fortunatus, Hilary of Poitiers as well as the Irish works mentioned above. 68 Cf. Ephrem, “Hymn 13,” trans. John Brande Morris, in NPNF II 13: 247–250. For another English translation cf. Hymns…, 159–165.

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4  The Origins of Litanic Verse in Prose The multi-tiered refrain, which was used to stress the key phrase and establish a dialogue with the main text, together with the numerological approach to stanzas, contributed to a poetic tradition which was passed on to the litany. The litany, however, does not merely represent a lyrical dimension of literature, for it can as well be related to ancient prose. Its ambiguous or unclear descent is a consequence of the complex circumstances within which it came into being. Firstly, a specific period in European history—approximately the second century onward for Greek and the third century onward for Latin—saw ancient forms replaced by new forms. Old garments were cast off, and a new order was being established. What is particularly important is that in the same period the language itself—whether Greek or Latin—rebelled against those who attempted to continue the metrical tradition in literature. Secondly, litanic verse developed at a crossroads of contradictory tendencies resulting from the general principles of Hebrew versification, which were mostly focused on syntax, and from the inclinations of European poetry, which have always searched for rhythm in phonetic or phonological equivalences. The tension between both tendencies has never been overcome. The litany entered Latin poetry at the same historical moment as rhyme. Until then, both phenomena, namely litany and rhyme, had developed in a similar way, yet their subsequent fate proved to be different in each case. The early medieval hymns relatively quickly took the form of rhymed octosyllabic verse, whereas litany found its privileged place in the prose prayers. With regard to poetry, however, litanic verse stopped halfway along its path to a stable verse pattern, never reaching the stage in which it would have a different system of versification with its own line of development and with a degree of independence from other national verse systems. It is of interest to trace the reasons behind this extraordinary situation. Verse studies have always tended to underestimate the rhythmical pattern of the Gospels. The probable reason for this is the widely held, but unjustified, assumption that the work was designed to fulfill a utilitarian purpose, that is, to announce the new faith by means of the relatively unsophisticated Greek language. Matthew, Mark and John are commonly thought of as ordinary men and, thus, by no means outstanding representatives of the Jewish society of the time. According to the image many have of the evangelists, their humble origins and lack of education, at least by Roman standards, excluded the possibility of embellishing the text with a melodic coloring. 57

Yet, as has been noted above, the Gospels share with the Hebrew Bible a way of understanding rhythm and a tendency to autonomize the word. While the most recognizable litanic enumeration in the New Testament is probably the list of beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew—a pericope which will be discussed in Part II of this book—it seems more relevant at this juncture to concentrate on the Gospel of Mark and its litanic components, for although they are less discernible, they are more interesting from a rhythmical point of view. Mark, the writer of the text, appears to be an important figure and a secret promoter of the Christian litany at the earliest stages of its development. The fact that the history of the litany was from the beginning connected with Mark is testified by several thought-provoking and coincidental events. First of all, Roman supplicatory processions called litaniae maiores were organized on April  25, a date which was later established as Mark’s feast day. Second, soon after the Venetians had stolen from Alexandria what they alleged to be the body of Mark—an event which allowed their city to become the second capital of his cult—Venice became the center from which the rays of Marian litanies radiated. These and other events may certainly be a matter of chance. However, it cannot be excluded that those who first heard his book saw Mark as an author who attached particular importance to the textual rhythm. Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the four Gospels if only in terms of its length. It is characterized by a concise phraseology which differs markedly from Luke’s long-winded style and John’s extensive monologues, and is close to fettered speech. It may be said that the work of Mark is less of a narrative about Jesus’s acts than a ritual poem in His honor. This is the conclusion which can be drawn from David K. Louder’s thorough analysis of the Gospel.69 Louder put forward a thesis that the key formal feature in Mark’s work is quaint repeatability which differs considerably from classical prose. It is not based on quantitative units which bring forth the melody of the text, but on recurrent structural elements characteristic of Babylonian, Ugaritic and Egyptian poetry, such as parallelism, anaphora and occasionally homoeoteleuton. Mark seems to have completely mastered their use, for he was able to increase or decrease the degree of their presence in his text. He makes sparing use of them, but only up to a point. When the narration reaches the moment at which the Passion is recalled, their frequency increases and the text slowly starts to resemble a litany.

69 Cf. David K. Louder, Mark’s Poem of the Passion (15:16-26): A Study in Poetics and Biblical Interpretation, PhD thesis, Princeton Theological Seminary (Princeton: 2005): 89–121.

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The repeatability lies in the application of a syntactic structure based on the model: και + verb + αὐτός (inflected) + the rest of the sentence.70 As noted by Louder, in this part of the Gospel the και conjunctive is only sporadically employed to connect the internal constituents of a clause, and almost always as a purely rhythmic factor in the onsets.71 Nor is the scheme carried out automatically, for it allows the evangelist both to insert various additional components into the sentence and to modify them in many ways. It is, however, sufficiently consistent and stable for us to be able to treat its elements as markers indicating which part of the Holy Week belongs to the Passion as far as Mark is concerned. In the passage below the structural units are underlined: καὶ ἐνδιδύσκουσιν αὐτὸν πορφύραν καὶ περιτιθέασιν αὐτῷ πλέξαντες ἀκάνθινον στέφανον καὶ ἤρξαντο ἀσπάζεσθαι αὐτόν· χαῖρε, βασιλεῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων καὶ ἔτυπτον αὐτοῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν καλάμῳ καὶ ἐνέπτυον αὐτῷ, καὶ τιθέντες τὰ γόνατα προσεκύνουν αὐτῷ. καὶ ὅτε ἐνέπαιξαν αὐτῷ, ἐξέδυσαν αὐτὸν τὴν πορφύραν καὶ ἐνέδυσαν αὐτὸν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ. Καὶ ἐξάγουσιν αὐτὸν ἵνα σταυρώσωσιν αὐτόν. (Mark 15: 17–20a) [And they clothed Him with purple, / and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, / And began to salute Him, Hail, King of the Jews! / And they smote Him on the head with a reed, / and did spit upon Him, / and bowing their knees worshipped Him. / And when they had mocked Him, they took off the purple from Him, / and put his own clothes on Him, / and led Him out to crucify Him.]

The rhythm is obviously very subtle. However, the passage contains many features worthy of examination. What is relevant to this discussion is the principle of textual organization. As has already been said, the account of the Passion unfolds in an ordered succession of parallel sentences. Even though the sentences may be compared to rhetorical periods, they are not built according to the rules of classical rhetoric, but rather according to those of Hebrew versification, which—in Michael O’Connor’s words—was “a system of syntactic constraints” rather than “phonological requirements.”72 The second significant feature of the pericope is the presence of a complete repertoire of narrative means. Surprisingly enough, as the intensity of the repetitions increases, the text does not lose its referential character. In other words, it 70 Cf. Ibid. 84. 71 Cf. Ibid. 73. 72 Michael O’Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure…, 65.

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does not become less epic when it starts to be more lyric. Having said that, this unexpected alliance of narrative and hymnic elements is not actually astonishing, as the same situation occurs in Psalm 136, where the miraculous events of Moses’ life are enumerated in a litanic manner. Mark’s prose generally centers around the events of Christ’s life. However, when the account of these events assumes the character of a ritual celebration, certain features emerge which—if they do not turn the passage quoted above into verse itself—they at least bring it closer to poetry. The rhythmical repeatability, which in this case seems a subtle tendency, will become more conspicuous in two other works composed in the second and third centuries after Christ. Both the earlier homily On the Passover by Melito of Sardis and the later apocryphal Acts of John contain hymns that emerge to a certain extent from the prose structure. The hymn from the latter work has already been mentioned. Indeed “Dance of the Savior” with its twenty-eight calls is the best example of a text whose frame is protected by a symbolic number of repetitions. In two passages not only is the number of syllables per line almost equal, but the morphological correspondence between the verbs also becomes more precise, which indicates that the two phenomena are connected and should not be considered as independent of each other. In each line of the example below four Greek verbs are represented: two aorist infinitives, in both passive and active forms, which make an antinomic pair; a doubled θέλω verb after each of them; and the Aramaic Αμήν at the end: Λυθῆναι θέλω καὶ λῦσαι θέλω. Ἀμήν. Τρωθῆναι θέλω καὶ τρῶσαι θέλω. Ἀμήν. Γεννᾶσθαι θέλω καὶ γεννᾶν θέλω. Ἀμήν. Φαγεῖν θέλω καὶ βρωθῆναι θέλω. Ἀμήν. Ἀκούειν θέλω καὶ ἀκούεσθαι θέλω. Ἀμήν.73 [I would be loosed and I would loose. Amen. / I would be pierced and I would pierce. Amen. / I would be born and I would bear. Amen. / I would eat and I would be eaten. Amen. / I would hear and I would be heard. Amen.]74

In subsequent sections of the hymn, however, the scheme is subject to certain variations:

73 Acta Ioannis, 95, in Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, II 1: 197–198. 74 Acts of John, trans. Montague Rhodes James, in Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, ed. Joseph Armitage Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899), vol. V 1: 13. For another English translation cf. The Acts of John, 95, in The Apocryphal New Testament, trans. James Keith Elliott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993): 318–319.

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Οἶκον οὐκ ἔχω καὶ οἴκους ἔχω. Ἀμήν. Τόπον οὐκ ἔχω καὶ τόπους ἔχω. Ἀμήν. Ναὸν οὐκ ἔχω καὶ ναοὺς ἔχω. Ἀμήν. Λύχνος εἰμί σοι τῷ βλέποντί με. Ἀμήν. Ἔσοπτρόν εἰμί σοι τῷ νοοῦντί με. Ἀμήν.75 [I have no house and I have houses. Amen. / I have no place and I have places. Amen. / I have no temple and I have temples. Amen. / I am a lamp to thee who beholdest Me. Amen. / I am a mirror to thee who perceivest Me. Amen.]76

Yet before and after these two passages, the length of the sentences increases and their content becomes more diverse, so that the degree of rigor falls, though it does not disappear completely. The same applies to the passage inserted between them. Thanks to this, one can get the impression that a rhythmical pattern is gradually emerging from unfettered speech, only to subsequently vanish into thin air, or that the verse is somehow anchored in prose. The rhythmical quality of a text resulting from a predictable sentence structure, which in the case of the “Dance of the Savior” applies only to a relatively short section of the text, in the earlier homily On the Passover becomes a rule that concerns almost the entire work, a work composed of 9275 syllables.77 As established by Othmar Perler, the homily may have been composed between the years 160 and 170 after Christ,78 and, according to Joost Smit Sibinga, the text can be measured by employing calculations used by the Old Testament writers: Melito […] shaped the parts of his Homily so as to fill out a certain number of syllables: a round number, or a symbolic number, a square or “triangular” number, 15 or a number that for some other reason could interest an arithmetician. We know that Virgil “inter cetera studia … maxime mathematicae operam dedit.” The same, I suppose, must be true of Melito. In a most precise way, he applied his “mathematics,” or rather his science of numbers, to the Kunstprosa of his Homily.79

Sibinga provides detailed tables, including calculations which could have been performed by Melito himself when composing his poetic homily. It is worth pointing out that the composition is not based on a single binding rule, for the homily is divided into 105 paragraphs of different length, although usually they 75 Acta Ioannis…, 198. 76 Acts of John, op. cit. 77 Cf. Joost Smit Sibinga, “Melito of Sardis: The Artist and His Text,” Vigiliae Christianae 24 (1970), no. 2: 88. 78 Cf. Othmar Perler, “Introduction,” in Melito of Sardis, Sur la Pâque (Paris: Le Cerf, 1966): 24. 79 Smit Sibinga, “Melito of Sardis…,” 85.

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number fewer than one hundred syllables. The rhythmical pattern governing a given paragraph covers shorter portions of text than is the case in the later “Dance of the Savior.” Since each paragraph is governed by a different structural logic, the whole work is characterized by rhythmical diversity, which can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, the variety of compositional approaches brings to mind medieval florilegia; it almost looks as if the author had gathered together the various poems or literary conventions with which he was familiar. On the other hand, the combination of heterogeneous modules, which may have been composed at a different time and under different circumstances, gives grounds for thinking that the text may have been connected either with a liturgical celebration composed of alternative forms or with several different celebrations. From yet another perspective, some paragraphs begin with prose but are followed by an enumeration of several elements, which in turn brings the text closer to verse—this recalls the logic of prosimetrum. Certain enumerative series can be determined by means of the anaphora they contain. It may be a single anaphora; for instance, “καθ’ ὃ” in paragraph 9, “ὑπὸ” in paragraph 50, “Οὗτός ἐστιν” in paragraph 86, “δι’ αὐτὸν” in paragraph 91, “ἐγὼ” in paragraph 103, or “καὶ” in certain places. However, it may also be a combination of two anaphoric patterns; for instance, in paragraphs 44 and 80. Some anaphoras turn into parallelism, which in cases such as paragraph 49 resemble the “Dance of the Savior” not only in terms of the poetic rigor, but also in terms of the antithetical scheme: οὐχ ἁγνείαν ἀλλὰ πορνείαν, οὐκ ἀφθαρσίαν ἀλλὰ φθοράν, οὐ τιμὴν ἀλλὰ ἀτιμίαν, οὐκ ἐλευθερίαν ἀλλὰ δουλείαν, οὐ βασιλείαν ἀλλὰ τυραννίδα, οὐ ζωὴν ἀλλὰ θάνατον, οὐ σωτηρίαν ἀλλὰ ἀπώλειαν.80 [not chastity but debauchery, / not incorruption but deterioration, / not honor but disgrace, / not freedom but slavery, / not a kingdom but tyranny, / not life but death, / not salvation but destruction.]81

80 Melito of Sardis, “Περί Πάσχα,” in Теолошки Погледи 48 (2015), no 2: 215–216. 81 This and two following translations by Witold Sadowski. For another edition and translation cf. Melito of Sardis, “On Pascha,” in On Pascha and Fragments, ed. and trans. Stuart George Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).

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From our point of view, the most interesting sections are paragraphs 59 and 69, which seem to anticipate the Litany of the Saints, even though they only concern Old Testament characters. In paragraph 59, five patriarchs are mentioned by name and this is followed by a more general category of “προφῆται” (prophets): τοιγαροῦν εἰ βούλει τὸ τοῦ κυρίου μυστήριον ἰδέσθαι, ἀπόβλεψον δὴ εἰς τὸν Ἀβὲλ τὸν ὁμοίως φονευόμενον, εἰς τὸν Ἰσὰκ τὸν ὁμοίως συμποδιζόμενον, εἰς τὸν Ἰωσὴφ τὸν ὁμοίως πιπρασκόμενον, εἰς τὸν Μωυσέα τὸν ὁμοίως ἐκτιθέμενον, εἰς τὸν Δαυὶδ τὸν ὁμοίως διωκόμενον, εἰς τοὺς προφήτας τοὺς ὁμοίως διὰ τὸν Χριστὸν πάσχοντας.82 [Therefore if you want to see the mystery of the Lord take heed / of Abel who is likewise killed, / of Isaac who is likewise bound, / of Joseph who is likewise sold, / of Moses who is likewise abandoned, / of David who is likewise pursued, / of the prophets who likewise suffer for Christ.]

In paragraph 69, the list is repeated. However, the author adds a reference to Jacob and also places among the Old Testament figures the “ἀμνός” (the lamb), which in this way becomes personified: οὗτός ἐστιν τὸ πάσχα τῆς σωτηρίας ἡμῶν. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἐν πολλοῖς πολλὰ ὑπομείνας. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἐν τῷ Ἀβὲλ φονευθείς, ἐν δὲ τῷ Ἰσὰκ δεθείς, ἐν δὲ τῷ Ἰακὼβ ξενιτεύσας, ἐν δὲ τῷ Ἰωσὴφ πραθείς, ἐν δὲ τῷ Μωυσῇ ἐκτεθείς, ἐν δὲ τῷ ἀμνῷ σφαγείς, ἐν δὲ τῷ Δαυὶδ διωχθείς, ἐν δὲ τοῖς προφήταις ἀτιμασθείς.83 [He is the Pascha of our salvation, / he is the one who suffered many [things] in many [people], / he is the one who was killed in Abel, / and tied up in Isaac, / and exiled in Jacob, / and sold in Joseph, / and abandoned in Moses, / and slaughtered in the lamb, / and pursued in David, / and insulted in the prophets.]

We can see a correspondence between these two paragraphs and paragraph 93, which in semantic terms seems to offer a reversal of the scheme. Interestingly enough, the group is composed only of characters whose interventions in the life of Christ were both recorded in the Gospel and were of a detrimental nature: 82 Melito of Sardis, “Περί Πάσχα…,” 218. 83 Ibid., 221.

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Τοιγαροῦν πικρά σοι ἡ τῶν ἀζύμων ἑορτὴ, καθώς σοι γέγραπται· Ἔδεσθε ἄζυμα μετὰ πικρίδων. πικροί σοι ἧλοι οὓς ὤξυνας, πικρά σοι γλῶσσα ἣν παρώξυνας. πικροί σοι ψευδομάρτυρες οὓς ἔστησας. πικροί σοι βρόχοι οὓς ἡτοίμασας. πικραί σοι μάστιγες ἃς ἔπλεξας. πικρός σοι Ἰούδας ὃν ἐμισθοδότησας. πικρός σοι Ἡρώδης ᾧ ἐξηκολούθησας. πικρός σοι Καϊάφας ᾧ ἐπείσθης. πικρά σοι χολὴ ἣν ἐσκεύασας. πικρόν σοι ὄξος ὃ ἐγεώργησας. πικρά σοι ἄκανθα ἣν ἤνθισας. πικραί σοι χεῖρες ἃς ᾕμαξας. ἀπέκτεινάς σου τὸν κύριον ἐν μέσῳ Ἰερουσαλήμ.84 [Therefore the Feast of Unleavened Bread has a bitter taste for you, as was written for you: / “Thou shalt eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs.” / Bitter for you are the nails that you trimmed, / bitter for you is the tongue that you sharpened, / bitter for you are the pseudo-witnesses that you set up, / bitter for you are the knots that you prepared, / bitter for you are the whips that you plaited, / bitter for you is Judas, whom you bribed, / bitter for you is Herod, whom you followed, / bitter for you is Caiaphas, to whom you yielded, / bitter for you is the gall that you provided, / bitter for you is the vinegar that you produced, / bitter for you are the thorns that you picked, / bitter for you are the hands that you bloodied! / You killed your Lord in the middle of Jerusalem.]85

The homily On the Passover is commonly referred to in scholarship as “a specimen of the Asianic style,”86 a rhetorical tendency characterized by an abundance of parallelisms, including antithetical parallelism, paratactic syntax, anaphoras, homoeoteleutons and other “figures of accumulation and redundance.”87 However, even with reference to this school of writing Melito’s work is viewed as

84 Ibid., 228. 85 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. 86 Marc D. Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm: An Essay on the Political Verse and Other Byzantine Metres (Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999): 82. Cf. Smit Sibinga, “Melito of Sardis…,” 85; Folker Siegert, “The Sermon as an Invention of Hellenistic Judaism,” in Preaching in Judaism and Christianity: Encounters and Developments from Biblical Times to Modernity, eds. Alexander Deeg, Walter Homolka, and Heinz-Günther Schöttler (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008): 41. 87 Vessela Valiavitcharska, Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium: The Sound of Persuasion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 65.

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an “extreme example.”88 It proves the point that as early as the second century rhetorical prose showed those tendencies which eventually led to the emergence in Greek of the Byzantine accentual-syllabic verse. Wolfram Hörandner,89 Marc D. Lauxtermann90 and Vessela Valiavitcharska91 describe its line of development, which begins with the Second Sophistic and the works of Aelius Aristides and Philostratus, then moves relatively quickly on to the early Christian homiletics and authors such as Melito of Sardis, Epiphanius of Salamis or Gregory of Nazianzus, before it finds reflection in a completely innovative kind of versification introduced by Roman the Melodist. It is not without reason that the kontakia of the latter came to be known as “homilies in verse.”92 In order for homiletic prose to produce a form which, when judged by modern standards, fulfills the requirements of verse, Greek phonetics had to undergo significant transformations which necessitated a search for alternative means of obtaining textual fluency and coherence. The boundaries of syntactic units were, to a greater extent than previously, marked with the use of rhetorical figures, which eventually found their way into the litany. As observed by Valiavitcharska, the result was that instead of a fluent stream of speech, “a sense of fragmentation”93 was to be felt, which was based on “the autonomy of the individual words and clauses”94 as well as “a dissolution of the complex periodic sentence” into “the individual word and clause (whether paired or not) as basic rhythmical units.”95 As an aside, we can see that in this way versification became infused with the logic characteristic of the biblical tradition. Valiavitcharska quotes examples from the Homily on the Entombment of Christ and Descent into Hades, attributed to Ephiphanius of Salamis: ἐν μέσω δύο ζώων γνωσθεὶς ‘Ιησοῦς ὁ θεόπαις· ἐν μέσω Πατρὸς καὶ Πνεύματος τῶν δύο ζώων, ζωὴ ἐκ ζωῆς, φησί, ζωὸς γνωριζόμενος,

88 Ibid., 70. Cf. Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm…, 85. 89 Cf. Wolfram Hörandner, Der Prosarhythmus in der rhetorischen Literatur der Byzantiner (Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981): 21–26; Idem, “Beobachtungen zur Literarästhetik der Byzantiner. Einige byzantinische Zeugnisse zu Metrik und Rhythmik,” Byzantinoslavica 56 (1995): 279–290. 90 Cf. Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm…, 81–83. 91 Cf. Valiavitcharska, Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium…, 56–89. 92 Ibid., 89. 93 Ibid., 69. 94 Ibid., 70. Cf. Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm…, 83. 95 Valiavitcharska, Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium…, 72.

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καὶ ἐν μέσῳ ἀγγέλων καὶ ἀνθρώπων τῇ φάτνῃ τικτόμενος· καὶ ἐν μέσῳ δύο λαῶν λίθος ἀκρογωνιαῖος κείμενος· καὶ ἐν μέσῳ νόμου καὶ προφητῶν ὁμοῦ κηρυττόμενος· καὶ ἐν μέσῳ Μωϋσῆ καί Ἠλία ἐπὶ του ὄρους ὀπτανόμενος· καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τῶν δύο λῃστῶν θεὸς τῷ εὐγνώμονι λῃστῇ γνωριζόμενος· καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τῆς παρούσης ζωῆς καὶ τῆς μελλούσης κριτὴς αἰώνιος καθεζόμενος.96

as well as from the Homily on the Nativity by Gregory of Nazianzus: ἔσται δὲ τοῦτο πῶς; μὴ πρόθυρα στεφανώσωμεν, μὴ χοροὺς συστησώμεθα, μὴ κοσμήσωμεν ἀγυιάς, μὴ ὀφθαλμὸν ἑστιάσωμεν, μὴ ἀκοὴν καταυλήσωμεν, μὴ ὄσφρησιν ἐκθηλύνωμεν, μὴ γεῦσιν καταπορνεύσωμεν, μὴ ἁφῇ χαρισώμεθα, ταῖς προχείροις εἰς κακίαν ὁδοῖς, καὶ εἰσόδοις τῆς ἁμαρτίας.97

We can add other authors to this group, such as Cyril of Alexandria with his Enkomion on Mary the Holy Mother of God: Χαίροις, Μαρία, ὁ κατάλυτος ναὸς, μᾶλλον δὲ ἅγιος, καθὼς βοᾷ ὁ προφήτης ∆αβὶδ λέγων· «Ἅγιος ναός σου, θαυμαστὸς ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ.» Χαίροις, Μαρία, τὸ κειμήλιον τῆς οἰκουμένης· χαίροις, Μαρία, ἡ περιστερὰ ἡ ἀμίαντος. Χαίροις, Μαρία, ἡ λαμπὰς ἡ ἄσβεστος. Ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ὁ Ἥλιος τῆς δικαιοσύνης γεγέννηται. Χαίροις, Μαρία, τὸ χωρίον τοῦ ἀχωρήτου, ἡ τὸν Μονογενῆ Θεὸν Λόγον χωρήσασα, ἡ τὸν στάχυν ἄνευ ἀρότρου καὶ σπέρματος βλαστήσασα τὸν ἀμαράντινον.98 [Rejoice, Mary, invincible and holiest sanctuary, as the prophet David revealed in the following words: “Thy temple is holy, wonderful in righteousness.” / Rejoice, Mary, the treasure of human settlements; rejoice, Mary, the Dove immaculate. / Rejoice, Mary, the unfading light, for out of You was born the Sun of Righteousness. / Rejoice, Mary, the unterritorial territory, encompassing the Only-begotten God the Word; with no plough or seed an unfading ear of corn yielding.]99

96 97 98 99

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PG 43: 441; Valiavitcharska, op. cit. PG 36: 316; Valiavitcharska, op. cit., 81. PG 77: 1032. Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation (by Ephrem Lash) cf. http://www.orthodox-christian-comment.co.uk/proper0 fseason-august-mother_of_god.htm (accessed February 8, 2016).

It also seems relevant to quote from the Homily on the Nativity once attributed to John Chrysostom, but currently thought to be the work of one of his disciples, namely Proclus, Archbishop of Constantinople: Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, οὐρανίου στάχυος ἀθέριστος ἄρουρα· χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ἀληθινῆς ἀμπέλου ἀψευδὴς μήτηρ παρθένος· χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ἀτρέπτου θεότητος σαγήνη ἀδιάπτωτος· χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, τῆς ἀχωρήτου φύσεως χωρίον εὐρύχωρον· χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, τοῦ χηρεύοντος κόσμου νυμφίε, τόκε ἀμίαντε;100 [Rejoice, highly favored, the unharvested field of heavenly grain. / Rejoice, highly favored, the unfalse virgin Mother of the true vine. / Rejoice, highly favored, the undamaged web of the unmovable Godhead. / Rejoice, highly favored, the spacious place of the undivided substance. / Rejoice, highly favored, the immaculately pregnant maiden of the orphaned world.]101

The last two examples seem to represent the next step in the history of the Asianic style: it is at this point that a greater frequency in repetitive devices leads to the development of a permanent literary tradition, described by Anton Baumstark as “Chairetismos.”102 The genre first appeared in homilies— that is, texts classified as rhetorical prose, such as Theodotus of Ancyra’s Homily on the Holy Mother of God and Simeon.103 When the convention became more precisely defined, it evolved in the direction of accentual-syllabic verse. The Akathist Hymn by Roman the Melodist104 exemplifies a poem in which the 100 PG 61: 737. 101 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (London: Routledge, 1994): 89. 102 Cf. Anton Baumstark, “Chairetismos,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, ed. Theodor Klauser (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1954), vol. 2: 993–1006; Davide M. Montagna, “La lode alla Theotokos nei testi greci dei secoli IV–VII,” Marianum 24 (1962): 480–488; Leslie S. B. MacCoull, “The Imperial Chairetismos of Dioscorus of Aphrodito,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 18 (1981): 43–46; Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress…, 85–97; Clement A. Kuehn, “An Anacreontic and Chairetismos: Parody and Allegory?,” in Channels of Imperishable Fire: The Beginnings of Christian Mystical Poetry and Dioscurus of Aphrodito (New York: Peter Lang, 1995): 77–155; Leena Mari Peltomaa, The Image of the Virgin Mary in the Akathistos Hymn (Leiden: Brill, 2001): 66–77, 101–113. 103 Cf. PG 77: 1393. 104 Cf. Andrzej Bober, “Tło historyczne hymnu Akathistos” [“The Historical Background of the Akathist Hymn”], in Antologia patrystyczna [Patristic Anthology] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Apostolstwa Modlitwy, 1965): 511–512.

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passages affected by repeatability are already equal, so that the poem takes the form of a song: Χαῖρε, δι’ ἧς ἡ χαρὰ ἐκλάμψει· χαῖρε, δι’ ἧς ἡ ἀρὰ ἐκλείψει. Χαῖρε, τοῦ πεσόντος Ἀδὰμ ἡ ἀνάκλησις· χαῖρε, τῶν δακρύων τῆς Εὔας ἡ λύτρωσις. Χαῖρε, ὕψος δυσανάβατον ἀθρωπίνοις λογισμοῖς· χαῖρε, βάθος δυσθεώρητον καὶ Ἀγγέλων ὀφθαλμοῖς. Χαῖρε, ὅτι ὑπάρχεις Βασιλέως καθέδρα· χαῖρε, ὅτι βαστάζεις τὸν βαστάζοντα πάντα. Χαῖρε, ἀστὴρ ἐμφαίνων τὸν Ἥλιον· χαῖρε, γαστὴρ ἐνθέου σαρκώσεως. Χαῖρε, δι’ ἧς νεουργεῖται ἡ κτίσις· χαῖρε, δι’ ἧς βρεφουργεῖται ὁ Κτίστης. Χαῖρε, Νύμφη ἀνύμφευτε. [Hail, thou, through whom joy shall shine forth; / hail, thou through whom the curse shall be blotted out. / Hail, thou, the Restoration of the fallen Adam; / hail, thou, the Redemption of the tears of Eve. / Hail, Height, hard to climb, for human minds; / hail, Depth, hard to explore, even for the eyes of angels. / Hail, thou that art the Throne of a King; / hail, thou that sustainest the Sustainer of all. / Hail, Star that causest the Sun to appear; / hail, Womb of the divine Incarnating. / Hail, thou through whom Creation is renewed; / hail, thou through whom the Creator becomes a babe. / Hail, thou Bride unwedded.]105

No date for its composition, even the most approximate, has been assigned to this χαιρετισμοί. Out of the twenty-four stanzas of the poem, only the even stanzas contain χαιρετισμοί, which makes it as likely that they were composed in the sixth century by Roman the Melodist himself, as that they were authored by one of his predecessors. The former possibility implies that the homiletical works of the Church Fathers were not the only source of litanic verse in the form used in this hymn. A second source for this work might consist of the multi-stanza Syriac poetry which employed refrains,106 and with which Roman must have become familiar during his youth in Syria. At the same time, it seems significant that none of his other poems employs litanic verse on such a scale. Within the corpus of his poetry, the Akathist Hymn is an exception, and in early Byzantine poetry, too, the χαιρετισμοί failed to attain such extensive usage. We can, thus, gain the impression that the song in question marks the high point of their popularity in Greek

105 AH 17–18. 106 Cf. Sebastian Brock, “From Ephrem to Romanos,” Studia Patristica 20 (1989): 140–141.

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literature. It seems that the consistent use of anaphora and the frequent presence of parallelism and enumeration gained particular importance at a time of crisis, when after the disappearance of quantitative poetry a new kind of versification was about to emerge from homiletic prose. As observed by Eduard Norden in his classic work,107 the development of the enumerative technique in Greek homiletics was, up to a certain point, mirrored in Latin rhetorical prose and a key role in its dissemination was played by the writers of North African descent. The Asianic style, characteristic of Apuleian prose, entered Christian writings in the time of Tertullian, when litanic enumerations were still relatively short and usually limited to three repetitions. Yet they began to flourish in the third and fourth centuries in the works of Cyprian and Augustine: Quae quidem vobis, fortissimi ac beatissimi fratres, pro merito religionis ac fidei vestrae accidisse non miror, ut vos sic Dominus ad gloriarum sublime fastigium clarificationis suae honore provexerit, qui semper in Ecclesia ejus custodito fidei tenore viguistis, conservantes firmiter Dominica mandata, in simplicitate innocentiam, in charitate concordiam, modestiam in humilitate, diligentiam in administratione, vigilantiam in adjuvandis laborantibus, misericordiam in fovendis pauperibus, in defendenda veritate constantiam, in disciplinae severitate censuram.108 [I do not marvel, most brave and blessed brethren, that these things have happened to you in consideration of the desert of your religion and your faith; that the Lord should thus have lifted you to the lofty height of glory by the honor of His glorification, seeing that you have always flourished in His Church, guarding the tenor of the faith, keeping firmly the Lord’s commands; in simplicity, innocence; in charity, concord; modesty in humility, diligence in administration, watchfulness in helping those that suffer, mercy in cherishing the poor, constancy in defending the truth, judgment in severity of discipline.]109 Vigilat ergo ista nocte et mundus inimicus, et mundus reconciliatus. Vigilat iste, ut laudet medicum liberatus: vigilat ille, ut blasphemet judicem condemnatus. Vigilat iste, mentibus piis fervens et lucescens:

107 Cf. Eduard Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig: Teubner, 1918), vol. 2: 598–624. 108 Cyprian of Carthage, Epistola LXXVII in PL 4: 415. 109 Idem, Epistle LXXVI [sic! different numbering] in ANF 5: 403.

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vigilat ille, dentibus suis frendens et tabescens. Denique istum charitas, illum iniquitas: istum christianus vigor, illum diabolicus livor nequaquam dormire in hac celebritate permittit.110 [Hence, on this night both a hostile world and a reconciled world watch. The one keeps watch so that, having been freed, it may praise the Healer; the other, that, having been condemned, it may blaspheme the Judge. The one watches, glowing bright with pious thoughts; the other, gnashing the teeth and wasting away through envy. In a word, love prevents the one from sleeping during this celebration while iniquity prevents the other; Christian vigor, the one and diabolic spite, the other.]111

It was at the time of Augustine that the litanic order was beginning to be employed to enhance the metrical structure of poetry, as is the case in a Gaudet series in a quantitative poem by Hilary of Poitiers, written in trochaic meter.112 At this point, however, the use of litanic verse in order to highlight the metrical setting was still restricted to isolated cases and was not meant to fill the void left by quantitative versification. In the event, Latin poetry did not follow in the footsteps of its Greek prototype and did not assimilate accentual-syllabic verse, but turned instead to syllabic verse. Of all the rhythmical figures used most frequently by the early Christian poets, only rhyme attained a regular character. Interestingly, however, litanic verse did not withdraw from the stage but continued to assert its presence in literature, even though it still enjoyed an unclear status: it was demonstrably present in prose and frequently, albeit inconsistently, used in poetry. When the modern division into verse and prose became crystallized, litanic verse was caught between these two poles, which started to be recognized as contradictory, and assumed the role of a phenomenon with blurred boundaries. In prose, it would signal its readiness to be transformed into verse; in verse, it would question its distinctiveness from prose. From both perspectives, litanic verse resembled an organism which was not meant to grow to maturity, an “embryonic form of verse,” as Oleg Fedotov might say.

110 Augustine of Hippo, Sermo CCXIX in PL 38: 1088. 111 Idem, Sermons on the Liturgical Seasons, trans. Mary Sarah Muldowney (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1959): 172. 112 Cf. Antoon Bastiaensen, “L’histoire d’un vers: Le Septénaire trochaïque de l’antiquité au moyen âge,” Humanitas 50 (1998): 176–178.

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5 Litanic Verse as an Embryonic Form of Verse The notion of “embryonic forms of verse,” introduced by Oleg Fedotov,113 is of particular significance in his theory. Influenced by Mikhail Gasparov’s studies, the scholar observes that there are certain rudimentary rhythmic components which give rise to a specific versification pattern that may remain latent for an extended period of time, that is, until they reach the stage of a fully developed verse system. What results from Fedotov’s observations is the fact that a cultural breakthrough leads to a shift in perception, which completes the formation of the new system. What is more, the examples he quotes from Greek and Russian poetry demonstrate that the change in the perception of a given rhythm, as well as the shift itself, can be extended over time. Taking into account these assumptions, and indeed, to underline the point somewhat more, we can consider a specific situation in which the attempt to overturn the rhythmical conventions is stopped halfway and the course of the change is not effected in its entirety. The embryonic forms which have not been uprooted—if only due to the strength of the literary tradition in question—still tend to constitute verse. At the same time, however, they face competition from other verse systems, which originate from different roots and which prevent the transformation from being fully completed. The litanic verse is an example and a result of such interrupted development. Irrespective of whether we study medieval poetry, which derives directly from the rhetorical tradition, or whether we focus on the poetic variants of the Litany of the Saints, we observe an equally varied picture of how the enumerative components functioned in Latin verse. They could have the role of building blocks, which formed the line, as seen in one of the catalogs of God’s names recorded in a troparion from the tenth century: Alma chorus Domini nunc pangat nomina summi: Messias, soter, emanuel, sabaoth, adonai Est unigenitus, via, vita, manus, homousion, Principium, primogenitus, sapientia, virtus,

113 Олег И. Федотов, “Фольклорные и литературные корни русского стиха” [“Folk and Literary Roots of Russian Verse”], in Основы русского стихосложения [The Elements of Russian Versification] (Москва: Флинта, 1997): 52–131.

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Alpha, caput finisque simul vocitatur et est ω, Fons et origo boni, paraclitus ac mediator.114

They could also mark the beginning of each successive line, as in a prayer written on the British Isles at the turn of the ninth century, in which the anaphora on in was probably taken from the Litany of the Saints: In pace apostolorum, In gaudio angelorum, In via archangelorum, In splendoribus sanctorum, In operibus iustorum, In virtute monachorum, In martyrio martyrum, In castitate virginum.115

The enumerative components could also serve to identify units larger than the line, that is, couplets, as in the case of a vanitas poem with anaphora on “Mundus abit,” which is quoted in Part IV of this book (Chapter 15). Finally, they could also reflect the division into stanzas of yet greater numbers of lines, which will be discussed in detail below. The above shows that the variety of methods, by means of which the litanic scheme was employed, ranged from the level of words up to the level of stanzas. Indeed, their extensiveness and rhythmical variety bring into question the verse-making function of the pattern. While the parallelism was undoubtedly used to divide the utterance into repetitive units, the question of whether these units were to be identified at the level of lines or stanzas was apparently irrelevant to medieval poets, who sometimes employed the same litanic markers in a poem, but on each occasion for a different purpose. When the same figures were to serve different purposes within a text, their mutual relationship could also take different forms. They might appear to be either a logically composed or an entirely random system. A fifteenth-century Clairvaux manuscript preserves an extraordinarily elaborate Marian song. The text is composed of twenty stanzas, each containing twelve octosyllable lines; all the words and lines of the stanza begin with the same letter; the alliterating letters, which change with each stanza, are ordered alphabetically; and each stanza is divided into four three-line micro-stanzas (or sub-stanzas) according to a given rhyme pattern. A closer look at two representative macro-stanzas from the middle of the poem shows that what is bound together by alliteration 114 “De Nominibus Domini,” in AHMA 53: 152. 115 “Oratio Matutina,” in AHMA 51: 295.

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is separated by the litanic scheme, which serves in this instance to divide the lines and particular elements of enumeration, of which they are composed, into separate units: 16. Regina, rectrix rectoris, Ratis, remus redemptoris, Rivus, ripa, remigium, Rumphram rumpens rationis Relaxat ritum rigoris Rorans reis remedium; Redonat refrigerium Redemptis rex regentium Respectu rubentis roris, Repulsorum refugium, Reconciliatorium Redditur rima ruboris. 17.

Signo sanguinis signatus Sol, sideri sociatus, Significat solacium Saeculi, sic sublimatus Solio superni status Servis suis stipendium Secum suum sacrarium Supra supremam sedium Situans sanctis stipatus, Salutem supplicantium Signat satanae spolium, Stuporem sui senatus.116

In this example the division into an extensive macro-stanza is related to its alphabetic order, whereas the division into a miniature inner stanza, recurring several times within the former, is achieved as a result of the rhyme pattern. Yet the same result could also be reached by means of litanic repeatability, if appropriately structured. It is worth mentioning that the Middle Ages favored songs whose stanzas began not only with successive letters of the alphabet, but also with successive words from a famous prayer, most frequently the Angelic Salutation. The issue of how to distribute words over a poetic text was approached in many ways. Among the most common was a two-tiered construction, in which the words of the prayer sequentially opened successive stanzas, yet at the same

116 “Munus Literarum,” in AHMA 48: 353.

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time served as the basis for dividing the stanza into diverse components. Thus, a quatrain might be built on four parallel lines: Ave, mitis imperatrix, Ave, vitae restauratrix, Ave, gentis advocatrix, Ave, legis novae latrix. Maria, fons pietatis, Maria, lux claritatis, Maria, pons naufragatis, Maria, dux deviatis.117

However, there were many other poetic options available, such as a twelve-line macro-stanza composed of three quatrains: 3.

G r a t i a, non meritum Tunc sustulit interitum, Ne peccatum praeteritum In posteros saeviret; Gratia emicuit, Et culpa tunc conticuit, Cum tua vox explicuit Verbum, quod oboediret; Gratia plenarium Fuisti et sacrarium, Sanctorum sanctuarium, Quod caelitus subiret.

4.

P l e n a virtute fueras Divina, cum praebueras Consensum, ut debueras, Ad Ave Gabrielis; Plena laetaris gratia Intra caeli palatia, De quibus et nos satia, Quae imperas in caelis; Plena cum sis clementia, In iudicis praesentia A praedura sententia Defendere nos velis.118

117 “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 224. 118 “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 243.

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This poem is merely one of the many examples in which the medieval macrostanzas are centered around the successive words of Ave Maria, and the litanic meditation on a specific word enables us to distinguish the miniature inner stanzas from the whole. Perhaps the most expressive manifestation of repeatability is seen in the rhyme scheme, yet the semantic key to the structure is the anaphora. It cannot, however, be said that a poet who decided to use anaphora became a prisoner of his own choice and had to employ it throughout the entire text, for the repetitive signals may alternate between anaphora and epiphora, the latter closing lines in one stanza and the former opening them in another. This fanciful approach can be seen in a poem which was recorded in a fourteenth-century manuscript: 3. Te divina g r a t i a mire procuravit, Te virtutum g r a t i a privilegiavit, Ventrem tuum g r a t i a prole fecundavit, Cuius mera g r a t i a damnatos salvavit. 4.

O p l e n a munditia, cella puritatis, O p l e n a laetitia, porta pietatis, O p l e n a divitiis, portus ubertatis, O p l e n a deliciis, hortus voluptatis.119

What is more, in another two of the poem’s stanzas, anaphora and epiphora are found immediately adjacent to each other. In both cases this leads to an interesting, albeit slightly different, effect. In stanza 10, the symploce figure governs the odd hemistiches: 10. Tu in m u l i e r i b u s non habes reatum, Tu in m u l i e r i b u s tenes caelibatum, Tu in m u l i e r i b u s paris Deum natum,

119 “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 280–281.

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Tu in m u l i e r i b u s geris principatum.

In stanza 16, which is the poem’s final stanza, the symploce governs the even hemistiches and this repetition is accompanied by an anaphora in the odd hemistiches: 16.

Sit laus patri Domino, omnis dicat A m e n, Sit laus suo filio, omnis dicat A m e n, Sit laus sancto flamini, omnis dicat A m e n, Sit laus matri virgini, omnis dicat A m e n.

How can we understand the poets’ apparent disregard for the differences between the positions in which the words are repeated? In oral delivery (recitation or singing) the onset signals cannot have the same form as the final parts of lines. The disparity between how a line begins and how it ends should not be effaced in a poem as it is important that the line boundaries are clearly demarcated. The mixing of anaphora and epiphora means that they were not treated by the poet as verse-marking signals, with the contour of the lines and stanzas drawn in another way. The poem above, and those which are similar, are illustrative of a more general and deep-rooted conceptual basis that is intrinsic to European poetry and reveals a meaningful engagement between two incongruent approaches to versification. A text which meets the criteria of syllabic verse becomes infused with the litanic pattern. However, the latter operates according to its own logic of repetition, which is based on a syntactic rather than phonological order. Ever since the division between prose and verse was established, the litanic pattern seems to have remained as a set of embryonic elements which have not yet been given a chance to institute their own verse system. While they are sometimes used to mark the boundaries of lines and stanzas, they never fully meet the requirements of a verse system. In fact, they develop their own rhythmical theme in a poem. The four poems quoted above seem to be governed by a consistent plan which finds justification in number symbolism. The composition is without a doubt the product of a written culture and it displays the new tendency of reading lyrical pieces in a visual manner. However, the logical order of the elements in a litanic enumeration, as shown above at different levels in the verse structure, should not be considered as dominant in the Middle Ages. Neither should it be treated as the key to deciphering the role of litanic verse in this period, since apart from this 76

trend, another tendency developed in poetry which seems to be much more representative of the epoch, or at least much more instructive regarding the status of litanic verse at that time. In this case, the same elements also appear at different levels of versification. This tendency, however, betrays a certain nonchalance in the management of the poem’s space. In some parts of the verse, anaphora works as a marker of line boundaries, whereas in others the same anaphora is moved up to the stanza level, only to disappear completely in other parts, which allows the poem to develop in an independent way. The apparently accidental manner in which litanic markers are employed is seen in an Irish poem attributed to a monk called Columba. If the common assumption concerning its authorship can be trusted, the poem can be dated to the second half of the sixth century. In the first part, right after the opening stanza, an anaphora on “Deus” appears. As can be observed, its function changes during the course of the poem: In te, Christe, credentium miserearis omnium; Tu es Deus in saecula saeculorum in gloria. Deus, in adiutorium intende laborantium, Ad dolorum remedium festina in auxilium. Deus, pater credentium, deus, vita viventium, Deus deorum omnium, deus, virtus virtutium. Deus, formator omnium, deus et iudex iudicum, Deus et princeps principum elementorum omnium. Deus, opis eximiae celestis Hierosolymae, Deus, rex, regni in gloria, deus, ipse victoria. Deus aeterni luminis, deus inenarrabilis, Deus altus, amabilis, deus inaestimabilis. Deus largus, longanimis, deus, doctor docibilis, Deus, qui facit omnia, nova cuncta et vetera. Dei patris in nomine filiique sui prospere, Sancti spiritus utique recto vado itinere.120

120 “Ad Deum. Oratio sancti Columbae,” in AHMA 51: 283–284. The division into lines is based on the following edition: The Irish Liber Hymnorum, eds. John Henry Bernard and Robert Atkinson (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1898), vol. 1: 84–85.

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In the third line, the anaphora on “Deus” leads into the stanza; a similar anaphoric introduction appears in the final stanza. In lines eight, nine and fourteen, the role of the anaphora is restricted to a single line; in lines five to seven and ten to thirteen, it is limited to a single hemistich. Thus, the listener does not receive either a clear notion of the units of verse distinguished by means of anaphora or the versification level to which they belong. It is worth adding that the pattern of rhyme in the poem, even though nearly uniform, is occasionally disrupted. The rhythm of the hymn depends in large measure on the equal number of syllables, that is, eight, in each hemistich. The anaphora merely offers an indirect way of communicating the structure of verse; primarily—and with great consistency— it determines the sentence structure. The poem seems to be the result of a mediation between compositional rules derived from two different approaches to rhythm, that is those represented by syllabic verse with its melodic regularity based on phonological equivalence, and those from litanic verse with its rhythm based on logical and syntactic analogies. If the poem was based on the latter alone, from line three onward its form would be as follows: Deus, in adiutorium intende laborantium, ad dolorum remedium festina in auxilium. Deus, pater credentium, Deus, vita viventium, Deus deorum omnium, Deus, virtus virtutium. Deus, formator omnium, Deus et iudex iudicum, Deus et princeps principum elementorum omnium. Deus, opis eximiae celestis Hierosolymae, Deus, rex, regni in gloria, Deus, ipse victoria. Deus aeterni luminis, Deus inenarrabilis, Deus altus, amabilis, Deus inaestimabilis. Deus largus, longanimis, Deus, doctor docibilis, Deus, qui facit omnia, nova cuncta et vetera. Dei patris in nomine filique sui prospere, sancti spiritus utique recto vado itinere.

If this was applied to Columba’s poem, it would become compositionally similar to medieval prose texts, texts infused with litanic parallelism, as seen in the following example from a twelfth-century prayer: Ave, decus virgineum. Ave, iubar ethereum.

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Ave, filia patriarcharum. Ave, desiderium prophetarum. Ave, thesaurus sanctorum apostolorum. Ave, laus martyrum. Ave, glorificatio sacerdotum. Ave, decus et corona virginum. Ave, gloria celorum. Ave, gaudium sanctorum angelorum. Ave, salus miserorum. Ave. mater creatoris omnium et salvatoris suorum fidelium. Ave, laudanda et glorificanda ab omni creatura. Ave, gloria, gaudium et corona omnium sanctorum. Ave, celorum regina, cui plenariter divina est infusa gratia. Ave, spes mea. Ave, fiducia mea. Ave, consolatio mea. Ave, refugium meum. Ave, tota vita mea.121

In comparison with earlier multi-tiered stanzas, which created perfect, internally ordered systems, the last two passages quoted may seem to result from a disintegration of form, as well as the poet’s nonchalance or even incompetence. In fact, the passages are two different manifestations of the same approach toward the litany. The medieval poet does not perceive the litany as a tool enabling the construction of a structural basis for verse. This can be achieved by an equal number of syllables in a line. Thanks to this, the alternative syntactic and logical pattern, which does not aim to determine the boundaries of subsequent lines but to underline the basic framework, remains suspended between verse and prose. In poetry, it introduces its own musical theme which entwines the contours of the lines in different ways. Due to this, and against the background of a basic verse structure, there emerges—with greater or lesser clarity—the second pattern, comfortable with its secondary role and embryonic status. In prose, by contrast, a similar pattern may represent the stage preceding the transformation into verse. If medieval European poetry was based on such a syntactic and logical order, it would gain sufficient means to lead litanic verse out of its embryonic stage and turn it into a full-fledged system. Europe, however, followed a different philosophy of rhythm and until the nineteenth century, it valued phonetic similarities. Litanic verse belonged to a different world—and it remained there.

121 HAA 1: 181–182.

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Part II:  The Genre of Litany The previous part of the book addressed the origins of litanic verse—the verse which did not develop into a full-fledged and self-contained system of versification, but instead remained a relic of the past that harks back to the old understanding of rhythm in poetic works. In this part of the book, the same works will be examined, but this time our focus will be on the process of crystallization that the genre underwent.

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6  Terminological Considerations Within the theory of literary genres, the generic name is assigned a significant role. Its appearance in the titles of works as well as in literary criticism shows in a very tangible manner that the genre has been crystallized as a conceptual frame within the consciousness of both writers and readers. The absence of records indicating the use of a specific name, however, does not in the least preclude the existence of the genre which might function regardless, that is, as a convention which is used unawares. And yet the records in which the name appears allow a more precise identification of the generic norm for a specific epoch and most importantly mean a line can be drawn between a particular genre and the forms which are outwardly similar but inwardly different. Yet, researchers investigating the litany have on numerous occasions found the generic name to be a disappointing tool. Even though the word λιτανεία itself is derived from Old Greek, it was not widely used in the titles of the poems until the second half of the nineteenth century. Before that time, it was treated as a sign of a text’s religious orientation. Indeed, the works of John Donne, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Adam Mickiewicz and Ida Hahn-Hahn not only contained the word “litany” in their titles, but their structure also mirrored the canonical order of a church litany. Yet it is for the same reason that the generic name was often employed in parodies. The overwhelming majority of poetic litanies composed before the nineteenth century resorted to means that allowed the poet to make conscious use of the generic convention without acknowledging it in the title, thereby generating an aesthetic rather than functional response. There was a clear and striking change after the publication of Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Litanies de Satan” (1857). However sacrilegious the work was, it also had the welcome side effect of introducing the term “litany” into the dictionaries of poetics. Before any response to Baudelaire’s poem appeared, which did not happen immediately, a belief was slowly taking root that the litany should not be treated solely as a liturgical genre. Although it is a form in which the religious function is related to the aesthetic function, church litanies represent merely one possible manifestation of this relation. In litanies intended for collective prayer, the aesthetic function gives way to a religious function. It does not, however, cease to be an integral part of the prayer and a source of a believer’s religious experience. Therefore, another approach characteristic of European poetry involves a reversal of the functional relation. In this case, the tools of religious 83

expression are used to create a text which highlights its aesthetic aspects. This approach, which is as ancient as the former, produced a rich literary tradition over the centuries. Indeed, the works which belong to this tradition have an equal claim to be called litanies, but they hardly ever appear under this name—probably out of respect for the sacral uniqueness and solemnness of the prayers which exemplify the first approach. It was in the second half of the nineteenth century that the litany was typologically sanctioned in its two variants—religious and poetic. In English literature, the first reaction to Baudelaire’s poem came from Algernon Charles Swinburne (“A Litany” dating from 1865 or 1866); in French literature—at a slightly later date (1873)—it was found in the response of Tristan Corbière (“Litanie” and “Litanies du Sommeil”).1 Interestingly, the term was not widely adopted by European lexicographers and only appeared as an entry in dictionaries of poetic terms in certain European regions. Apart from French and English poetry, it is to be found in Czech and Hungarian literatures. In short, from the 1880s onward, poems entitled “litanies” appear with increasing frequency in the four languages mentioned above. Only a small proportion maintain the tone of Baudelairean blasphemy and therefore cannot be classified as litanies in the strictest sense of the term. The overwhelming majority openly, that is, without any titular replacement, acknowledge their generic affiliation. Appearing under a generic name, the litany poems claim an equal right of entry into a volume of poetry as into a prayer book, even though they may combine their sacral and artistic purposes differently in each case. The term “litany” was also adopted in Polish literature and it appears with increasing frequency in the Polish titles within this genre, but for a markedly different reason, namely because nineteenth-century poetry became particularly receptive to the religious conventions characteristic of Polish Catholic piety. The rest of Europe maintained a pre-Baudelairean status quo. Both before and after Baudelaire, the litany appears in other European countries, but less frequently than in either England or France and its generic affiliation is not, with few exceptions, revealed in the titles. Indeed, the two parts of the continent seem to have existed in different reality. In one part of Europe, the “litany” becomes recognized as a poetic prayer with two variants, religious and literary. In the other, the term is mainly associated with a ritual function and therefore,

1 Cf. Isabelle Krzywkowski, “La litanie: une écriture sans fin de la fin,” in Anamorphoses décadentes: l’art de la défiguration, 1880–1914, eds. Eadem and Sylvie Thorel-Cailleteau (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2002): 67–80.

84

by using an analogous form in poetry, the poet is hoping to draw the reader’s attention away from the generic name. This can also be explained in the following way: One part of Europe drew conclusions from the nineteenth-century research studies of medieval culture and acknowledged that the church litany and litanic verse are derived from a common root, while the other part of Europe seemed to hold a modernist conviction, namely, that religious and poetic litanies are too far apart to return to their former unity. The differences in perspective are not without consequences for those poems entitled “litanies,” both with regard to the manner in which the structure of the church litany was appropriated, as well as the extent of the quotations and paraphrases taken from particular litanic prayers. In fact, what is at issue in this case is not statistical data, but the state of awareness. The very same term, fully acknowledged by literary theorists in the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, France, Hungary and Poland, might seem irrelevant to a researcher from a different part of Europe, such as the Scandinavian countries. An even more distinct division within Europe can be seen when we move away from poetry and toward the history of the litanic prayer. In this context, the demarcation lines are drawn in entirely different places than those which can be seen in the literature of the second half of the nineteenth century. What is more, the distinctions are not synchronic in nature, for they were not formed by a single process, but are a consequence of gradual transformations that the concept of litany underwent over the centuries. Prior to the Middle Ages, the word λιτανεία referred to a procession, during which supplicatory prayers were said; they took the form of a dialogue between the priest and the congregation. At the dawn of Christianity, the custom was prevalent throughout the Church as a whole. In Western Europe, two such prayers were known as litania maior and litania minor. The former was connected with 25 April, the feast of Mark the Evangelist, the latter with the Ascension. The fact that the custom was celebrated by the pre-medieval church in its entirety did not mean, however, that it was understood in a single manner. The weight assigned to the three components of the prayer—the dialogue, the series of supplications and the procession—differed, and the initially subtle differences deepened over the centuries. Thus, although the primary meaning of the term “litany” is still known today in all the countries of Europe, in each region it has different connotations. These discrepancies can be seen by comparing the dictionary definitions of the “litany” in different European languages.

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Tab. 1: The primary definitions of the “litany” as found in monolingual European dictionaries.2 Language

Date of Term publication

Belarusian

1979

Prayer with enumeration

літанне

Bulgarian

1995

литания

+

Catalan

1900

lletanía

+

Catalan

1982

lletanía

+

Croatian

2003

litanija

Prayer Prayer with in dialogue general +

Procession

+ + +

Czech

1971

litanie

Danish

1931

litani

+

Dutch

1995

litanie

+ +

+ +

English

1989

litany

Estonian

2009

litaania

+

Finnish

2006

litania

+

French

1983

litanie

+

+

French

1985

litanie

+

+

German (Austria)

1993

Litanei

+

German (Germany)

1996

Litanei

+

+

2 The following dictionaries have been included in Table 1 and Table 2: Тлумачальны слоўнік беларускай мовы (Мінск: Беларуская савецкая энцыклапедыя, 1979), vol. 3: 51; Речник на българския език (София: Издателство на Българската Академия на Науките, 1995), vol. 8: 689; Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondència castellana (Barcelona: Salvat, 1900), vol. 2: 150; Diccionari de la llengua catalana (Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1982), vol. 2: 946; Vladimir Anić, Veliki rječnik hrvatskoga jezika (Zagreb: Novi Liber, 2003): 691; Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (Praha: Academia, 1971), vol. 1: 1122; Ordbog over det danske sprog (København: Gyldendalske Boghandel & Nordisk Forlag, 1931), vol. 12: 1015–1016; Groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal (Utrecht: Van Dale Lexicografie, 1995), vol. 2: 1684; The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), vol. 8: 1025; Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat (Tallinn: Eesti Keele Instituut, 2009), vol. 3: 155; Kielitoimiston sanarkirja (Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus, 2006), vol. 2: 85; Trésor de la langue française (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1983), vol. 10: 1277– 1278; Le Grand Robert de la langue française (Paris: Le Robert, 1985), vol. 6: 27; Österreichisches Wörterbuch (Wien: Österreichischer Bundesverlag & J & V Schulbuchverlag,

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Language



Date of Term publication

Prayer with enumeration

Greek (modern) 1985

λιτανεία

Hungarian

2004

litánia

Italian

1970

litania

+ +

Italian

2005

litania

Latvian

1980

litānija

Lithuanian

1966

litãnija

Norwegian (Riksmål)

1937

litani

Prayer Prayer with in dialogue general

Procession +

+ +

+ +

+ +

Polish

1963

litania

+

Portuguese

1899

ladaínha

+

Portuguese

1991

ladainha

Romanian

2010

litanie

Russian

1957

литания

Serbian

2011

литанија

+ +

+

+ +

+

1993): 293; Duden: Deutsches Universalwörterbuch (Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1996): 959; Υπερλεξικό της νεοελληνικής γλώσσας (Αθήνα: Αφοί Παγουλάτοι, 1985): 1655; Magyar értelmező kéziszótár (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2004): 840; Grande dizionario della lingua italiana (Torino: Unione Tipografice-Editrice Torinese, 1970): 610; Italiano: I grandi dizionari (Milano: Garzanti, 2005): 1393; Latviešu literārās valodas vārdnīca (Rīgā: Zinātne, 1980): vol. 4: 728; Lietuvių kalbos žodynas (Vilnius: Mintis, 1966), vol. 7: 587; Norsk Riksmålsordbok (Oslo: Achehoug, 1937), vol. 1: 3011; Słownik języka polskiego (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1963), vol. 4: 168; Nôvo diccionário da língua portuguêsa (Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, 1899), vol. 2: 23; Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores, 1991), vol. 1: 517; Dicţionarul limbii române (București: Editura Academiei Române, 2010): 257; Словарь современного русского литературного языка (Москва-Ленинград: Издательство Академии Наук СССР, 1957), vol. 6: 259–260; Речник српскога језика (Нови Сад: Матица српска, 2011): 632; Slovník súčasného slovenského jazyka (Bratislava: Veda, 2011), vol. 2: 998; Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika (Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 1975), vol. 2: 617; Diccionario de la lengua española (Madrid: Espasa, 2001), vol. 2: 1367; Ordbok över svenska språket (Lund: Svenska Akademien, 1942), vol. 16: 846; Словник української мови (Київ: Наукова Думка, 1973), vol. 4: 527. I would like to thank Katarzyna Jaworska for her invaluable help in collecting the data presented in Table 1 and Table 2. I would also like to express my gratitude to Joanna Cymbrykiewicz, Ágnes Czövek, Monika Moczulska, and Wojciech Pietras, respectively for helping me to interpret the Danish, Hungarian, Estonian, and Finnish definitions appropriately.

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Language

Date of Term publication

Prayer with enumeration

Slovak

2011

litánie

Slovenian

1975

litanije

Spanish (Castilian)

2001

letanía

+

Swedish Ukrainian

1942 1973

litania літанія

+

Prayer Prayer with in dialogue general

Procession

+ + +

+

Research conducted over the past few years shows that the discrepancies can be accounted for by the following religious tendencies: in countries under Lutheran influence, especially Scandinavian countries, the “litany” signifies a dialogic prayer, whereas in England and those countries ruled by Catholic dynasties, the defining feature of the litany is a series of supplications. The countries of the Iberian Peninsula represent an exception to the rule, for they regard supplication and procession as equally significant elements of the prayer. The procession is also mentioned in one of the Italian dictionaries and it undeniably functions as a defining feature in Orthodox culture, as in languages such as modern Greek or Russian. In the latter, the term λιτανεία is explained by means of the word шествие (procession). This shows that even though the different meanings of the term are derived from a common linguistic root and from common religious practices, the “litany” is understood differently in Eastern and Western Europe to such an extent that the meaning assigned to it in Western Europe may be incomprehensible for Eastern Europeans. At another level, the discrepancies between the different understandings of the term “litany” may be related to the developmental changes in Western litanies which occurred in the High Middle Ages and which resulted in their revaluation. It was then that the term, which was still associated with a dialogic, supplicatory and processional prayer, also became connected with two model prayers: the Litany of the Saints and the Litany of Loreto. This led to the formation of two distinct traditions within the history of the Western litany: i. the tradition centered around the Litany of the Saints, which is still to be seen in the Catholic Church; in the Protestant churches, however, the prayer was fundamentally reformed and replaced by Die Litanei in the Lutheran Church and The Great Litany in the Anglican Church. ii. the tradition centered around the Litany of Loreto, which includes the earlier, namely medieval, prototypes of the litanic prayer as well as later Catholic prayers modeled on it. 88

Neither of these traditions applies to the Greek Orthodox Church, as the eastern branch of Christianity does not use the model prayers on which these traditions are based. This does not mean, however, that the Orthodox culture is not familiar with the conventions which laid the foundations for the above division. In fact, the Eastern Church employs genres which correspond to both traditions. They are, respectively: i. the ektene—which preserved the supplication Kyrie eleison, characteristic of the first tradition; ii. the akathist—in which a series of salutations form the prototype of the enumeration in the Litany of Loreto. Since Eastern Christianity is more conservative in its norms and liturgical practices than the Western Church, both genres preserve conventions which predate the traditions characteristic of the West. To simplify matters, it might be said that the first tradition is derived from the ektene and that the second evolved from akathistic salutations. This analogy shows that the basis of Christian Europe is founded on the corresponding patterns of prayer. Taking this analogy a step further, it might be postulated that the discrepancies in their entirety are restricted to a terminological issue—Catholics recognize two traditions of the  litany, whereas Orthodox believers prefer to talk about two genres, namely the ektene and the akathist—but in fact, the Eastern and Western forms of prayer are treated in an entirely different manner, even though both churches preserve the analogical twofold division. What is of interest to us—apart from the fact that Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity preserved different aspects of the tradition—is that they approach their common conceptual heritage in markedly different ways. In Catholicism, both patterns, that is those which stem from the ektene and those which are based on the akathistic salutations, are treated as a coherent albeit diversified phenomenon. In prayer books, the Litany of the Saints and the Litany of Loreto appear in the same section. By contrast, Orthodox Christianity treats the ektene and the akathist as genres which are independent of each other—whether in terms of their origin or semantics, as well as their place within the liturgical year or religious life. We could, of course, try to look for certain structural affinities between the ektene and the akathist, but that would involve a higher degree of generalization, and the resulting similarities might be analogous to those between, say, the sonnet and the elegy as, after all, they are both written in verse. In a situation in which the litany is defined differently in various European languages and in which its components are differently conceptualized, one is tempted to ask if it can indeed be treated as a Pan-European phenomenon and 89

if so, on what grounds? The image created thus far resembles the mosaic of shattered glass in a kaleidoscope, with its different configurations yielding different results. We see the glitter of the relics of pre-medieval meaning—the litany as a dialogic, supplicatory and processional prayer—but we also see that other traditions shine through, mainly those based on the ektene and the akathist conventions which remained separate in Orthodox Christianity yet were connected in Catholicism. Research into religious composition or, to put it another way, research into the theory of prayer and spirituality—which is by its very nature a branch of theology—cannot yield a comprehensive picture, that is, one which would encompass the kaleidoscopic complexity of the concept without overvaluing one point of view and undervaluing another. Paradoxically, the lack of a common definition for this religious prayer should not stand in the way of literary or even cultural research, and the term “litany” should by no means be abandoned. The following arguments will support our claim. First of all, the history of the litany, and this does not exclude poetic litanies, shows traces of regional and confessional markers. The term “litany” is a bone of contention within the various cultures, for the disagreement is grounded in worldviews and identity. If we were to remove the term from the description of the genre in question and replace it with a more “neutral” term, we would unintentionally remove the very differences we intended to record. This approach would imply a uniform attitude toward all religions and cultures, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of pluralism. It is precisely due to the fact that the term “litany” is so value-loaded that we are not only able to characterize the genre, but also account for its level of popularity in particular European countries. Second, the present monograph, even though it takes into consideration various liturgical traditions and their religious context, is not a theological work, but one which intends to investigate the phenomenon from a literary point of view, with a particular focus on poetry. Accordingly, if the existence of a European litany cannot be proved by means of religious studies, perhaps it can be achieved by means of literary theory, for the litany is not only a religious, but also a poetic phenomenon which was crystallized in Western Europe and then spread across the continent through different church and extra-church channels, including literary activity. What testifies to a common conceptualization of the litany in all European languages is the secondary meaning of the term,3 which follows the primary

3 The secondary meaning should be understood typologically and in fact, it does not always appear in dictionaries as the second meaning. Some dictionaries stretch the first

90

meaning in dictionary definitions. Interestingly, the secondary meaning is presented in a strikingly similar manner in different countries, regardless of the branch of Christianity that was dominant in the history of the specific culture. Most of the dictionaries analyzed in Table 1 define “litany” as a “long enumeration.” They differ in their additional information concerning the components or tone of the enumeration, but even dictionaries of very diverse languages point to the enumerative feature as a marker of the litany. The same could not be said about the primary meaning of the term—for different languages saw it differently, that is, either as a dialogue, a series of supplications or a procession—but when it comes to the secondary meaning, there is a consensus. In countries with a long tradition of Catholicism, the “litany” is defined as a “répétition monotone et ennuyeuse” (a French dictionary), “serie noiosa” (Italian) “enumeração fastidiosa” (Portuguese), “monotonne wyliczanie” (Polish), or “unalmas felsorolás” (Hungarian), and the exact same meaning is common in countries with a long history of Orthodox Christianity, with the exception of Greece. Their dictionaries record the secondary meaning of the term as “скучный перечень чего-либо” (Russian), “înşiruire de cuvinte, lungă, monotonă şi plictisitoare” (Romanian) and “досадно приповедање” (Serbian). It stands to reason that the secondary meaning of the “litany” could only come into being provided that its primary meaning denoted a series of supplications rather than a dialogic prayer, not to mention a procession. That said, surprisingly, the dictionaries are not interested in revealing the relation between the primary and secondary meanings. In a German dictionary, for instance, the primary meaning of the “Litanei” is a dialogic prayer (“zwischen Vorbeter und Gemeinde wechselndes Bittgebet”), whereas the secondary meaning—determined by the adjective “monotone”—does not differ from those provided by other European dictionaries. Similarly, a Danish dictionary describes the litany as “vekselsang mellem præst og menighed” (the primary meaning: a dialogic song between a priest and a congregation) and as “jeremiade” (the secondary meaning). Obviously, the word “jeremiade” (in Danish) carries more meaning than either “monotone” (in German) or even “ennuyeuse” (in French). This shows that in some dictionaries the “long enumeration” is concretized, which leads to unexpected affinities between languages. To illustrate the point, the Danish definition is conceptually close to the Russian, which defines the “litany” as “причитание,

meaning to include certain phenomena within the same conceptual field; others treat each phenomenon as a separate entity; thus the “secondary” meaning may appear in the dictionary as the third, fourth, or even fifth meaning.

91

нескончаемые жалобы” (“a lamentation, endless complaints”). In a similar vein, the Czech dictionary defines the litany as an “obšírný výklad, často něco vypočítávající, vyčítavý, naříkavý” (“extensive speech, often with enumerations, reproachful and plaintive”). Conversely, the Serbian dictionary places less emphasis on complaint and more on moralizing, relating the “litany” to preaching (“придика”) in the figurative meaning of the word. In the Spanish and German dictionaries, in turn, the feature of repeatability is transferred from the text onto the activity of the subject and thus the “litany” is treated as insistence. The “litany” becomes “insistencia larga y reiterada” (“an extensive and reiterative insistence”) and “immer wieder vorgebrachte Ermahnung” (“an admonition repeatedly put forward”). The latter meaning, of all the meanings mentioned earlier, seems to be closest to the primary sense of the word λιτανεία, which in the classical period of Ancient Greek, that is, in the pre-Christian era, denoted entreaty.4 Tab. 2: The secondary definitions of the “litany” as found in monolingual European dictionaries. Language Belarusian

Date of publication 1979

літанне

Long MonotoLong Insistence enumer- nous enu- lamentaation meration tion + + +

Bulgarian

1995

литания

lacking

Catalan

1900

lletanía

+

Catalan

1982

lletanía

+

Croatian

2003

litanija

Czech

1971

litanie

+

Danish

1931

litanii

+

Dutch

1995

litanie

+

English

1989

litany

+

Estonian

2009

litaania

Finnish

2006

litania

+

+

+

French

1983

litanie

+

+

+

French

1985

litanie

+

German (Austria)

1993

Litanei

+

Term

+ +

+

+

+ lacking

4 Cf. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996): 1054.

92

Language

Date of publication 1996

Litanei

Greek (modern)

1985

λιτανεία

Hungarian

2004

litania

+

Italian

1970

litania

+

German (Germany)

Term

Italian

2005

litania

Latvian

1980

litānija

Lithuanian

1966

litãnija

Norwegian (Riksmål)

1937

litani

Long MonotoLong Insistence enumer- nous enu- lamentaation meration tion + + lacking

+ lacking +

+

+ +

Polish

1963

litania

+

Portuguese

1899

ladaínha

+

Portuguese

1991

ladainha

+

Romanian

2010

litanie

+

Russian

1957

литания

+

Serbian

2011

литанија

+

+

Slovak

2011

litánie

+

+

+

Slovenian

1975

litanije

+

+

+

Spanish (Castilian)

2001

letanía

+ +

Swedish

1942

litania

Ukrainian

1973

літанія

+ +

+ +

The meanings recorded in the table above show a distanced perspective regarding the litany, which is seen as a long and monotonous form, and thus somewhat tedious, dull and even annoying. Such epithets are instruments of an evaluation which is often pejorative, yet it obviously is not the negative subtext that poets have in mind when they call their poems “litanies.” Before the real reason behind the use of the word in the titles of literary works is explained, it should first be noted that the inter-language equivalence within the secondary definitions of “litany” testifies to the existence of a single concept in European consciousness. Even though the litany does not exist as a uniform idea in theology, it exists as such when the term appears in its secondary meaning and is used as a commentary on a given text. It is then that the “litany” becomes a commonly recognized—albeit neither a scientific, nor theological—term. 93

However, if there is no consensus with regard to the definition of the religious prayer, how was it possible for Europe to adopt a common term to denote a long and monotonous text? There are a number of hypotheses, of which several will be mentioned below. One of the theories is revealed in an entry which appears in a Russian dictionary. The primary meaning of the term is followed by a short definition which reads: “церковная служба у католиков” (“a church service for Catholics”). The dictionary was published in Stalin’s and Khrushchev’s times, which may explain why the term describes the phenomenon in a manner which distances itself from the concept, namely as if it were seen from the outside and thus did not merit a more detailed explanation. Having said that, even if we take into account the historical context, the Russian definition still seems representative of a broader approach. In Europe, the litany is thought to be a Catholic form. Consequently, its secondary meaning, which implies a commentary on a specific text, also conveys the general attitude toward Catholic forms of piety—an attitude held by members of other religions, nonbelievers or even certain critically minded Catholics. It now becomes clear why even in Orthodox and Protestant countries the secondary meaning of the litany essentially denotes a series of supplications. This understanding corresponds to the primary meaning of the litany, which was adopted in those countries that had a long history of Catholic rule. However, the hypothesis of the “catholicity of litany” seems to simplify issues, for instead of proposing a chain of relations between concepts, it jumps straight to conclusions. Catholicism was undoubtedly the main promoter of the litany in Europe, but there were also others. The significant number of litanies in English culture, their role in Pietism and in folk piety, and more importantly, the contribution of extra-church writings, both literary and religious, also should not be overlooked. Therefore, a different hypothesis will be suggested which—according to our argument—provides a stronger basis for inference as it demonstrates that the genre, which will be analyzed from a theoretical perspective in this section of the book, is a Pan-European phenomenon, and that it goes beyond the boundaries marked by religious divisions. In fact, the meaning which we keep calling “secondary” conceals another, tertiary, notion. In the realm of concepts, apart from litany, understood as a type of prayer and as a commentary, there needs to be a term for the object of the commentary. If a somewhat ironic comment is made about a specific speech, a speech that can be called a litany, a comparison, albeit without any verbalization, is implied. Thus, a given text is not merely a litany; it is “like a litany,” that is, it can be compared to a litany. This aspect is highlighted by The Oxford English 94

Dictionary, which defines the litany as a “long enumeration resembling those of litanies.” To complete this train of thought, apart from comparandum, which in our classification corresponds to the meaning of the litany in the second sense (“long enumeration”), and comparans, which includes the first sense (“litanies”), a tertium comparationis (“resembling those of ”) is also needed. The meaning behind these words refers to a pattern of utterance, its generic model, which is not unlike that of church litanies. When we comment on a specific utterance, referring to its length and monotony, we approach it from the perspective of poetics, that is, we take into account the generic features of the litany. We see those features in their pure forms, devoid of both the element of evaluation, which is added in comparandum, and of the direct connection with a particular prayer, indeed a particular tradition of the church litany, that is implied by comparans. If this thinking is correct and if it corresponds to the historical development of the concepts, the third term—which refers to the genre in its pure form—must have appeared simultaneously with or even prior to the first term. Even though it is not recorded in dictionaries, it may be as old as the two other terms. By using the term “litany” in the titles of their works, the poets of the second half of the nineteenth century in fact acknowledged and registered its existence, which is how the term was brought to light. As was noted at the beginning of the present chapter, the term “litany” in its third sense was widely accepted only in Poland, France, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Hungary. This is not to say that the sphere of its influence was limited to those countries which could assign a uniform name to the concept, as the third term forms the basis for the second term, which is acknowledged in all European languages. Yet the lack of a generally accepted term for the concept tells us much about the status of the genre in a specific culture. For instance, the Russian Orthodox culture perceives the litany as a Western genre which delights in enumerations как у католиков (as in the case of Catholicism). This shows that in certain cultures the genre can be treated as a foreign body. Within the context of a particular religious tradition, it may be valued less than in the five countries enumerated above or its poetic aspect may be less apparent than its religious context. But an awareness of the genre exists and makes itself felt—with a greater or lesser distinctiveness—in all modern European cultures. The common European awareness, too, cannot be determined by means of the theory of the “catholicity of litany.” Catholicism seems to have been a significant causative factor promoting the genre, but certainly there were others which also deserve attention. What appears to have been equally, if not more, important is the cultural and literary contact between nations. In Christian Europe, 95

poetry was never “taken over” by any of the churches. The religious poetry of Jacopone da Todi, Francesco Petrarca, Pierre de Ronsard, Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, as well as Angleus Silesius, managed to go beyond the religious boundaries in a quite miraculous manner. The black legend which surrounded the Index librorum prohibitorum did not rule out the unwritten law which held that European literature had a right to determine the common intellectual legacy of humankind. This explains why the genre spread throughout European poetry, reaching not only those countries which acknowledged its development, but also those in which the phenomenon of the litany did not appear under its generic name and whose understanding of the concept and attitude toward the Western litanies interfered with or even prevented its expansion. Litanies are to be found in volumes of both pre- and post-Baudelairean poetry composed in Czech, English, French, Hungarian, and Polish, as well as in other languages. We can say that for most of its history, the litany existed, albeit without specifically being named, and therefore literary critics should not be influenced too much by the titles of the poems they examine. A situation in which the poetic genre corresponds to the third concept, often with no direct reference to the litany, involves a risk of false classification, for the litany may be thought to comprise phenomena which are in no way related to it. Poems which include enumerations are often referred to as litanies, even though they may belong to a different family than the litany. This error of judgment is caused by an excessive or even exclusive reliance on the superficial features of the text, which is characteristic of the definitions in the dictionaries listed above. Generic descriptions provided in textbooks of literary studies are also often restricted to answering the following questions: what are the versification markers of the genre, what is the thematic content of the text, what is its style, and what sequence of events does the text present? In this case, the genre is considered to be a set of technical instructions for the writer. Relying exclusively on this tool, researchers who examine works from different countries and periods cannot but make a classification error which may unfortunately discredit their work sooner or later. There is no denying that the external features of the text are a significant element of research, but there are also two other criteria which should be considered as equally important, namely the historical continuity and the worldview. These criteria do not represent technical features and should not be included in the list of generic markers (versification, thematic content, style, narration, etc.); instead, they represent two axes to which the formal markers should be subordinated if the text is to be correctly classified in terms of its genre. In other words, a 96

single set of generic features should find their justification in both the historical continuity of the genre and its worldview. When the generic signals come from the literary tradition and a system of thought connected with the genre, the text can be indisputably identified as a litany. It is for this reason that the next two chapters will be devoted to the generic norm of the litany and both criteria mentioned above, that is, the historical continuity and the worldview. The former will be considered in the following chapter, while the latter will be addressed in the first chapter of Part III.

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7  The Litanic Genes The nature of the literary tradition was most accurately captured by Janusz Sławiński. His concise formula, dating from 1967, defines it as “a projection of diachrony into synchrony.”5 Thus, a literary tradition resembles a screen on which is projected an image of the past. Paradoxically, this solves the problem posed by the genre theoreticians, namely how can we combine the two fundamental but apparently exclusive characteristics of a literary genre? On the one hand, a literary genre tends to become standardized, yet on the other, the same genre is the basis for literary evolution. It is not possible to overcome this contradiction unless we acknowledge that a genre is one of the most significant tools which ensures the formation of a literary tradition. The generic norm refers to the fixed picture developed within a literary tradition on the basis of the historical transformation of a genre, but the history of the genre would not change had it not been projected onto the fixed picture. If we follow Gérard Genette’s concept of the architext6 correctly, the archiving function of a genre may be seen to be twofold. First of all, it applies to cataloging the past, namely it records in a single snapshot an entire cross-section of the works composed at different times and in different places. Second, the genre provides stimulus for further creativity which seems to be a natural consequence of the previous function. Seen from this perspective, tradition and progress are not distant categories, but rather two sides of a single coin. By the same token, an examination of the generic norm should not be based on actions other than those we undertake to reconstruct the genre’s history. The norm of the genre, that is, its internal structure, is nothing other than the result of the projection of diachrony into synchrony. Thus, our examination of the two lines of generic development, the ektenial and the akathistic, which took into account the prayers related to both 5 I am referring here to a paper given at a conference in 1965. Cf. Janusz Sławiński, “Synchronia i diachronia w procesie historycznoliterackim” [“Synchrony and Diachrony in the Historical and Literary Process”], in Proces historyczny w literaturze i sztuce [The Historical Process in Literature and Art], eds. Maria Janion and Aniela Piorunowa (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1967). 6 Cf. Gérard Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, trans. Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997): 4–5; Idem, The Architext: An Introduction, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992): passim.

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traditions, was concerned not only with the history of the genre, but also with its actual structure. Research into the origins of the litany focuses on delineating the generic parameters, whereas research into the contemporary norm is concerned with its historical justification. What speaks in favor of integrating the diachronic with the synchronic in a single analysis is the litanic norm, for it contains information about the past which is encoded in the mutual relations between the formal markers. The markers themselves do not constitute a general set from which the poet freely chooses certain elements; instead they are divided into three units which are the building blocks of the litany. The litanic genre came into being as a result of incorporating certain elements from earlier Western-European genres, which subsequently became extinct having bequeathed their building material to the new genre. Continuing the biological metaphor, which was first applied to the literary theory of Ferdinand Brunetière,7 it can be said that before the previous conventions died out, they managed to pass down their genetic information to the next generation, that is, the litany. Accordingly, we may distinguish three genes which constitute the norm and which allow us to reconstruct the origins of the genre. In a monograph published in 2011, the following names for the genes were introduced: i. an ektenial gene, ii. a chairetismic gene, iii. a polyonymic gene.8 The three genes are—in short—three different ways in which enumeration can be employed and an account of each will enable us to make a distinction between enumerations as such and the litany. Within the scope of world literature, it is likely that the poetic genes responsible for enumerations are much more

7 Cf. Ferdinand Brunetière, Évolution des genres dans l’histoire de la littérature (Paris: Hachette, 1890), vol. 1: 12–13. 8 Cf. Witold Sadowski, “Geneza litanii w aspekcie formalno-kompozycyjnym” [“The genesis of litany from the formal and compositional perspective”], in LP 25–59. The chapter addresses the concept of the gene as understood in genetics, which it is then proposed could be adopted in literary studies. The present study aims to provide a more detailed, precise and revised version of the theses propounded in 2011. There are two major modifications. Firstly, the ektenial gene is now treated as a typically Christian form, which is related to Paul’s guidelines as presented in 1 Timothy 2. Secondly, it now seems to us that the benedictory illocution is related to the polyonymic rather than chairetismic roots, as we had previously thought.

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numerous than those which make up a litany. Indeed, a novelistic description, for instance, may be equipped with certain enumerative genes which are peculiar to the genre. Yet, the litany contains only the three genes. They open up a range of possibilities but do not have to be represented in each litanic text. Their appearance in church prayers is as follows: i. the ektenial gene alone is responsible for the make-up of the Protestant litanies, Die Litanei and The Great Litany, as well as of certain Catholic prayers with a similar structure; ii. the ektenial and polyonymic genes are both present in the medieval Litany of the Saints, which is still performed in the Catholic Church; iii. all the three genes (ektenial, chairetismic and polyonymic) form the basis for the Catholic Litany of Loreto and other prayers modeled upon it (the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and others). The above list shows another axis along which Western Europe is divided. The prayers which are characteristic of the Catholic Church contain all the three genes, yet those characteristic of the Protestant Church contain only the ektenial gene. From the perspective of Catholic piety, the Protestant understanding of the litany may therefore seem limited, and the reverse is also true: from a Lutheran or Anglican point of view, the Catholic litanies may appear too heterogeneous. This neat division becomes complicated, however, when we apply it to poetry, and the same is true when various religious practices become involved—the practices of the different denominations within the major branches of Christianity (e.g., Jesuit practices in Catholicism or Pietist practices in Lutheranism). The complication arises because practices characteristic of lay piety allow a right of entry to the remaining genes, even if those genes are not part of the official cult. Consequently, the chairetismic and polyonymic genes enter Protestant culture through the back door. Additionally, although neither of the Catholic litanies mentioned above depends on chairetismic and polyonymic genes alone, as the ektenial gene cannot be excluded, the abundance of works based on a chairetismic-polyonymic pairing—whether in poetry or mystical writing—should be perceived as a sign that a structure typical of the akathist (a genre of the Eastern Christianity) found its continuation in Western Europe. In fact, chairetismicpolyonymic litanies are known as “hail lyrics,”9 which shows how deeply ingrained in Western memory the Eastern prototype is. Its distinctness transcends

9 Cf. Dominika Ruszkiewicz, “‘O Lord, deliver us from trusting in those prayers’: Early Modern England,” in LV 2: 54–60.

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the generic boundaries of the litany—a genre which is not as consolidated in its poetic as in its religious variants. In light of what has been said above, in order to avoid the problems in defining the litany the focus should be moved away from the genre as such to more basic structures which divide the generic features into three sets of conventions. Thus, a poet who composes a litany poem uses one of its major genes—ektenial, chairetismic or polyonymic—or arranges them in various configurations which are acceptable in poetry, even if these are not always deemed suitable to the church. Therefore, is the litany the only genre which enables the poet to use the whole range of basic colors and encourages them to be mixed freely in order to produce the desired result? The term “gene” was introduced on the assumption that it might explain not only the complex nature of the litanic genre, but also genres in general, which should not be entirely surprising given that literary-historical research has often focused on analogies between conventions—analogies which not infrequently revealed a common history behind the genres in question. In his examination of epic poetry and tragedy, Aristotle does not treat the plot as a single indivisible poetic device which forms the thematic content of a given work when it becomes incorporated into a bigger whole. For him, it is an internally organized structure: a sequence of events joined by the rule of probability and necessity. In his Poetics, Aristotle seems to situate the plot on the same level as the gene is situated in our theory: they both bind together subordinate elements and simultaneously cannot function outside the generic context of epic poetry or tragedy. It is our contention that the gene needs generic substance, even when it is the sole constituent of the genre. With respect to its structure, the gene has all the prerequisites of a genre with one exception—it does not answer the following questions: how many genes constitute the genre, what kind of genes are they, how are they arranged in the text and how do these arrangements relate to one another? Such issues are solved at the level of the genre, for they are inextricably intertwined with the generic worldview—a worldview which reveals itself through conventional devices inscribed in the genes and which receives its final shape only when those devices are assigned functions determined by the genre. The generic worldview will be addressed at a later stage in the book. At this juncture, it seems more relevant to focus on the lineage of the litanic genes. The ability to inherit features is an important prerogative of the gene that distinguishes it from the genre. A new literary genre never comes into being as a result of absorbing an earlier genre. It is a logical impossibility for if two genres were located 102

within the same field, they would become a single phenomenon. The greater or smaller the field, the greater or smaller the scale of the phenomenon. A specific genre, however, may constitute a collage of genes drawn from several different genres, that is, from different lineages, as is exemplified by the litany. The lineages of the individual genes—ektenial, chairetismic and polyonymic— become increasingly complicated. While it may be relatively easy to determine the origin of the ektenial gene, the chairetismic and polyonymic genes have a long history on which various cultures and religions left their mark. Since it is not easy to identify the genres which housed the genes before they were incorporated into the litany, we will have to rely on hypotheses. Most of the problems concern the historical continuity of the polyonymic gene—a gene which was influenced by many changes in its immediate surroundings, including the language of the examined texts. In order to solve such problems, it will be necessary to resort to semiotic tools.

7.1  The Ektenial Gene Let us begin with a gene whose past seems relatively simple. Indeed, it is the only gene which Martin Luther preserved in Protestant litanies, and his intuition did not fail him, for—unlike the other two genes—the ektenial gene has the fewest extra-Christian additions. In fact, a definition of its generic norm predates all the extant textual productions. The blueprint for the gene was—in a manner of speaking—provided by Paul who in 1 Timothy 2:1–6 outlined the main features of Christian prayer. From the perspective of poetics, it is a quasi-dictionary definition of a prayer that contains the ektenial gene: I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

In a later part of the letter, Paul proceeds to outline the circumstances within which the prayer should be said. We shall return to this point in a moment; meanwhile, let us focus on the consequences of deriving the generic convention from theoretical assumptions. The existence of a normative text which functions as an authoritative point of departure for our examination means an inquiry into earlier traditions on which Paul may have based his definition is unnecessary. Such traditions lose their relevance in a situation in which all the “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and 103

giving of thanks” are examined alongside the criteria laid out expressis verbis in a letter which is considered to be divinely inspired by all the branches of Christianity. Even if this tradition of prayer was preceded by earlier models, which were not without influence on the church prayer, it gained its final shape at the hands of Paul and as a result of his guidelines. This fact finds its justification in the writings of the Church Fathers—Tertullian, Cyprian, John Chrysostom, Augustine and others—who developed Paul’s description and referred to it in their own writings. The pre-Pauline tradition may be worth considering only when potential additions to the model come into play. The model itself, in its pure form, functions as a pastless entity: this line of thinking follows a strategy employed by the early church leaders who instead of drawing upon pagan customs, advocated putting new wine into new bottles.10 According to Paul, the text of the prayer should be structured around enumeration; he even suggests an anaphora on “ὑπὲρ,” which came to be adopted in Byzantine supplications.11 The structure is based on the tenets of Paul’s spirituality. The basic rule is that Christians should pray not so much on their own behalf as they should on the behalf of others. It is only through praying together with others and for others that they may gain access “unto the knowledge of the truth” and recognize their own position within the world. The assumption is that by praying for others, it ensures that others pray for them. In this way, the congregation becomes a manifestation of God’s unity, as is described in other letters by Paul. In a communal prayer, particular attention is paid to the requests on behalf of “kings” and “all that are in authority” and in this way God is worshipped out of a respect for the hierarchy of earthly power. The position of an individual Christian is at the very bottom of the social ladder. He or she is part of the community and as such resides “in” Christ, to use Paul’s favorite prepositional phrase. Therefore, quite paradoxically, a separate prayer is not needed on his or her behalf, unlike those who have been elevated above the community and who effect their power single-handedly. The use that the early Christian writers made of 1 Timothy 2:1–6 shows that the Church Fathers did not reduce the passage to the level of a spiritual exemplum, but rather perceived it as a formal model on which prayers should be based. Seen through their eyes, Paul’s description was much more than a set of 10 However, the ektenial gene may have had its counterpart in Jewish prayers from the Talmudic period, such as the “Litanies for Tabernacles.” Cf. Literature of the Synagogue, eds. Joseph Heinemann and Jakob J. Petuchowski (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2006): 97–98. 11 Cf. Lesław Bogdan Łesyk, “Byzantine Liturgical Litany,” in LV 1: 85–86.

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guidelines from which Christian communities might choose at will; in terms of its structure, Paul’s text was thought to be an embryonic prayer to be developed by the faithful. This attitude toward Paul’s passage is exemplified in Cyprian’s Epistle VII. The bishop of Carthage does not directly refer to 1 Timothy, but he—quite evidently—engages with it. Among other things, he emphasizes communal over individual prayer: “Let each one of us pray God not for himself only, but for all the brethren, even as the Lord has taught us to pray, when He bids to each one, not private prayer, but enjoined them, when they prayed, to pray for all in common prayer and concordant supplication.”12 The thread of the communal prayer is interwoven with another thread—that of continual prayer, which was treated very seriously by the third-century author. In the initial sentence of the epistle, immediately following his greeting, Cyprian recommends that Christian liturgical life should consist in assiduis orationibus. He addresses the clergy saying: “Let us urgently pray and groan with continual petitions” (286). The subsequent sentences reveal that “continual” should be understood as “regular”; a continual prayer is that which is recited diebus ac noctibus. However, as was rightly noted by Fernand Cabrol, the structure of the prayer, which is described at the close of Cyprian’s epistle, resembles “la prière litanique,”13 for the African bishop uses an example which fits the definition of “continual” in a different sense: a continual prayer is not only regular, but also employs the textual markers of repetition: Rogemus pacem maturius reddi, cito latebris nostris et periculis subveniri impleri quæ famulis suis Dominus dignatur ostendere, redintegrationem Ecclesiæ, securitatem salutis nostræ, post pluvias serenitatem, post tenebras lucem, post procellas et turbines placidam lenitatem, pia paternæ dilectionis auxilia, divinæ majestatis solita magnalia, quibus et persequentium blasphemia retundatur, et lapsorum pœnitentia reformetur, et fortis et stabilis perseverantium fiducia glorietur.14

12 Cyprian of Carthage, “Epistle VII: To the Clergy, Concerning Prayer to God,” in ANF 5: 287. Subsequent quotations in the text include appropriate page numbers. 13 Fernand Cabrol, “Litanies,” Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, eds. Idem et al. (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1930), vol. IX 2: 1544. 14 Cyprian of Carthage, “Epistola VII: Ad clerum de precando Deo,” in PL 4: 245.

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[Let us ask that peace may be soon restored; that we may be quickly helped in our concealments and our dangers; that those things may be fulfilled which the Lord deigns to show to his servants,—the restoration of the Church, the security of our salvation; after the rains, serenity; after the darkness, light; after the storms and whirlwinds, a peaceful calm; the affectionate aids of paternal love, the accustomed grandeurs of the divine majesty whereby both the blasphemy of persecutors may be restrained, the repentance of the lapsed renewed, and the steadfast faith of the persevering may glory.] (287)

The passage shows a considerable extension of Paul’s embryonic structure. While in Paul’s epistle the enumeration encompassed four intentions—(1) “for all men,” (2) “for kings,” (3) “for all that are in authority,” and (4) “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty”—in Cyprian’s it takes the form of a multi-element series. The extension of the pattern derived from the New Testament displays features of the Asianic style, which was viewed in the previous section as one of the most important developments in the formation of litanic verse. It can be said that the Asianic style found its theological support in 1 Timothy. The enumeration of intentions, which was characterized by a paucity of verbs and an abundance of syntactic parallelism, including anaphora, may have been intended to lead to a situation in which a collective prayer that—according to the bishop of Carthage—was supposed to be recited frequenter et vigilanter, reflected in its structure both the communal character, propounded by Paul, and its systematic implementation, which Cyprian compares to Matthean “knocking” (Matthew 7:7). In a situation in which Paul’s instructions—which were expressed directly and could also be inferred from the form of his letter—seemed to have been well received, any external influence could reach the ektenial gene solely through the circumstances surrounding the actual recitation of the prayer to God. Paul presents a prayer which may be said by both men and women “every where, lifting up holy hands” (1 Timothy 2:8). According to Cabrol, from Tertullian’s words we can infer that prayers inspired by 1 Timothy were recited “standing straight with head uncovered and arms stretched out.”15 In his Epistle VII, Cyprian encourages the faithful to pray “not only in words, but also with fastings and with tears, and with every kind of urgency” (285). Even though this is within the bounds of the biblical tradition, there is no denying that in later centuries the Pauline pattern was supplemented with additional elements, among which the responsorial recitation of the prayer “Kyrie eleison,” silence, and procession seem to have had a special significance.

15 Cabrol, “Litanies…,” 1543.

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All the four elements became entwined with beseeching prayers in Eastern Christianity, and the first three also appear in the ektene. Within the last hundred years, the genre has been widely examined by scholars;16 it has also been briefly characterized in the first volume of the Litanic Verse series.17 Additionally, John F. Baldovin differentiates two variants of the genre: synapte and ektene. The synapte […] consists of series of invitations to pray for specific intentions coupled with response by the people (Kyrie eleison) and concluding prayer by the priest. The structural origins of this form of litany have been sought in the more ancient formula of prayer, consisting of invitation, silent prayer by all, and spoken prayer by the priest. In this theory the silent prayer is replaced by a short response by the people, for example, Kyrie eleison.18 By contrast, the ektene, also a litanic form, consists not only of diaconal invitations but of direct addresses to God, which are completed by the people’s response, Kyrie eleison. It is also characterized by the piling up of intercessory verbs at the end of each prayer (“we pray you, hear us and have pity on us”) and a multiple repetition of the Kyrie after the last petition.19

The term ektene is more widely known than synapte, which explains why it forms the basis for the name of the ektenial gene in this book—the gene which is a constitutive element, albeit not the only one, of both generic variants. Their diversity results from a concentric structure in the generic field. Its center is occupied by the Pauline prototype, which consists of a communal performance of a series of “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks.” Beyond the center, yet still within the synapte and ektene norm, there are elements connected with a specific interpretation of the model, namely the responsorial division of the text, the “Kyrie eleison” formula, and the quiet prayer.

16 Juan Mateos, “La synapte et l’origine des trois antiphones,” and “Les prières litaniques après l’Évangile,” in La celebration de la parole dans la liturgie byzantine: Étude historique (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1971); Robert F. Taft, “The Evolution of the Byzantine ‘Divine Liturgy’,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 43 (1977); Stefano Parenti, “L’Ektenê della liturgia di Crisostomo nell’eucologio St. Peterburg gr. 226 (X secolo),” in ΕΥΛΟΓΗΜΑ: Studies in Honor of Robert Taft, S.J., eds. Ephrem Carr et al. (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo San Anselmo, 1993); Stefanos Alexopoulos, The Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite (Leuven: Peeters, 2009): 197–202. 17 Cf. Łesyk, “Byzantine Liturgical Litany…,” 77–78. 18 John F. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship (Roma: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987): 220. 19 Idem, 221.

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There is no need to provide specific details of the scientific knowledge regarding the synapte and ektene variants or the lineage of the peripheral elements. We will nevertheless highlight certain relevant issues. The responsorial aspect of the gene brings to mind the lyric refrains which were discussed in the previous part of the book. These are simultaneously related to the communicative structure of the prayer, which is very interesting, for the communicative relation does not move along the man–God, or even church– God axis, but in fact, the utterance addressed to God consists of a dialogue between the priest and the congregation. It is hard to determine to what extent this multidirectional communicative structure draws on Paul’s teaching and to what extent it is indebted to extra-biblical influences. From one perspective, addressing God through a dialogue of voices rather than through a monologue can be seen as a celebration of communal bonds. Thus, it may seem that there is no better way of advancing Paul’s theology of the church. From another perspective, dividing the prayer into voices has a very long history—a history which dates back to the tradition of Greek drama. It is enough to recall in this context the convincing analyses conducted by Hans Urs von Balthasar of the terminology used by Paul to describe Christians as actors on the stage of life.20 The prototype for the prayer, which consists of a line-by-line dialogue, can be found in The Suppliant Maidens (206–229) by Aeschylus, in which Danaus and the leader of the chorus decide on the prayer they intend to direct in turn to Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon and finally, Hermes. A parody of the episode is to be found in The Birds (865–903) by Aristophanes. Thus, is it true to say that the pattern of a dialogic address to God found its way to the ektene through Greek drama? This issue, which is beyond the scope of the present monograph, deserves a separate study. The second element connected with the gene, the “Kyrie eleison” formula, also merits further consideration. In fact, ever since the hypothesis about its preChristian origins was established,21 it has been passed, like the baton in a race, from one researcher to another with little additional explanation. Since the potential prototypes of the formula are yet to be examined, we will have to make do with an observation that the text which shows the greatest similarity of tone to later ektenes is the Old Testament Psalm 123:2–3:

20 Cf. Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Athlete and Circus (Early Period),” in Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatical Theory, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), vol. 1 (Prolegomena). 21 Cf. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship…, 242.

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Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

The apostrophe which begins the final verse of the passage was translated in Septuagint as: “ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς, Κύριε, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς.” If the plea “Kyrie eleison” was to be used as a repeatable formula, it was probably sourced from the translation of the Bible into Greek, or more precisely, from the Book of Psalms, which was regarded as an unparalleled model for a prayer. It needs to be remembered that in early monasticism these words were part of the so-called Jesus Prayer,22 whence they probably entered the ektenes. Yet, it is the third peripheral element connected with the ektenial gene that receives the least scholarly attention, for in the case of the silent prayer the lack of a specialist monograph is most keenly felt. Even though silence as such has been a popular research subject, there are no studies investigating the generic dimension of the phenomenon. This problem, which was signaled by Mikhail Bakhtin, still remains to be examined.23 In the same way that matter coexists with anti-matter in cosmic reality, speech genres exist alongside “genres of silence”24 in the world of inter-human communication. In the case of the ektene, the silence that falls after the deacon announces the intention of the prayer, but before the congregation responds with the phrase “Kyrie eleison,” clearly does not correspond to the criteria of silent prayer, which the Gospels describe in terms of entering an inner chamber. In this context, silent prayer refers to public prayer and not that enjoyed by an individual in private. Its generic norm has yet to be established and the following questions answered: what kind of public silence is involved and what is its

22 Cf. Irénée Hausherr, The Name of Jesus, trans. Charles Cummings (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1978): 241–247. 23 Cf. Mikhail Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, trans. Vern W. McGee (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986): 133–134, 149, 164, 166. Cf. Frank Farmer, Saying and Silence: Listening to Composition with Bakhtin (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2001): 3–4. 24 Frank Farmer and Margret M. Strain, “A Repertoire of Discernments: Hearing the Unsaid in Oral History Narratives,” in Silence and Listening as Rhetorical Arts, eds. Cheryl Glenn and Krista Ratcliffe (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2011): 243.

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cultural lineage? Certainly, it is not a rhetorical silence25 or, in other words, an eloquent silence. Nor does it refer to Jesus’ silence before Pilate. It is by no means the silence of an individual, but neither can it be ascribed to a collective subject. It is a silence that extends to cover the moment when the deacon’s words meet those of the congregation, when the individual word gives way to the collective, and when the prayer’s intention has been expressed but not yet responded to. In the Catholic Church, the genre of synapte and ektene lives on in the Good Friday prayers, but the gene of silence is also to be found in a very popular Western liturgical genre—the collect. During the solemn Good Friday prayers as well as during the daily collect, the faithful seem uneasy; they appear to be experiencing a silence of embarrassment. This is a direct consequence of repressing silence in the Western culture, namely treating it as a breakdown of communication, as well as of neglecting the ektential gene in scholarship. Because of the gaps in research mentioned above, we cannot specify why the responsorial division of a text, the “Kyrie eleison” formula, or the silent prayer were included in the synapte and ektene genre and situated on the periphery of the ektenial gene. They may have been considered the best means of implementing Paul’s teaching, but they may also derive from a tradition which was unfamiliar to the New Testament writers. Either way, they contributed to the eclectic or even hybrid character of the ektene by joining within the same frame the genes of speech and those of silence. The heterogeneous structure of the genre is of particular interest, for it has decisive consequences on the history of the litany. The ektenial gene, thus far associated with the Pauline pattern, is passed on in later centuries together with a specific repertoire of peripheral elements. Apart from the responsorial division of a text, the “Kyrie eleison” formula and the silence, our list also included another peripheral element—an element which did not appear in the synapte and ektene genre, but which offers an alternative means of implementing Paul’s tenets. The element in question is the procession, which was connected with moving religious rites out of city buildings. The procession merits attention, for—as has already been said at the beginning of this section—in certain European languages it is still one of the main, if not the main, defining element of the term “litany.” The connection between the ektenial gene and the procession was probably effected in Constantinople toward the end of the fourth century.26 However, as it

25 Cf. Cheryl Glenn, Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004): 156. 26 Cf. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship…, 210, 212.

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happened during John Chrysostom’s bishopric, we cannot exclude the influence of a Syrian prototype. It is also worth recalling that Sozomen in turn argued for an Arian model: The Arians, having been deprived of their churches in Constantinople during the reign of Theodosius, held their churches without the walls of the city. They previously assembled by night in the public porticoes, and were divided into bands, so that they sang antiphonally, for they had composed certain refrains which reflected their own dogma, and at the break of day marched in procession, singing these hymns, to the places in which they held their churches. […] John was fearful lest any of his own church people should be led astray by witnessing these exhibitions, and therefore commanded them to sing hymns in the same manner. The orthodox became more distinguished, and in a short time surpassed the opposing heretics in number and processions; for they had silver crosses and lighted wax tapers borne before them.27

As noted by Baldovin, the adoption of the procession as a regular ceremony entailed relevant changes in the Greek religious language. From the fifth century onward, the term λιτανεία, which originally referred to an “entreaty,” began to be associated with a “supplication made during a procession.”28 In this way, the meaning of “litany” came to encompass the various semantic components that are provided by the contemporary dictionaries of European languages. When viewed in this way, λιτανεία was distinct from the ektene, and its main distinguishing feature was in fact the element of processional celebration. This may explain why the procession remains the main semantic constituent of the term λιτανεία in modern Greek. Still, despite the differences between the two phenomena, the litany was essentially very similar to the ektene and it stands to reason that the faithful in Constantinople were aware of the relations between those two genres—genres which in fact overlapped to a significant degree. Both the ektene and the λιτανεία share a common gene, the ektenial gene, as well as the responsorial formula “Kyrie eleison.” We cannot exclude that the candle-lit procession through the city streets, which was a form of extraverbal expression, accompanied the ektenial gene in a way similar to the silent prayer, thereby becoming its equivalent. Approached from this perspective, the procession might be regarded as an addition to the liturgy had it not been part of different pre-Christian genres, which were fulfilled—in a manner of speaking—on the move. According to Sozomen, Christian processions in Constantinople were pregnant with meaning. Initially taking the form of demonstrations aimed at Arians, the processions 27 Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica VIII 8 in NPNF II 2: 404. 28 Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship…, 207.

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soon extended their scope to all sorts of public events which brought concerned citizens together, that is, events occasioned by either religious controversies or threats of invasion or epidemics. Even though there is no mention of emotional incentives to pray in 1 Timothy 2:1–6, the text evokes the natural need of man to “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty”—a need that receives a definite shape in the processions. Bonds of mutual interdependence are forged, not only to celebrate the unity of Christ’s body, but also to provide a sense of safety in the face of danger. This need should not merely be seen in terms of the strength-in-numbers phenomenon, for the fear which drives us to seek God’s help through a feeling of commonality and connection to others was in the past thought of as the basis for religious experiences. This is testified by the history of the ektenial gene, which was passed on to the Roman Church together with this particular function. Litanies, seen as a specific combination of the ektenial gene, the response, “Kyrie eleison” and the procession, became a conventional way of addressing prayers to God when facing war, natural disasters or epidemics, not only in Italy but also within the territories of the Frankish Empire.29 Henceforth, such prayers will be referred to as ektenial litanies. Yet, it was not this litany that became characteristic of Western Europe in later centuries. Thus far we have managed to reconstruct one of the genes which belong to the genre, namely the ektenial gene which wended its way to Western Europe through different channels. From the point of view of poetics, the gene in its pure form involves a collective subject who enumerates “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks” for the world in its entirety, with a particular focus on “all that are in authority” and with reference to particular human needs. However, the enumeration should include anaphora as well as other embellishments which do not derive from Paul, but from the tradition of synapte and ektene, namely the dialogic division of the poetic text between the leader and the choir, the refrain “Kyrie eleison,” as well as the long intervals between segments of the text, which in poetry were usually located between lines or stanzas. Certain poems were composed to be sung during religious processions. The ektenial gene itself was the common property of both the religious and artistic branches of the litany, whereas the peripheral elements entwining the gene were inherited to a different degree by each branch. They were an inherent part of the church prayers, and an optional extra in poetry, in which the phrase “Kyrie eleison” was most often replaced by a refrain of the poet’s own composition.

29 Cf. Michael McCormick, “The Liturgy of War in the Early Middle Ages: Crisis, Litanies, and the Carolingian Monarchy,” Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies 15 (1984).

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7.2  The Chairetismic Gene The concept of the chairetismic gene refers primarily to the addresses that were incorporated into the Byzantine Akathist Hymn, attributed to Roman the Melodist. For the very first time in history, the apostrophes to Mary are repeated over such a large stretch of the text that the poem may be viewed as one of the foundational texts as far as the origins of the European litany are concerned. This is not to say, however, that the Akathist Hymn was the first text to employ the chairetismic form. The general academic consensus30 is that in order to understand the function of the form within the Akathist Hymn, it seems necessary to take into account its manifestations in the texts composed in the fifth century, that is, during the tempestuous times of the Council of Ephesus. In the period immediately preceding the Council, Nestorius undermined the doctrine of God’s divinity and humanity being united in the person of Christ. His stance had the effect of belittling Marian devotion: hence, Mary was thought to be the mother of a man, not God. In this situation, it was only natural that the attention of the Council Fathers was directed toward the Incarnation, an event which was thought to coincide with the Annunciation as described in Luke 1:26–38. In the Council and post-Council speeches, this evangelical scene became the object of in-depth contemplation. God’s initial greeting, addressed through the angel, to Mary became the point at which such reflection was to be suspended; the phrase “χαῖρε” (hail or rejoice) developed into an anaphora and the ensuing antonomasia “full of grace” was multiplied into a series of laudatory calls. There is no doubt that the speeches delivered during the Council of Ephesus provided the impetus for the development of χαιρετισμοί connected with Marian themes. They also led to the petrification of the prayer structure, which was henceforth based on repeating the word “χαῖρε.” The question which remains to be answered is whether or not the convention was occasioned by the Council. If so, then the whole genre arose out of an appreciation for the foundational text, 30 Cf. Paul Maas, “Das Kontakion,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 19 (1910); Egon Wellesz, “The ‘Akathistos’. A Study in Byzantine Hymnography,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 9/10 (1956): 149–151; Richard A. Fletcher, “Three Early Byzantine Hymns and their Place in the Liturgy of the Church of Constantinople,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 51 (1958); Davide M. Montagna, “La lode alla Theotokos nei testi greci dei secoli IV–VII,” Marianum 24 (1962): 480–488; Roberto Caro, La Homiletica Mariana Griega en el Siglo V (Dayton: University of Dayton Press, 1973), vol. 3: 684–686; Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (London: Routledge, 1994): 85–97; Leena Mari Peltomaa, “A New Approach to the Akathistos Hymn,” in The Image of the Virgin Mary in the Akathistos Hymn (Leiden: Brill, 2001): 62–114.

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which is not an uncommon situation in literature. The imitation of the model masterpiece assumes a single form which is standardized to such a degree that it develops into a new genre. A point of concern is that in the period both immediately preceding and following the Council, it is very difficult to pin down not only a model text, but also a single author who could be considered the most significant. Even if we limit our search to works strictly connected with the events of the Council of Ephesus, the texts of three authors, all of them mentioned in the first part of the book, are of importance. These are passages from the Homily on the Nativity by Proclus, the archbishop of Constantinople,31 from the Encomion on Mary the Holy Mother of God by Cyril of Alexandria,32 and from the Homily on the Holy Mother of God and Simeon by Theodotus of Ancyra.33 Yet if a longer period of time is considered, including the pre-Ephesian times, the preserved textual material shows that prior to 431, writing χαιρετισμοί was a relatively frequent practice. This can be seen in three other works, two of which are homilies On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary, both of dubious authorship. One was included in Migne’s edition among the works by Gregory Thaumaturgus,34 with another among the works by Athanasius the Great.35 The third work is a metrical poem composed by Synesius of Cyrene which is not only addressed to Christ but also contains a Marian context.36 The textual evidence seems to suggest that χαιρετισμοί had fully acquired the shape of Christian prayer before the Council of Ephesus, which merely gave theological sanction to the genre. This hypothesis is upheld by a series of elements common to the six texts mentioned above. In this context, the convention of χαιρετισμοί refers to a laudatory or acclamatory prayer, which is characterized by deep engagement, absolute immersion and even a sense of triumphalism. The emotional power of the prayer is conveyed through the apostrophe: it is repeated at least twice in an anaphora, to which a new element is added each time to bring out the joyous and elevated tone. Another characteristic feature of the salutations is their receptiveness to a wide range of alternative compositional approaches. This results from another somewhat peculiar property of the poems in question, namely the fact that the 31 32 33 34 35 36

Cf. PG 61: 737. Cf. PG 77: 1032. Cf. PG 77: 1393. Cf. PG 10: 1177. Cf. PG 28: 940. Cf. Synesius of Cyrene, “Hymnus V,” in Christ in Early Christian Greek Poetry: An Anthology, ed. Jean Jacques Thierry (Leiden: Brill, 1972): 25.

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χαιρετισμοί do not form a single generic basis for any of the six compositions mentioned above; they are merely employed in a single part, be it the initial part of the text (Proclus, Cyril, and Theodotus) or the final (Synesius, PseudoGregory, and Pseudo-Athanasius). In other words, the salutations may work toward an accumulation of rhetorical argumentation as well as toward a release of the tension as the text moves toward the conclusion. When salutations become parts of larger wholes, they show a propensity toward various radically different artistic approaches. Depending on the underlying convention, a laudatory text may be written in metrical verse (Synesius) as well as in rhythmical prose. The enumeration ranges from two repetitions of the pattern (Pseudo-Athanasius), through seven (Synesius and Pseudo-Gregory), seventeen (Teodotus) or eighteen (Proclus), to even as many as twenty-seven (Cyril). Also, the extent of the enumerative units varies between authors. The least extensive units are to be found in Synesius’s hymns, in which they are limited to three or four words. All the constituents are connected through grammatical or phonetic associations: Χαίροις, ὦ παιδὸς παγά, χαίροις, ὦ πατρὸς μορφά· χαίροις, ὦ παιδὸς κρηπίς, χαίροις, ὦ πατρὸς σφραγίς· χαίροις, ὦ παιδὸς κάρτος, χαίροις, ὦ πατρὸς κάλλος· χαίροις δ’ ἄχραντος πνοιά,37 [Rejoice, the source of the Son! / Rejoice, the image of the Father! / Rejoice, the root of the Son! / Rejoice, the seal of the Father! / Rejoice, the might of the Son! / Rejoice, the grace of the Father! / Rejoice, the immaculate Spirit].38

Apart from the anaphora around which the stanza is structured, the first six lines contain an apostrophe: the odd lines are addressed to “ὦ παιδὸς,” with the even lines to “ὦ πατρὸς.” This creates an antinomic tension between the two nouns, child and father, which brings out the paradoxical nature of God, who became human. The text has a well-thought-out structure in which words are mirror images of each other. The whole passus resembles a square, with seven syllables and seven lines as its sides. 37 Ibid. 38 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Synesius of Cyrene, “Hymn to Christ,” in Early Christian Prayers, trans. Walter Mitchell, ed. Adalbert Hamman (London: Longmans, 1961): 174.

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Such concise and neat enumerations are not to be found in the works of the remaining authors. Cyril, for instance, varies the pace of his works. On the one hand, he introduces very short calls, one of which—“Χαίροις, Μαρία, τὸ κειμήλιον τῆς οἰκουμένης”—is immediately followed by another—“Χαίροις, Μαρία, ἡ περιστερὰ ἡ ἀμίαντος.” On the other hand, the call “Χαίροις” often leads to an exceptionally long and complex digression, composed of a number of words or even sentences. Another factor which shows the receptiveness of the χαιρετισμοί to different artistic approaches is the instability of the anaphoric reference. Pseudo-Athanasius, Pseudo-Gregory and Proclus use exactly the same term of address in the present imperative that was employed in Luke 1:28, namely “χαῖρε.” What is more, on the first appearance of the apostrophe, all three authors signal the fact that they are using Gabriel’s words. Synesius and Cyril, however, use optativus (the wishing mode) for the greeting, which takes the form of “χαίροις.” Due to this, the request expressed through the imperative mood takes the form of a wish and “rejoice” is replaced by the postulatory “mayest thou rejoice.” Even though both Synesius and Cyril do not use the form “χαῖρε,” this may be for different reasons. The decision of the former author may be explained by either thematic or phonetic concerns. For one thing, the variant “χαίροις” is occasioned by the spondaic meter and by the desire to avoid a hiatus. Also, the words of the hymn are not formally addressed to Mary, but to Christ; therefore, there is no reason to assume that they derive from Luke 1:28. The decision of the latter writer seems more puzzling, for Cyril’s consistent preference for “χαίροις” in two separate works about Mary goes against the biblical model. What may be at work in this instance is an extra-evangelical pattern of sorts that seems to be well-grounded and highly influential. Having said that, we may compare the poems to melting pots in which various traditions blend and become one. Therefore, to trace the lineage of the χαιρετισμοί from a single source, either from the works of a single writer or single culture, would be to miss the point. Even though all the examples quoted above refer to texts written in Greek that share certain formal similarities, it is difficult to pin down their historical basis. Anton Baumstark argued that χαιρετισμοί have two main sources which gave rise to two distinct branches of poetry.39 Following his lead, it might be said that the first branch derives from the prayers preserved in the Greek tradition, as can be seen in the Homeric Hymns, amongst other

39 Cf. Anton Baumstark, “Chairetismos,” in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, ed. Theodor Klauser (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1954), vol. 2: 993–1006.

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works. The second branch comprises Egyptian poetry which goes back to the Old Kingdom period. It may be suggested that the distinguishing mark of the first branch is the fact that the form “χαῖρε” is situated at the conclusion of the text, that is, in a place where the poet takes leave of the deity, as can be noted in “Hymn to Dionysus”: καὶ σὺ μὲν οὕτω χαῖρε, Διώνυσ’ εἰραφιῶτα, σὺν μητρὶ Σεμέλῃ, ἥν περ καλέουσι Θυώνην. [And so, farewell, Dionysus, Insewn, / with your mother Semele whom men call Thyone.]40

This approach finds its continuation in the χαιρετισμοί composed by Synesius, Pseudo-Gregory and Pseudo-Athanasius. The second branch, in turn, may be characterized by the fact that acclamations are arranged into long litanic lists, as can be clearly seen in Proclus’s, Theodotus’s, and Cyril’s works. This shows that the forms of poetic expression used by the first three authors lean toward the Greek, whereas those used by the last two authors favor the Egyptian. If we were to take the authorship hypothesis for granted, the works discussed could be seen as forming an evolutionary chain. It could be postulated that in the third and fourth centuries after Christ the enumeration of χαιρετισμοί was relatively short, and—following the tradition of the Homeric Hymns—it was situated at the close of the prayer. The Ephesian period was marked by a greater degree of inspiration from the Egyptian traditions, which led to a loosening of the ties between χαιρετισμοί and envoi as well as by an increase in the number of repetitions. The hypothesis concerning the Egyptian influence will be addressed later in this section; in the meantime, let us focus on the two traditions which are so distinct in linguistic and religious terms that their merging should be seen as an inter-semiotic operation. If in the history of early Christian χαιρετισμοί a point came when the main tradition, which derived from the Homeric Hymns, was merged with another, external, but equally strong tradition, their blending into one generic form must have resulted from an action resembling translation. What had to be established was an inter-language equivalence which linked the Greek apostrophe “χαῖρε” to formulae characteristic of the Near East. Anton Baumstark mentions two Egyptian formulae: the more ancient “Gegrüßt seist du” (“mayest thou be greeted”) and the more recent “Preis dir” (“praise to you”).41 The act of joining together two independent traditions divides the history of the χαιρετισμοί into two 40 “Εἲς Διώνυσον,” 20–21, in Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, ed. and trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (London: William Heinemann, 1924): 288–289. 41 Cf. Baumstark, “Chairetismos…,” 993.

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halves, drawing a line between the two stages of their development. Initially, the gene was an addition to the Greek hymn, as well as to other genres which will be mentioned below, whereas later on it developed its own genre called “Chairetismos.” The genre was then employed in Greek texts, but in fact it functioned as a translational genre and thus was situated above the net of inter-linguistic and inter-cultural relations. Establishing the exact point of transition from one stage to another lies in the hands of orientalists. There is no doubt, however, that among the six texts discussed above, namely among those composed during the Council of Ephesus, there are at least some that belong to the second stage. Proclus, Theodotus, and Cyril composed their χαιρετισμοί in Greek, using the semantic possibilities of that language, but the final effect of their works depends on the semantics of the genre, which is situated beyond the boundaries of a single language and which is subject to the influence of at least two cultures. Because all the inter-semiotic operations are effected discreetly, almost imperceptibly, they require very sensitive research tools. The term “Chairetismos,” as defined by Baumstark, is too broad a category to include all the processes preceding the composition of the Akathist Hymn. It has already been shown that the Ephesian period, as the most recent example, witnessed a great revolution which thoroughly changed the earlier convention. One of the revolutionary elements was the Egyptian influence which—strictly speaking—did not concern the χαιρετισμός and therefore should not be the subject of the present discussion. If we apply Baumstark’s findings to the categories introduced in this chapter, it can be said that the two branches of poetry delineated by the scholar in fact formed two distinct genes. This is because litaneiartige Gestaltung, characteristic of the Egyptian tradition, did not express the chairetismic, but the polyonymic gene, which will be dealt with separately. This does not mean, however, that in early Christian times the chairetismic gene itself was not reorganized. On the contrary, it was during this period that a second convention, external to the Greek culture, was incorporated into the poetry. This convention was unfortunately disregarded by Baumstark who excluded the Old Testament inspirations; unfortunately, because it was the Old Testament that gave rise to the second branch of the tradition, which in the early centuries of the Christian era was joined with the Greek χαιρετισμοί but subsequently subordinated them to such an extent that both sources can only be discussed separately within the context of earlier texts. The extent of the influence, however, should not be measured by the age of a single culture or by the amount of literary material it produced. Additionally, the range of potential similarities should not be of key importance, for as in the case of a translation from one language into another, the form of the target text 118

does not have to correspond strictly to the form of the source text. In a situation when a number of sources are blended together in the same target form, the cultural differences are by definition manifested in different theological foundations and different poetics. Thus, what matters is the equivalence established in the period—an equivalence that sets aside discrepancies and centers around properties which support and stabilize the final relation. A translation from a different genre involves reorganizing the target generic material in such a manner that the features which are considered equivalent become elevated to the level of the dominant factor—at least in the case of litanic conventions. The task of the researcher consists in identifying those features, determining the circumstances which brought them to the fore, and reconstructing the interpretation which lies behind this inter-cultural correspondence. Drawing on Baumstark’s argument that the Greek χαιρετισμοί were characterized by an apostrophe situated at the close of the hymn, we shall see below how the emergence of an autonomous genre, namely that of “Chairetismos,” contributed to the lifting of this rule and paved the way for the Old Testament inspiration. The new Greek genre was capable of absorbing the convention which developed in the prophetic texts because of a change in the dominant factor within the chairetismic gene on which it was based. In other words, in order to become exposed to the influence of an external culture, the gene had to give precedence to features which had previously been of secondary importance, thereby relegating the earlier dominant factor to the margins. The change of the dominant factor was—in a manner of speaking—the first form of expression used by a translator. This is not to say that the genre of “Chairetismos” was created in its entirety by translators. The early Christian writers worked within an existing frame, for the reconfiguration of the chairetismic gene had begun in Greece long before the Judeo-Christian tradition began to become influential. As noted by Baumstark, Plato himself considered calling upon gods to rejoice as gratuitous.42 This shows that knowledge of the religious convictions which lay behind the convention had partially faded by the fourth century before Christ. The future of the gene seems to have resulted from the loss of this knowledge. According to Elroy L. Bundy,43 in the Homeric Hymns as well as in related and derivative texts, the term χαῖρε was merely one element of a whole repertoire of various concluding formulae, which also included the verb λίτομαι and even 42 Cf. Plato, Epistolae, III 315b–c; Baumstark, “Chairetismos…,” 995. 43 Cf. Elroy L. Bundy, “The ‘Quarrel Between Kallimachos and Apollonios’: Part I: The Epilogue of Kallimachos’s Hymn to Apollo,” California Studies in Classical Antiquity 5 (1972): 45–57.

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commonplace calls rendered in English as “come.” The aim of these apostrophes was, as observed by Bundy, to appease the deity at the critical moment of closure, so that the poet who ceases his laudation would not incur the wrath of the heavens. Accordingly, the imperative χαῖρε, found in the oldest extant literature, may be understood less in terms of a call than as a humble request for the deity to remain in an affable mood. The fact that the word χαῖρε was interchangeable with other words, together with the theological tenets behind the term, seems to indicate that what was of crucial importance was the tone adopted in the envoi rather than the use of particular formulae. Bundy uses three terms to describe this tone: dedicatory, apologetic and propitiatory.44 Apart from the symbolic gesture of presenting the deity with a song at the closure of the prayer, χαῖρε reveals a defensive attitude on the part of the poet, who tries to predict any potential allegations of improper behavior, and if this is not enough to disarm the wrath of the gods, apologizes for his failure to meet their expectations. It is in the capacity of a polite farewell that the term χαῖρε was most often used in hymns; this became the reference point for its two additional ritual uses, namely in funerary and nuptial rites. The hymnic function of the formula appears to have played a leading role in both these celebrations and the two peripheral applications relied on this principal convention. Indeed, they cannot be understood without knowing that the dominant generic factor in the Homeric Hymns was an expression of farewell. Sadly, the funerary and nuptial χαῖρε are not represented by similarly wide ranges of extant texts, as the frequent applications of the term in a funerary context are not matched by equally frequent uses within nuptial rites. Nevertheless, we shall treat the two functions of the gene equally because both the tradition of the lament and the epithalamium emerge with equal strength in the Akathist Hymn. Contrary to the consensus of most scholars, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood argues that most ancient Greek poetry was not familiar with the funerary χαιρετισμοί.45 According to the researcher, they were the outcome of a change within the convention itself, as well as within that upon which it was based, which included the shifting religious notions. The change, which took centuries to be fully felt, was manifested through an evolution of the form. Thus, the greeting χαῖρε, which was initially addressed only to gods, in the works of the Attic 44 Cf. Ibid., 54. 45 Cf. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, “Absence and Difference: Chaire in Epithaps and Elsewhere,” in ‘Reading’ Greek Death: To the End of the Classical Period (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996): 180–216.

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playwrights is also directed at characters who thanks to their valiant deeds join the pantheon of gods at the hour of their death. As soon as the egalitarianism of the Athenian democracy stretches over the underworld, the plight of its inhabitants comes to be seen in brighter colors, colors which before had been reserved for the gods alone. Gradually, the term χαῖρε begins to be used with reference to earthly men and to be inscribed on their graves. It is only through this that it comes into relations with the vast and potent convention of funerary ceremonies and becomes embedded in the epitaphic genre. At the stage at which Sourvinou-Inwood halts her reconstruction, the affinity between funerary and nuptial χαιρετισμοί becomes most clearly expressed. Both rites, which are nowadays seen as almost exact opposites, were closely connected in the Greek culture, as is evidenced by the convention of lament which was used in both ceremonies. The most important monograph on the subject accounts for this striking affinity in the following way: Closest to the laments for the dead in structure and form are those sung for the bride as she leaves her father’s house. The similarities are due not to lack of originality, but to the sustained parallel in the ritual of the two ceremonies of wedding and funeral […]. Further, a deliberate fusion is indicated by the custom, ancient as well as modem, of dressing those who died young in wedding attire. Popular belief viewed death and marriage as fundamentally similar occasions, signalling the transition from one stage in the cycle of human existence to another. The bride leaves home to start a new life, and as she steps over the threshold for the last time as a girl, her family take leave of her as they do for the dead, while she replies with complaints similar to those made by the dead in the laments.46

The theory of the ancient origins of the Greek nuptial lament is supported not only by the internal evidence of the poetry—the genre features in the poems of Theocritus and Bion and in a more fragmentary form in Sappho’s works—but also by the external evidence based on a comparison between the cultures that stem from a common Proto-Indo-European root. Karen K. Hersch regards the lament of the bride, one of the Roman nuptial customs, as an original phenomenon which came into being without any Greek influence.47 Having said that, similar laments were also to be found in Slavonic folklore. As observed by Sławomira Żerańska-Kominek, in the Polish region of Polesie, “the custom of lamenting within the context of the wedding rite was still commonplace during the first 46 Cf. Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1974): 120. 47 Cf. Karen K. Hersch, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010): 62.

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decade of the twentieth century.”48 All the Slavonic nations grieved over a bride’s separation from her family and emphasized its irrevocability through the use of farewell formulae which were accompanied by sequences of bows. “This departing, farewell and symbolic ending became similar to dying, to crossing a boundary beyond which other rules of behavior would apply.”49 In a lament recorded in 1988 in Siberia, the apostrophe that recurs almost obsessively is “tätäkene” (dear father).50 The earliest Greek nuptial laments also contain farewell formulae, such as “χαῖρε,” which is preserved in Sappho’s “Χαῖρε, νύμφα, χαῖρε, τίμιε γάμβρε, πόλλα”51 (“Hail, bride, hail, noble bridegroom, and you all!”). Theocritus in the Epithalamy of Helen addressed the bride by using optativus: “χαίροις ὦ νύμφα, χαίροις εὐπένθερε γαμβρέ”52 (“Hail, bride! Hail, groom, who hast won a mighty Sire in this hour!”53). The use of funerary formulae in nuptial celebrations may be related to the practice of acquiring wives through military conquest. The abduction of Helen by Paris was the well-known reason for the Trojan war. A mythological theme, thanks to which the memory of a cruel past found its way into painting and was used by Titian, Veronese and Rembrandt, is the rape of Europa. A similar story, although set in Roman times, is the rape of the Sabine Women. As Hersch writes, even as late as the imperial times, the motif of capturing a bride was acted out as part of a wedding ceremony.54 The presence of the elegiac element in the wedding ceremony, however, did not mean that the wedding guests plunged into sorrow and misery or that the celebrations were spoiled. Yet, the fact that the bride had to leave behind a familiar world for an unknown world brought her closer to the princess Europa. It does not seem coincidental that in the Epithalamy of Helen, which was quoted above, the apostrophe on “χαίροις” is placed in the final part 48 Sławomira Żerańska-Kominek, “Death as the Beginning of Life: Weeping as the Beginning of Music,” in Traditional Musical Cultures in Central-Eastern Europe. Ecclesiastical and Folk Transmission, ed. Piotr Dahlig (Warsaw: Institute of Musicology University of Warsaw and the Warsaw Learned Society, 2009): 75. 49 Ibid., 70. 50 Cf. Andreas Kalkun and Janika Oras, “Seto Singing Tradition in Siberia: Songs and ‘Non-Songs’,” Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore 58 (2014), no. 3: 173. 51 Sappho, Und ich schlafe allein: Gedichte, ed. Albert von Schirnding (München: C.H. Beck, 2013): 78. 52 Theocritus, “Ἑλένης Ἐπιθαλάμιος,” in The Idylls of Theocritus, ed. Roger James Cholmeley (London: Bell, 1919): 133. 53 Idem, “Idyll XVIII,” in Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, [No title], trans. Arthur S. Way (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913): 77. 54 Cf. Hersch, The Roman Wedding…, 145.

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of the poem. The separation of the bride corresponds to an analogous point in the Homeric Hymns, that is, when the anonymous authors take their leave from the gods. The similarity is also reflected in the Greek word denoting the bride, which had two different meanings. As described by Gregory Nagy: With specific reference to the song making form of a bridal song, for example, we may simply note in passing that the ancient Greek word νύμφη means both ‘bride’ (e.g. Iliad 18.492) and ‘goddess’, that is ‘nymph’ (e.g. Iliad 24.616). By implication, the ritual occasion of the wedding, as formalised in a bridal song, collapses the distinction between ‘bride’ and ‘goddess’.55

Sourvinou-Inwood notes that in the case of funerary χαιρετισμοί, the convention which first developed in hymns was gradually absorbed by the body of funerary rites. By contrast, in the case of nuptial χαιρετισμοί, a complementary process can be observed: the lament develops into laudation. As a result, both the dead and the bride become deified. For the former, death does not necessarily involve worsening of their condition, whereas the latter experiences a symbolic death in order to create a new life. In Greek and Roman epithalamia, which were composed in the Christian Era but were not Christian works, the greeting “χαῖρε,” translated into Latin as “salve,” becomes part of a eulogy which enumerates the bride’s attributes; they are presented either as epithets or as sequences of sentences praising her virtues. An anonymous epithalamium dating from the fourth century after Christ provides a good example: νυμφίε, σοὶ Χάριτες γλυκεραὶ καὶ κῦδος ὀπηδεῖ· Ἁρμονίη χαρίεσσα γάμοις γέρας ἐγγυάλιξε. νύμφα φίλη, μέγα χαῖρε διαμπερές· ἄξιον εὗρες νυμφίον, ἄξιον εὗρες, ὁμοφροσύνην δ’ ὀπάσειεν ἤδη που θεὸς ὔμμι καὶ αὐτίκα τέκνα γενέσθαι, καὶ παίδων παῖδας καὶ ἐς βαθὺ γῆρας ἱκέσθαι. [Bridegroom, the sweet Graces and glory attend you; gracious Harmonia has bestowed honour upon your wedding. Dear bride, great and abiding joy be yours; worthy is the husband you have found, yea worthy. May Heaven now give you concord, and grant that you may presently have children, and children’s children, and reach a ripe old age.]56

55 Gregory Nagy, Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996): 84. 56 Anonymous, “Epithalamion,” in Greek Literary Papyri in Two Volumes, ed. and trans. Denys Lionel Page (London: William Heinemann, 1942), vol. 1: 560–561.

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Another example is to be found in the works of Claudian. In an epithalamium composed for the occasion of the marriage between the emperor Honorius and Maria, the bride is addressed by Venera herself: Adstitit et blande Mariam Cytherea salutat: “salve sidereae proles augusta Serenae, magnorum suboles regum parituraque reges. […] quae propior sceptris facies? qui dignior aula vultus erit? non labra rosae, non colla pruinae, non crines aequant violae, non lumina flammae, quam iuncti leviter sese discrimine confert umbra supercilii! miscet quam iusta pudorem temperies nimio nec sanguine candor abundat! […]” [Venus stood and addressed Maria with these gentle words: “All hail! revered daughter of divine Serena, scion of great kings and destined to be the mother of kings. […] What face could rather win a sceptre? What countenance better adorn a palace? Redder than roses thy lips, whiter than the hoar-frost thy neck, cowslips are not more yellow than thine hair, fire not more bright than thine eyes. With how fine an interspace do the delicate eyebrows meet upon thy forehead! How just the blend that makes thy blush, thy fairness not o’ermantled with too much red![…]”57

As has already been mentioned, the nuptial context was not the main field in which the χαιρετισμοί were employed. In terms of hierarchy, that is, the sequence of development, hymnic χαιρετισμοί came first, with funerary χαιρετισμοί second and nuptial χαιρετισμοί third. The first two shed light on the third. Nevertheless, it is the third category, the nuptial χαιρετισμοί, that in the early Christian period seemed to move into the foreground, contributing to the dialogue between Judaism and Christianity. Regardless of whether Luke had an awareness of the Greek religious, ritual and literary legacy, his readers must have associated the apostrophe “χαῖρε” not only with hymnic glorification, but also with a sense of valediction, which was expressed in both funerary and nuptial laments. Therefore, the Annunciation may have been treated both as a moment in which Mary was deified and a moment in which she leaves her past. On crossing the threshold, the relation between Mary and the Holy Spirit will bear fruit not unlike that of a married couple. In the fifteenth century, painters such as Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Filippo Lippi, Carlo Crivelli and others endowed the story of the Annunciation with a more figurative, if not hyperbolic, meaning 57 Claudian, “Epithalamium de nuptiis honori Augusti,” 251–253, 264–269 in Claudian with an English Translation, trans. Maurice Platnauer (London: William Heinemann, 1922), vol. 1: 260–261, 263.

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by placing the scene in the bedroom. Indeed, going back in time, we find images of the bride’s chamber in the Akathist Hymn, in which a procession of bridesmaids escorts Mary to the wedding feast: Χαῖρε, παστὰς ἀφθόρου νυμφεύσεως· χαῖρε, πιστοὺς Κυρίῳ ἁρμόζουσα. Χαῖρε, καλὴ κουροτρόφε παρθένων· χαῖρε, ψυχῶν νυμφοστόλε ἁγίων. [Hail, bridal Chamber of a virgin marriage; / hail, thou who dost join the faithful to the Lord. / Hail, fair nursing-mother of virgins; / hail, bridal Escort of holy souls.]58

Interestingly enough, in oikos 19, whose final lines are quoted above, we also find a sequence of χαιρετισμοί that open with a call which evokes funerary connotations: “Χαῖρε, ἡ στήλη τῆς παρθενίας.” It contains an antonomasia which is usually translated as “pillar of virginity,” following the extant Latin rendition which reads “columna virginitatis.”59 It is worth remarking, however, that in Greek the noun “στήλη” was used to refer to a monument,60 or even to a gravestone.61 If we were to take this into account when translating oikos 19, then the hymn would seem to depict a nuptial feast, in which the bride bids farewell to her past life. The opening words of the kontakion seem to imply that the poet does not speak on his own behalf. The sequence of greetings that he delivers contains χαιρετισμοί which “the Master of heaven and earth […] taught all to cry.” Speaking through Gabriel, God becomes the leader of a community which offers Mary words of comfort at a difficult moment in her life, for “a seedless marriage” is to take her beyond the familiar world; she is to undergo a metamorphosis not unlike that associated with crossing the threshold of death. In both cases, what seems to provide a final closure to the present life opens the door to a new life. If in the first centuries after Christ the dominant norm of the χαιρετισμοί had still been governed by the archaic motif of the poet parting from a deity, the tradition would not have been open to biblical inspiration. And yet, the more the greeting “χαῖρε” was associated with the moment of transition between one existential state and another, the closer it came to the mystery of Christ’s paschal transition, which from the Christian perspective becomes—as is well known—a 58 AH 53–54. 59 Cf. “Hymnus Sancte Dei Genitricis Marie…,” in HAA 1: 122. 60 Cf. “στήλη,” in A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed. Geoffrey W.H. Lampe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961): 1259. 61 Cf. “στήλη,” in Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott et al. A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996): 1643.

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critical moment in the salvation history. In the works which are thematically connected with the Annunciation, the moment in which Mary makes her decision is suspended so that it can be filled with many comforting words directed at the Virgin. Radical in nature, her decision is beyond comprehension. The bride is facing a transition from the past to the future, within a space between two courses of time which never meet, or—to use biblical terminology—between the time of captivity and the time of Messiah’s advent. In Christianity, comforting words, gestures and events are important elements of religious life, namely of the grace which comes from the Holy Ghost. This truth could only be expressed and applied to Mary when a particular semantic variant of the chairetismic gene began to be used—a variant which originally was not directly related to religious, but rather to nuptial rites. The fact that this variant was elevated to the status of a dominant factor gave added depth to the idea of comforting Mary; it showed that even in the midst of an unpleasant or difficult situation there is the potential for victory—a potential whose strength and scale move beyond the limits of the earthly world. This contention relates to an idea which can be claimed to be quite distant from traditional Greek piety, but which was welcomed into Greek culture within the frame of the nuptial convention and in this way was expressed in Greek. However, what is the significance of this idea? In the Old Testament, a formula which deserves consideration is “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,” which appears (in this or a similar form) in the prophetic books (Joel 2:21.23, Zephaniah 3:14, Zechariah 9:9; cf. Isaiah 49:13). In Septuagint, it is rendered as “Χαῖρε σφόδρα, θύγατερ Σιων.” This call has nothing in common with the farewell greetings found in the Homeric Hymns; nevertheless, it seems that its joyful tone set the scene for the illocutionary intention, within which the χαιρετισμοί dating from the Council of Ephesus were anchored. This extra-Greek model accounts for the somewhat unusual manner of addressing Mary that was adopted in χαιρετισμοί—a manner which a contemporary reader may find artificial, as it does not correspond to the standards of any communicative situation in the world today. At this point, it seems relevant to evoke the Romantic concept of emotion which is typical of modern psychology. This promotes the idea of a feeling which overcomes a person unbeknownst to that person and which cannot be dispensed with. Nor can it be replaced by a different feeling, for all such attempts are futile and only exacerbate the pain. This makes us utterly defenseless against our feelings. The only thing we can do is to care for and feed the emotional state we find ourselves in. 126

An individual who tends to approach emotions from this perspective would be surprised to learn about the biblical call to joy which was popular in Near Eastern cultures. The underlying idea behind this call, which may be inferred from the prophetic books of the Old Testament, is that one of the elements of an individual’s psychological makeup goes beyond the individual themselves and becomes part of the society; thus, it can only be experienced as a communal emotion, which is governed by its own set of rules, different from those that apply to private feelings. The ability to eliminate certain emotions and replace them with others does not lie within the power of man, but of the society. Thus, the call to joy played a significant ritual and therapeutic role. It was issued when an unpleasant emotional state was stretched beyond its limits. Gary Anderson established that the call aimed to encourage the entire community to undertake particular ritual practices which involved “eating and drinking, sex, praise, festal attire, and anointing with oil,”62 in the hope that they would stir up the power of joy among its members. The legal authority of the Old Testament, in which the call received its final shape, was to ensure the effectiveness of the ceremony. According to Anderson, the ritual was given greater weight during the period of Babylonian captivity and in postexilic times, which explains its extensive presence in the prophetic books. The scholar juxtaposes two quotations from Joel. In the first, which concerns the exile from Jerusalem (Joel 1:13–16), the prophet intones a communal lament. In the second, which prophesizes liberation (Joel 2:21–27), he calls the community to joy, twice using the formula “rejoice greatly.”63 What we observe in this context is the idea of man passing “from misery to happiness,” as Aristotle would say—the idea being in fact a soteriological concept. It appears that during the Council of Ephesus, the chairetismic gene began to be used as an expression of communal therapy, rather than simply a greeting. It no longer evoked the usual homage, or even the celebration of a joyous event, but a process which is extended over time and which brings the listeners from a negative to a positive point. It has been already mentioned that the Greek culture was ready to incorporate the tradition of “rejoice greatly,” for it had been prepared to do so by means of the nuptial χαιρετισμοί. The crucial role, however, may have been played by the intention connoted by the greeting “χαῖρε” in Luke 1:28—a greeting which, according to certain Bible scholars, forms a conscious reference to the prophetic

62 Gary Anderson, “The Expression of Joy as a Halakhic Problem in Rabbinic Sources,” Jewish Quarterly Review 80 (1990), no. 3–4: 224–225. 63 Cf. Idem, 228.

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tradition.64 David Gothard goes as far as to suggest that the entire pericope about the Annunciation contains the framework for the whole soteriological concept outlined above: This is surely the meaning intended by St Luke in his gospel; not any conventional greeting but a special messianic one would have come from the angel. Another reason for suggesting this, is that on each of the four occasions the greeting is used, it is linked up with two other expressions—‘do not fear’ and Yahweh coming in the midst of His people. We find just these expressions in the Annunciation to Mary. ‘Rejoice…,’ the Lord is with thee…,’ ‘do not fear.’65

In the case of Mary, the passing from misery to happiness would imply a spiritual journey which starts with being “troubled” and “afraid” (Luke 1:29–30) and finishes with a victory won on a mystical night that was expressed through the following words: “be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). The fact that Luke 1:28 became a model for the Byzantine greetings may signify that Mary’s conversation with Gabriel was treated as an outline of the salvation history—a history which was unfolded before Mary during her dialogue with the angel, thus before the actual events of this history happened in her life. Seen from this perspective, the Annunciation scene describes an archetypal emotional situation, in which man, who had newly embraced the faith, is situated by the early Christian writers. It has already been mentioned that the biblical and Greek influences were not mixed equally. The meeting of the two traditions caused what might be viewed as structural havoc. In the works of Synesius, Pseudo-Gregory, Pseudo-Athanasius, 64 Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 1997): 86–87: “Many translations read the initial word as a common greeting rather than as an invitation to rejoice, and this is possible. However, apart from the use of the word in openings to letters intended for Greek audiences in Acts 15:23; 23:26, Luke uses the Semitic term ‘peace’ as a formula for greeting. This suggests that this greeting fills in further the picture of rejoicing that will pervade the Third Gospel (e.g. 1:14, 47, 58; 2:10). Moreover, his greeting is reminiscent of Zeph 3:14–15; Zech 9:9; Joel 2:21, where the formula is found: rejoice! + address + reference to the divine action or attitude to which joy is the proper response.” Cf. Stanislas Lyonnet, “Le récit de l’Annonciation et la maternité divine de la Sainte Vierge,” L’Ami du Clergé (1956): 44–46; René Laurentin, “Marie Fille de Sion et Tabernacle Eschatologique,” in Structure et théologie de Luc I-II (Paris: Gabalda, 1957): 148–161; Lucien Deiss, “Joie à toi,” in Marie, Fille de Sion (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959): 75–82; Jean Richard, “Conçu du Saint-Esprit, né de la Vierge Marie,” Eglise et Théologie 10 (1979): 315–316; John Nolland, Luke 1–9: 20 (Dallas: Word, 1989): 47–48, 56. 65 David Gothard, “The Annunciation,” Scripture: The Quarterly of the Catholic Biblical Association 10 (1958), no. 10: 118.

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Cyril, Theodotus, and Proclus, the apostrophic greetings are formally addressed to those who come from another world—either Mary or Christ—but in fact they are directed not to them, but to the community. The tension between the Judaic and the Greek models produces an interesting result: in the texts which are thematically connected with the main topics of discussion at the Council of Ephesus, a reshuffling of the subjects can be observed. Accordingly, the speaking voice is neither the actual sender of the message, nor is the addressee its actual receiver. This phenomenon became a characteristic feature of the chairetismic gene. It is difficult to determine whether it developed spontaneously, namely as a result of a meeting between the two traditions, or whether it was a strategy that was designed to express the new theological tenets. In general, its appearance can be accounted for in two different ways. First of all, it has to be noted that the verb χαίρω with its Protean semantics and wide range of connotations provided fertile ground for negotiations between two kinds of communicative situations. In the early Christian χαιρετισμοί, which still drew upon the Greek tradition, the inflected second person refers to saints, because in the Greek texts the greetings were addressed either to gods or to deified mortals. Unlike the Greek poets, however, the early Christian writers do not resort to the precautionary measures which were employed in the Homeric Hymns out of the fear of a whimsical deity. After the idea of petitioning Mary and Christ for favor lost its theological backing, the greeting “χαῖρε” changed its point of reference. It is not man who tries to comfort God, but in fact the reverse is true: it is God—in Paul’s words, “the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3)— who pours grace into the heart of man and it is this grace that finds symbolic expression in the greeting “χαῖρε.” The second-person apostrophe is directed from God—the subject, who hides behind the “I” of the apostrophe, to human—the object, who is the “you.” The initial sentence of the oikos which opens the Akathist Hymn reveals an awareness of this state of affairs: “An Angel, and the chiefest among them, was sent from Heaven to cry: ‘Hail!’ to the Mother of God.” Contrary to what might be thought, these words are not restricted to paraphrasing a well-known passage from the Gospel. Following the Greek tradition, the hymn is sung from the perspective of man, but the actual “I” of the apostrophe “χαῖρε” is God—not man. This seems to follow naturally from the poetics of the prophetic books, in which the phrase “rejoice greatly” was also recited on behalf of God. The reversal of roles between the subject and object of the apostrophe is associated with an unusual interpretation of Gabriel’s description of Mary as “full of grace.” Facing the question as to what “grace” do the Angelic words really refer, the author of the Akathist Hymn 129

had his answer ready: it is the grace which was conveyed from God to Mary by means of the greeting “χαῖρε.” Secondly, the theory of the subject-object reversal gains further credibility in the light of Ephesian theology. In the Annunciation scene, Mary is chosen to represent mankind. Thus, it follows that the invitation conveyed by means of the greeting “χαῖρε” is addressed not only to her, but also to all men. As far as Pseudo-Gregory, Cyril, Theodotus, and Proclus are concerned, her consent means that in their works she may become part of the same community to which the authors and their readers belong. She becomes the driving force behind the communal feeling which is to have a therapeutic effect on earthly men. In Synesius’s works, in turn, it is Christ who appears in a similar capacity. The early Christian apostrophes are paradoxical in that—similarly to a lens causing rays of light to converge—they bring together two dogmas discussed at the Council of Ephesus: the dogma regarding the two natures of Christ and the dogma concerning the divine motherhood of Mary. Christ himself is God, and it lies in His power to fulfill the promise implied by the term “χαίροις,” yet simultaneously, he is a man who is also the first to be subjected to his own judgment. By the same token, Mary—seen on the same plane of reference as mortals—is in need of an ontological source of joy which is derived from outside her; simultaneously, she is the only woman who could bring this source of joy to life. The two natures of Christ and the two roles of Mary can be rendered in poetry in different ways. On a spatial plane, they can be related to each other in a paradoxical manner, for example, by means of juxtaposed notions, which are similar in sound but different in meaning. On a temporal plane, they can be approached as a sequence of thoughts, which leads from humanity to divinity (Christ) and from being a daughter to being a mother (Mary). As demonstrated in the texts analyzed, the sequence corresponds to the prophetic scheme of “passing from misery to happiness.” This explains why the greetings “χαῖρε” and “χαίροις” must also imply their own negatives. Instead of merely “rejoice,” we should understand the message as “rejoice despite,” “rejoice against,” or “rejoice after all,” as is verbalized by Pseudo-Gregory in his first χαιρετισμός: Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ. Οὐκέτι ὁ διάβολος κατὰ σοῦ· ὅπου γὰρ τὸ πρότερον ἔτρωσεν ὁ πολέμιος, ἐχεῖ πρῶτον νῦν ὀ ἰατρὸς τῆς σωτηρίας τὴν ἔμπλαστρον ἐπιτίθησιν. Ὅθεν ἐξῆλθεν ὀ θάνατος, ἐκεῖθεν ἡ ζωὴ τὴν εἴσοδον ἐτεκτήνατο. Διὰ γυναικὸς ἐῤῥύει τὰ φαῦλα, καὶ διὰ γυναικὸς πηγάζει τὰ κρείττονα.66

66 Gregory Thaumaturgus, “Homilia III. In Annuntiatione sanctae Virginis Mariae,” in PG 10: 1177.

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[Hail, thou that are highly favoured! the Lord is with thee. No longer shalt the devil be against thee; for where of old that adversary inflicted the wound, there now first of all does the Physician apply the salve of deliverance. Where death came forth, there has life now prepared its entrance. By a woman came the flood of our ills, and by a woman also our blessings have their spring.]67

The contrasting images of enlightened darkness, conquered death, destroyed hell, and disgraced devil are also incorporated into Cyril’s χαιρετισμοί: Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε, δι’ ἦς ἐπέλαμψε φῶς τοῖς ἐν σκότει καὶ σκιᾷ θανάτου καθημένοις. […] Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε, δι’ ἦς προῆλθεν ὁ τοῦ θανάτου νικητὴς, καὶ τοῦ ᾄδου ὀλοθρευτής. […] Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε, δι’ ἦς ὁ Ἰωάννης καὶ Ἰορδάνης ἁγιάζονται, καὶ διάβολος ἀτιμάζεται. Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε, δι’ ἦς πᾶσα πνοὴ πιστεύουσα σώζεται.68 [Rejoice, Mary Mother of God, through whom light shone on those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death […] / Rejoice, Mary Mother of God, through whom the conqueror of death and the harrower of hell advanced. […] / Rejoice, Mary Mother of God, through whom John and Jordan are sanctified and the devil dishonored. […] / Rejoice, Mary Mother of God, through whom the trusting breath endures.]69

None of the authors elaborate on the issue of evil, which was destroyed, or on the human fall, which belongs to the past. Proclus in only one of his χαιρετισμοί refers to the gloomy past: “χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ἡ τῆς φυγάδος οἰκουμένης ἐπάνοδος” (“Rejoice, highly favored, refuge for those who fled from human settlements”). Synesius, who is the most attached to the Greek sources, moves this motif away from the greeting and situates it in a previous section, in which it becomes part of a prayer for the gift of pure lips so that they may become worthy of the mystery they are to sing: λύπαις δ’ ἄστειπτος ψυχὰ πραεῖαν ἕλκοι ζωὰν θρέπτειραν, δισσὰς γλήνας

67 Idem, “The Third Homily. On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary” in ANF 6: 166. 68 Cyril of Alexandria, “Homilia XI. Encomium in sanctam Mariam Deiparam,” in PG 77: 1033. 69 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation (by Ephrem Lash) cf. www.orthodox-christian-comment.co.uk/proper0fseasonaugust-mother_of_god.htm (accessed February 8, 2016).

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ἐς σὸν τείνοισαν φέγγος, ὡς ἐξ ὕλας φοιβαθεὶς ἀστρέπτους οἴμους σπεύσω, φύξηλις γαίας μόχθων, μιχθῆναι ψυχᾶς παγᾷ.70 [Let my soul, free from care, grow by living a peaceful life. Let both of my eyes strain to see your light, so that—freed from matter—I may rush along a path with no return and, shunning the toils of the earth, be joined with the source of my soul.]71

The passing from mystery to happiness is not conveyed expressis verbis, but is implied by the triumphal tone and by the large number of χαιρετισμοί which have had to be employed in order to evoke joy. The power of the evil which was destroyed is communicated to us indirectly; it can be inferred from the repertoire of rhetorical features that suggest it. The χαιρετισμοί demonstrate great potential for persuasive strength. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that long sequences of enumerations are to be found in the works directly related to the Ephesian crisis. In Cyril’s encomion, one of the first greetings is addressed to John the Apostle rather than to Mary or Christ. The χαιρετισμός is loaded with tension and conflict, which are relieved and resolved in the ensuing words: Χαίροις δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς, τρισμακάριε Ἰωάννη, ἀπόστολε καὶ εὐαγγελιστὰ, τῆς παρθενίας τὸ καύχημα, τῆς ἁγνείας διδάσκαλε, τῆς τῶν δαιμόνων πλάνης ἐξολοθρευτὰ, τοῦ ναοῦ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος καθαιρέτα, τῆς Ἐφεσίων λιμὴν καὶ πρόμαχος, τῶν πτωχῶν τροφεὺς, τῶν θλιβομένων καταφυγὴ, τῶν ἐγγὺς καὶ τῶν μακρὰν ἀναψυχὴ καὶ ἀνάπαυσις.72 [May you also rejoice, thrice-happy John the Apostle and Evangelist, / pride of virginity, / master of purity, / tamer of wandering demons, / purification of the temple of Artemis, / harbor and bastion of Ephesus, / feeder of the poor, / refuge of the afflicted, / relief and comfort of the near and far.]73

70 Synesius of Cyrene, “Hymnus V…,” 24. 71 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Synesius, “Hymn to Christ…,” 174. 72 Cyril of Alexandria, “Homilia XI…,” 1032. 73 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation (by Ephrem Lash) cf. www.orthodox-christian-comment.co.uk/proper0fseasonaugust-mother_of_god.htm (accessed February 8, 2016).

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The fact that the passing from misery to happiness is evoked in the Akathist Hymn on numerous occasions explains why this crowning achievement of Byzantine hymnography tends to have been dated to the Ephesian period. In terms of phraseology, the song depicts Mary as “thunder” striking “down the enemy” (stanza 21). Through her intervention, “Hades was laid bare” (stanza 7 and 13), “enemies are cast down” (23), and “the curse shall be blotted out” (1). She is called an “opener of the Gates of Paradise” (7), “the Restoration of fallen Adam” (1), and “the Redemption of the tears of Eve” (1). Since she is the “Bulwark from invisible foes” (7) and took “away the stain of sin” (21), the hymn’s speaking voice can address her in the following words: “Hail, healing of my flesh; hail, salvation of my soul” (23). In certain stanzas, the entire or almost the entire sequence of χαιρετισμοί is devoted to the motif of “passing from misery to happiness.” A case in point is oikos nine: Χαῖρε, ἀστέρος ἀδύτου Μήτηρ· χαῖρε, αὐγὴ μυστικῆς ἡμέρας. Χαῖρε, τῆς ἀπάτης τὴν κάμινον σβέσασα· χαῖρε, τῆς Τριάδος τοὺς μύστας φωτίζουσα. Χαῖρε, τύραννων ἀπάνθρωπον ἐκβαλοῦσα τῆς ἀρχῆς· χαῖρε, Κύριον φιλάνθρωπον ἐπιδείξασα Χριστόν. Χαῖρε, ἡ τῆς βαρβάρου λυτρουμένη θρησκείας· χαῖρε, ἡ τοῦ βορβόρου ῥυομένη τῶν ἔργων. Χαῖρε, πυρὸς προσκύνησιν παύσασα· χαῖρε, φλογὸς παθῶν ἀπαλλάττουσα. Χαῖρε, πιστῶν ὁδηγὲ σωφροσύνης· χαῖρε, πασῶν γενεῶν εὐφροσύνη. Χαῖρε, Νύμφη ἀνύμφευτε. [Hail, Mother of the Star that never sets; / hail, Dawn of the mystic Day. / Hail, thou who quenchest the furnace of error; / hail, thou who enlightenest those who know the Trinity. / Hail, thou who castest out the inhuman tyrant of old; / hail, thou who showest forth the Lord, the merciful Christ. / Hail, thou who redeemest from the creeds of barbarism; / hail, thou who releasest from the morass of evil deeds. / Hail, thou who madest the worship of fire to cease; / hail, thou who madest the flame of suffering to be allayed. / Hail, Guide of the wisdom of the faithful; / hail, Joy of all generations. / Hail, thou Bride unwedded.]74

In oikos eleven, Mary is not only hailed as “uplifting of men,” the “downfall of demons,” the one who trampled “upon the wanderings of error” and refuted “the lies of idols,” but also as the reason behind the victories won by the people of

74 AH 29–30.

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the Old Testament; in this capacity, she is addressed as the “Sea which drowned Pharaoh,” the “Rock which refreshed those a thirst for Life,” the “fiery Pillar, leading those in darkness,” and the “Sustenance in succession to manna.” In oikos seventeen, in turn, the focus is on the author’s own times and the passing from misery to happiness takes on a philosophical dimension: it is seen as liberating the mind from the confines of theological misconceptions: Χαῖρε, σοφίας Θεοῦ δοχεῖον· χαῖρε, προνοίας αὐτοῦ ταμεῖον. Χαῖρε, φιλοσόφους ἀσόφους δεικνύουσα· χαῖρε, τεχνολόγους ἀλόγους ἐλέγχουσα. Χαῖρε, ὅτὶ ἐμωράνθησαν οἱ δεινοὶ συζητηταί· χαῖρε, ὅτι ἐμαράνθησαν οἱ τῶν μύθων ποιηταί. Χαῖρε, τῶν Ἀθηναίων τὰς πλοκὰς διασπῶσα· χαῖρε, τῶν ἁλιέων τὰς σαγήνας πληροῦσα. Χαῖρε, βυθοῦ ἀγνοίας ἐξέλκουσα· χαῖρε, πολλοὺς ἐν γνώσει φωτίζουσα. Χαῖρε, ὁλκὰς τῶν θελόντων σωθῆναι· χαῖρε, λιμὴν τῶν τοῦ βίου πλωτήρων. Χαῖρε, Νύμφη ἀνύμφευτε. [Hail, Vessel of the wisdom of God; / hail, Treasury of His foreknowledge. / Hail, thou that showest philosophers fools; / hail, thou that provest logicians illogical. / Hail, for the subtle disputants are confounded; / hail, for the writers of myths are withered. / Hail, thou who didst break the webs of the Athenians; / hail, thou who didst fill the nets of the fishermen. / Hail, thou who drawest us from the depths of ignorance; / hail, thou who enlightenest many with knowledge. / Hail, Raft for those who desire to be saved; / hail, Haven for those who swim on the waves of the world. / Hail, thou Bride unwedded.]75

The various examples of the passing from misery to happiness, which are related to the past as well as to the present, are set aside in the numerous greetings in the Akathist Hymn. The work contains not seven, nor even twenty-seven χαιρετισμοί—as was the case in the previous works by other authors—but as many as a hundred and forty-four, a number which, in fact, has a symbolic significance: 12×12. To this number the refrain “Χαῖρε, Νύμφη ανύμφευτε” should be added, a refrain which is repeated after each oikos, thus 24 times altogether. The wide application of the chairetismic convention and the degree to which the text is infused with images of the passing from misery to happiness provokes the question: what other critical situation, apart from the Council of Eupheus, could have released such a powerful repertoire of persuasive devices?

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A possible answer to the question is suggested by Leena Mari Peltomaa; this is how she concludes a chapter in her book: In this centuries-long controversy the debate on the Theotokos was only a short episode. It began in 428 and was settled by the late 430s, after which the term ‘Theotokos’ never again became an issue. Given that the theme is the Incarnation, what other context could have provoked such an abundance of triumphant salutations to Mary? […] The Akathistos is a long hymn; if it was written after Chalcedon, it is quite inconceivable that it should not reveal something of the later Christological development, and especially the definitio fidei of Chalcedon […]. My conclusion is therefore that the terminus ante quem for the hymn’s composition is the Council of Chalcedon of 451.76

However, the hypothesis that the χαιρετισμοί of the Akathist Hymn date from the second quarter of the fifth century is undermined by the content of the work itself. The strongest argument against this assumption came from Egon Wellesz. The Hungarian musicologist held that the Marian antonomasia, “thou who didst break the webs of the Athenians,” which appears in the middle of oikos seventeen that describes a philosophical breakthrough, “must refer to the philosophers of the School of Athens which was closed by Justinian in 529.”77 Consequently, the Akathist Hymn must have been composed at least a century after the Ephesian crisis by the most renowned contemporary poet—Roman the Melodist. If so, how can we account for the polemical dimension of the work? It seems that the controversy surrounding the dating of the Akathist Hymn can also be approached from the perspective of literary genres, a matter which was mentioned at the beginning of the present chapter with reference to Janusz Sławiński. If we follow his theory that to anchor a poem within a given generic tradition is to project the past onto the present, then it follows that in some of its aspects—those both purely formal and semantic—the poem becomes anachronistic. The text may display content which is not relevant in the current situational context but which can be explained by means of its generic origins. It is true to say that in subsequent centuries the concept of the “passing from misery to happiness” was not so frequently portrayed as in the tempestuous early Byzantine times, but even as late as the thirteenth century we find poems which make reference not only to Mary’s life as depicted in the Gospel, but also to contemporary events, which were either of political significance in the author’s own times or perhaps not, but which nevertheless show the influence of a model which dates back to a distant past, a past predating the Middle Ages:

76 Peltomaa, The Image of the Virgin Mary…, 114. 77 Wellesz, “The ‘Akathistos’…,” 153.

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Ave, virgo iuvans mundum corruentem in profundum. Ave, virgo, que infernum vincis, tenens ius supernum. Ave, virgo, que per natum mortem sternis et peccatum. […] Ave, mundi lux et decus, qua nunc cernit ante cecus. A! Veneni tollens virus, per quam serpens ruit dirus. Ave, mali per quam stratus hostis iacet enervatus.78 [Hail, O Virgin, who saves the world from falling into an abyss. / Hail, O Virgin, who conquers the hell through righteousness. / Hail, O Virgin, who removes death and sin through nativity. […] / Hail, the light and glory of the world, which returns the sight to the blind. / O, Poison which removes poison and through which the ominous snake falls dead. / Hail, the apple tree through which the enemy lies powerless.]

This poem will be studied in greater depth in Part III of the book.

7.3  The Polyonymic Gene Let us now return to the analysis of the chairetismic form conducted by Anton Baumstark, who noted the existence of two distinct traditions within it—the Greek and the Egyptian. The first has been characterized above with reference to the chairetismic gene, a gene whose most salient feature is temporal diversity and whose development can be divided into two stages: an early stage, during which the gene was employed in various Greek compositions, such as hymns, epitaphs, laments, as well as epithalamia, and a later stage, during which—as a result of a semantic evolution—it took the role of a translational tool through which the Hebrew soteriological message “rejoice greatly” was conveyed. The second tradition identified by Baumstark, that is, the Egyptian tradition, has been viewed by us as an essentially separate phenomenon, distinct in terms of its formal external markers, as well as its content, tone and theological coloring. Therefore, it seems necessary at this point to refer to our assumption which was put forward at the beginning of the previous subchapter, that the separate genre of χαιρετισμός, which probably came into being during the Ephesian period, was, in fact, based on two genes rather than one. The genes in question were the chairetismic gene and the equally important polyonymic gene. In the Akathist Hymn, the polyonymic gene is responsible for the long enumerations of Mary’s names, titles and praises. Each of these calls addressed to the Mother of God constitutes a self-contained unit. Each is formally and semantically distinct and able to function independently as an actus iaculatoriae. The 78 “Ave, Christi mater digna…,” in HAA 1: 188–189.

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fact that this does not happen can be attributed to the workings of parallelism which joins these individual parts into a unified and rhythmical whole. As a result, the addressee of the salutations becomes elevated to a level of mystery which is impossible to understand, that is, a being which cannot be characterized by means of a single formula, but which deserves to be extolled through endless names and epithets. This method of designation may be called polyonymic based on a Greek term, πολυώνυμος, which meant “having many names,” and when applied to a deity, “worshipped under many names.” However, the birthplace of the polyonymic gene was not Greece but—as established by Baumstark—ancient Egypt, for the religious practices there enable a greater understanding of the gene’s primary function.

7.3.1  The Egyptian Henotheistic Hymn If the practice of composing religious texts based on lists of divine names extended over a geographic area much greater than a single country, why did the polyonymic gene originate in Egypt? Why should the gene not be treated as common property, or koine, uniting various nations, both Semitic and European, beyond any linguistic or religious divisions? Indeed, we should not underrate the complex analogies which bring together the achievements of various civilizations, even those which are very distant in space and time. For instance, the enumeration of legendary women included in Fled Bricrenn (The Feast of Briscriu), an Irish tale dating from the eighth century after Christ, brings to mind the “daughters and wives of heroes and of kings” referred to in Book XI of the Odyssey, which describes the descent to the underworld.79 By the same token, the list of kings in the Akkadian legend entitled The Great Revolt against Naram-Sin may be set alongside the catalog of famous warriors in the Old English Widsith.80 A further example is the catalog of heroes from the Egyptian Pedubast Cycle that has its equivalent in the Homeric catalog of the ships used to conquer Troy.81

79 Cf. Homer, Odyssey XI, 226–332. Line 227 is quoted from Alexander Pope’s translation. 80 Cf. Joan Goodnick Westenholz, “Heroes of Akkad,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 103 (1983), no. 1: 335. The scholar has also produced a translation of one of the versions of the Babylonian text published in Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts, trans. Joan Goodnick Westenholz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997): 246 onward. 81 Cf. Jacques Schwartz, “Le « cycle de Petoubastis » et les commentaires égyptiens de l’Exode,” Le Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale 49 (1950): 69.

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The analogies could be multiplied indefinitely, but they are only partially relevant with regard to studies on the origins of the polyonymic gene. At the close of Chapter 6, we noted that the superficial features of a text alone do not suffice to characterize a genre. Apart from the generic norm, there are two other parameters which need to be taken into consideration: the historical continuity and the worldview. Thus, in order to fully define a genre, we should try to determine the manner in which it was inherited and prove that its formal markers were accompanied by a certain worldview. It is our contention that this broader approach may be applied to both the litany as a whole and its three constitutive genes, although specifically to the polyonymic gene, for the numerous external similarities it shares with other ancient conventions mean that its line of inheritance is of particular importance. To disregard the significance of continuity would be to risk falling into the trap of misconception, a trap similar to that which the earliest linguistic studies on the origin of words failed to avoid. Consequently, words which were semantically and phonemically close were incorrectly attributed to a common ancestor. To illustrate the point, we can apply the principle of semantic proximity to the English word hut and the Polish word chata. The two words not only mean virtually the same thing, but are also pronounced in a similar way: /hʌt/ and /hata/, respectively. This does not mean, however, that they are derived from a common root; on the contrary, the former is of Indo-European provenance, while the latter seems to have been borrowed from either the Hungarian or Finnish lexicon. Thus, there is no genuine connection between these two words. An analogous situation applies to the polyonymic gene. Even though examples of Listenwissenschaft dominated the ancient world, the polyonymic gene was related solely to the Egyptian culture, which is where its line of descent is anchored. We shall try to trace this, showing how the gene gradually evolved from an Egyptian composition to the Christian litany. Although certain questions remain—and they will be legitimate—about the possible earlier prototypes of the gene82, we can equally well begin our reconstruction with ancient Egypt, based on Tzvetan Todorov’s hypothesis that no stage existed before genres.83 By tracing back the line of genetic inheritance, we reach the mother culture, whereas by tracing the continuity of the worldview, we discover how within the mother culture the polyonymic gene emerged from the Listenwissenschaft. It is a 82 Cf. Uri Gabbay, “Litanies,” in Pacifying the Hearts of the Gods: Sumerian Emesal Prayers of the First Millennium BC (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014). 83 Cf. Tzvetan Todorov, Genres in Discourse, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge University Press, 1990): 15.

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peculiarity of the polyonymic gene—and one which is very thought-provoking— that, in terms of its formal features, the gene blends with its literary surroundings to such an extent that what we mean by “Egypt” is an entire set of conventions which are similar to one another, and elusively so. The term “litany” was assigned by researchers to denote the earliest poetical compositions of the Egyptian culture, such as the texts of the prayers engraved on the Egyptian tombs in Sakkara during the Fifth or Sixth Dynasty (2350–2175 BCE), which may in fact have been composed as early as 3000 BCE.84 These contain catalogs of names deemed to be sacred, which are enumerated in parallel sentences built around anaphoras or refrains.85 This mode of composition was common to various genres and the similarity between them could indeed have been purposefully sustained, for it enabled the polyonymic gene to be distinguished from the neighboring conventions through a particular worldview proclaimed by formal means, rather than merely through the choice of those means. Moreover, the worldview was not revealed directly, but was coded and stored in the formal generic markers. These markers could be deciphered only by those allowed to comprehend them; others were misled into thinking that they formed a chaotic mass of conventions, indistinguishable from other Near Eastern genres of the Listenwissenschaft. The worldview played a much greater and more significant role within the polyonymic gene than is usually the case with literary genres. Over the centuries it underwent salient transformations, which will be addressed in the next part of the book with reference to the Christian litany. However, over a few thousand years, it retained its special status, to which we owe the unique perception of prayer. Within the polyonymic framework, prayer is viewed as a synecdoche for a wider set of religious convictions which exceeds in content the message verbalized in a single poetic work. This peculiar interdependence between the polyonymic gene and the surrounding culture dates back to ancient Egypt. The gene found its place in works which seem to have been constructed in a way similar to equivalent texts produced by neighboring nations. Consequently, only a very few readers held the key to the meaning of these works, which could not be understood until the prayer became embedded in the appropriate theological doctrine. What has been described above was a meaning-forming process, which should not be mistaken for a text’s mere dependence on the context. The deeper 84 Cf. Samuel A.B. Mercer, “Introduction,” in The Pyramid Texts in Translation and Commentary (New York: Longmans, 1952), vol. 1: 1. 85 Cf. “A Litany of Ascension, Utterance 539,” “A Purification Litany, Utterance 563,” “A Litany-Like Incantation for the Endurance of a Pyramid and Temple, Utterance 601,” in The Pyramid Texts…, vol. 1: 213–216, 225–226, 254–256.

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meaning of a text could not be extracted by means of a random system of religious beliefs, but only by those which could enter into a semantic relation with the polyonymic gene. This is not to say that the system in question was directly pinpointed by the text itself or that it followed from the text. Neither was it a matter of an essentially random theology, for this might have led the text in any direction. Instead, the system of religious beliefs had to be attuned to the text in such a way that it was deemed the most semantically valuable addition to its meaning, and thus excluded all alternatives. The concept of context is too broad a construct to accurately capture the function of the system. For this reason, we will use the term “interpretant,” a term that refers to a relatively well-known phenomenon which, in our opinion, plays a similar role in language to that which was assigned to the theological doctrine in our understanding of its relation with the polyonymic gene. Charles Sanders Peirce perceived the interpretant as the third component of a semiotic relation and analyzed it alongside the two other components, that is, the sign and its object. According to the American philosopher, the semiotic relation moves beyond the dyadic sign–object relation to include an additional interpretative clue, without which the sign cannot achieve the correct meaning. The followers of Peirce also recognized the workings of the interpretant at higher semiotic levels. At the same time, the meaning of the term was considerably extended, significantly departing from Peirce’s definition. Michael Riffaterre, for instance, used this category to describe intertextual relations.86 Our analysis in turn follows the thoughts of Richard Nycz by assuming that the operation of understanding, which involves the use of the interpretant, can also be applied to literary genres.87 What is more, it goes even further by applying the same concept to their structured components—that is, the genes. Identifying the right interpretant is a sine qua non condition for isolating the polyonymic gene from other genes which may use the same poetic devices, albeit for a different purpose. At this stage, we wish to make it clear that our arguments concerning the relation between the gene and the worldview, which will be described below, are of necessity hypothetical and as such may require correction, further specification or revaluation. We need to make this reservation clear, although our assumption is that during the Egyptian period the role of the interpretant within the polyonymic gene was assigned to henotheism, a theological 86 Cf. Michael Riffaterre, “The Interpretant in Literary Semiotics,” American Journal of Semiotics 3 (1985), no. 4: 41–55. 87 Cf. Ryszard Nycz, “Intertekstualność i jej zakresy: teksty, gatunki, światy” [“Intertextuality and Its Areas: Texts, Genres, Worlds”], Pamiętnik Literacki 81 (1990), no. 2: 103–106.

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doctrine based on a belief in a central deity which in various circumstances becomes manifested through gods of a lower rank. Thus, our understanding of henotheism, “i.e. the adoration of one God above all others as the specific tribal god,”88 is based on a definition by Cornelis Petrus Tiele, which was in turn applied to Egyptian culture by Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge. Describing the tenets of the doctrine, the English orientalist cites the Book of the Dead: “It is Ra who created names for his members and these came into being in the form of the gods who are in the following of Ra.”89 As noted by Jan Assmann, this theory subordinates ontology to theogony: Creation generates dependence, which is power. The primacy of one god over all the other gods is grounded in creatorship, and the subordination of all the other gods under this one god is grounded in the dependency of the created on the creator. In other words, the primacy of the highest god lies in the fact that he himself was not created. We are here dealing with a form of ontological subordination.90

This religious system was not far from monotheism, but it seemed to be based on an internal contradiction, namely it upheld the cult of the pantheon and yet at the same time deprived all but the highest god of their omnipotence. What is even more striking is that this doctrine, which was grounded on the compromise between polytheism and monotheism and which seemed provisional and tentative in theory, in historical reality survived for a long time and extended over vast areas. On the one hand, Wallis Budge did not exclude the existence of the doctrine in Early Dynastic Egypt,91 but on the other hand, the topos of gods downgraded to the level of multiple entities is also to be observed in early Christian poetry. There is no doubt that the surprising resilience of the henotheistic worldview may be attributed to the artistic genres which stabilized and solidified it. The polyonymic gene is a good case in point here, for it not only appears in texts proclaiming henotheistic theology, but also derives impetus from these particular beliefs. In pure monotheism, as exemplified by the Jewish religion at the peak of its development, God has essentially one Name, with which no earthly names can be compared. In this case, the polyonymic gene is no longer a necessary

88 Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians or Studies in Egyptian Mythology (London: Methuen, 1904), vol. 1: 136. 89 Ibid., 134. 90 Jan Assmann, Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008): 61. 91 Cf. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians…, 138.

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tool within the religious language. In pure polytheism in turn, as exemplified by the Greek religion, Zeus or Poseidon were indeed worshipped under different names, and yet the variation in terminology had to be restricted by the need to distinguish one deity from another. In henotheism this limitation was overcome, and the focus is no longer on the definition. In fact, this becomes an impediment to understanding the central deity which is able to cross the categorial boundaries. Indeed, the henotheistic god appears to constantly change, and its nature is therefore ungraspable. The divine identity is difficult to determine and there is no ontological frame within which it could be placed. Under the influence of henotheism, a characteristic concept was established within the polyonymic gene—the concept of transcendence, which might seem somewhat unusual, but in fact was truly revolutionary. It was this concept which called for forms of prayer addressed to a single deity, but which were not limited to a single direction. These forms played an emblematic role in relation to henotheism. Their appearance at a certain stage of civilizational advancement eliminated the need to devote individual attention to an interpretant. Indeed, such a complicated religious doctrine was best disseminated through texts whose form and rationale were subordinate to the polyonymic gene. It is thought that henotheistic theology reached this advanced stage during the New Kingdom, and this is why our attention will be focused on the collection of “litanies” dating from c. 1500 BCE which were translated into English by Alexandre Piankoff. They can serve as a basis for characterizing the polyonymic gene in the shape it acquired during the New Kingdom. Initially, the gene functioned as an optional element in the hymn, but under the influence of henotheistic theology it acquired the status of an obligatory element and was elevated to the rank of a generic marker. It does no harm to remind ourselves that the Egyptian hymn should be understood as a phenomenon that was entirely autonomous from the Greek hymn referred to in our analysis of the chairetismic gene. In Piankoff ’s collection of litanies, there is—amongst others—a prayer composed of seventy-five calls addressed to the god Re92. Most of the calls can be divided into the following three components: i. anaphora, translated by the editor as “Homage to thee, Re, supreme power”; ii. antonomasia, i.e. an ornamental reference to Re’s power and actions; iii. the concluding phrase: “Thou art the bodies of,” which precedes the name of a different Egyptian deity. 92 Cf. Alexandre Piankoff, The Litany of Re (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964): 22–28.

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Graphically, the prayer is rendered in vertical columns, a characteristic which is peculiar to the Egyptian hieroglyphic script. The name of the central deity, “Re, supreme power,” appears near the top of each column, whereas the subordinate deities are enumerated at the bottom. The diversification of the lower part as compared with the identical upper part which remains constant, reveals the main principle behind the hierarchical henotheistic hymn, a principle which traces the existence of all the deities to the “Lord of Manifestations.” Simultaneously, what unfolds along the horizontal axis is a particularizing hierarchy. The first names to be quoted are those which refer to the two essential aspects of Re, worshipped as both Atum (the “Complete One”)—that is, the sun at sunset—and Khepri (the “Becoming One”)—that is, the scarab pushing the rising sun across the sky. These are followed by the names of the two children of Atum and Khepri, that is Shu and Tefnut. These twin gods, brother and sister, were associated with air and moisture and they were joined in marriage. The subsequent names include those of their children, Geb and Nut—likewise brother and sister, representing earth and sky, and also joined in marriage. The name of Isis opens the next generation of gods, which will be followed by another generation, and so on. Consequently, the geometric grid of the text mirrors a theogonic order. The multinamedness not only underscores the variety of “bodies” worn by Re, but also visualizes the dynamics of the powers infiltrating the pantheonic hierarchy—powers which can be compared to conduits through which matter is disseminated. This system of ontological vessels represents the semantic content of the polyonymic gene. In phenomenological terms, it might be called an irreducible minimum. The life-giving power of parenthood is the basic existential principle: it is transmitted from parents to children in a downward movement. The columns which make up the Egyptian litany are of different length so, as they all begin at the same level at the top of the page, there are different levels at the bottom. In this respect, they may be compared to streams of water falling down a stone tablet. Thus, a work which follows the principles of the polyonymic gene does not merely amount to a set of different names. Neither can it be called a catalog of titles, if by a catalog we mean a text intended to establish a fixed order, an order which allows easy access to information and which facilitates remembering, maintaining and transmitting it. In fact, fixedness is by no means a desirable feature of the gene.93 To follow the life-giving force, to see how it spreads all over the world and brings forth fruit in the form of various phenomena: air and water, sky and earth, as well as life and death; to distinguish these forms and levels of 93 Cf. Ibid., VII.

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being from their source—these are the true functions of the polyonymic gene. To understand them, we need to adopt a temporal approach to reading, for in the course of such a reading we may distinguish the identical from the merely analogous. As an example, visitors to the pyramids know that the writings on their walls stretch over many yards, and in order to read them it is necessary to set out on a journey, for it is not possible to grasp the whole in a single glance. Thus, perhaps the Egyptians did not wish their works to be seen as fixed, extratemporal catalogs in the first place. It seems that this system of religious convictions allows us to define the polyonymic gene at a relatively early stage by assigning its compositions to a different category from those which are also based on enumerations and parallelism, but which represent different generic conventions. What distinguishes a polyonymic list of names from any other list is that its names refer to various entities and yet—by means of syntactic correspondence—they are all anchored in the same ontological source. Within the context of Egyptian poetry, this kind of poetics is best accounted for by the henotheistic doctrine which assumes a belief in a central deity and other secondary or derivative deities. The various manifestations of the central deity are presented in a rhythmic way, based on a conviction that—regardless of the hierarchy—they are analogous to one another. What is more, if the central deity fulfills its functions with a certain regularity, and if the enumerated elements correspond to the theogonic order, their sequence becomes predetermined. In this way, the recital of names, which means the central deity is trapped into a degree of predictability, in fact resembled a magical formula. The polyonymic gene survived through the times of the Pharaohs and flourished in later periods, which means that it could exist both beyond the confines of the henotheistic doctrine and after magic was condemned as a sin. To fully describe the course of its later development would require a separate volume, for it left its traces across many different literary genres, not infrequently those distant from religious contexts. Indeed, is it not true to say that the idea, according to which the world represented in novels should emerge from a source before the reader’s eyes, goes back to the theogony of the polyonymic gene? To follow our main argument, however, let us focus on that branch which gave rise to the European litany. It appears to be an undisputed fact that in religions which waged war against magic, the strategies for governing the world of gods lost their raison d’être. It is not equally clear, however, why the polyonymic gene, which may be defined as an advanced tool for issuing commands to the gods, was not eliminated from the repertoire of literary forms. On the contrary, it has 144

developed for over two thousand years within Judaism and Christianity. If we accept that the main reason for importing and adopting generic conventions from foreign or earlier cultures is the feeling they may be useful for our own culture, it follows that the monotheistic breakthrough did not entail the elimination of certain formal components of the polyonymic gene; rather, it occasioned their re-reading in relation to the new interpretant.

7.3.2  Benedictions in the Monotheistic Hymn It seems likely that the transfer of any generic convention from one culture to another occurs with the greater or lesser participation of the new interpretant. This is because the imported genre needs to be understood, and the understanding is effected not only through a thorough knowledge of the source culture, but also through searching the target culture for a context which might shed light on the meaning of and use for the adopted form. In this way, the sphere of the interpretant becomes an area of negotiation between the two cultures. Regardless of such universal processes, we must remember that the Mosaic religion was based on a series of tenets and strong arguments against the polyonymic convention, yet despite these serious dogmatic impediments it was not rejected by the Jewish community. Sadly, there is no space here to provide answers to the question as to why the initial resistance was overcome, but we may suggest certain lines of inquiry which will need to be verified by other researchers. Did the reason lie in the popularity of the polyonymic convention elsewhere? Possibly, given that the transfer from the Egyptian to the Jewish religion did not have to occur directly, but may have happened via the Canaanite cults, that is, as a result of the pressure of the local communities. Or was the receptiveness to the foreign convention fueled by a belief in the strength of the native tradition, a strength which would allow the rejection of any potentially detrimental aspects of the new phenomenon? The fact is that the process in which Judaism, and later early Christianity, adopted the polyonymic gene occurred amidst two fundamental theological campaigns, both of which left their traces on the gene; on the one hand, there were unrelenting attacks on the practitioners of magic, and on the other, there was a gradual but steady shift from henotheism in favor of monotheism. Each of these campaigns affected a corresponding aspect of the gene, questioning its rationale and moving it in a different direction. The first campaign targeted magical illocutionary acts, whereas the second, the monotheistic campaign, affected the way God’s manifestations were understood. Other elements of the polyonymic gene were accepted without any changes, probably either because they were deemed harmless or were impossible to change within the constraints of the epoch. 145

However, how important was the belief in the strength of the native religion? It is both obvious and proven that the Old Testament is not entirely free from the relics of magical thinking which were preserved in the following three speech acts: the curse, the spell and the oath.94 Yet, it could be suggested that regardless of their frequent presence within the Scriptures, none of these forms of utterance is as representative of the biblical worldview as the benediction, which has nothing in common with magical thinking, even though many researchers would like to place it in the same category of utterance as the three speech acts mentioned above. It is necessary to take into account that in the religious history of the Old Testament, at a point which is difficult to pinpoint, a substantial transformation took place which changed the magical formula that was invoked when healing the world—which may be called a protobenediction—into the benediction as we know it, whose success depended on the sovereign will of God rather than the performative power of speech. The fact that God’s will was favorable to man was a groundbreaking discovery for the chosen nation, and it was followed by a realization that man can always count on God’s mercy. The God of Israel does not take offense easily; he is neither capricious nor malicious or vindictive. He is an active guardian who sustains and supports His creation.95 At the time when the polyonymic gene was becoming anchored within the Palestinian culture, it was the optimism of this theology that took on the role of a new interpretant, discrediting the potential intention of the magical command. A characteristic feature of the biblical benediction is the blurring of the lexical boundary between a situation in which man expresses thankful praise or the blessing of God and an almost reverse situation, namely one in which God decides to grace man with a beatitude. The English language provides two separate lexical terms for the situations in question, that is, blessing and beatitude, respectively. In biblical languages, however, both situations are referred to using the same adjective: baruk in Hebrew96 and the equivalent εὐλογητός in the Greek Septuagint, both meaning “blessed.” It is, therefore, no surprise that the same adjective is used with reference to God in a well-known psalmic expression 94 These three speech acts are listed in the title of Sheldon H. Blank’s article: “The Curse, Blasphemy, the Spell, and the Oath,” Hebrew Union College Annual 23 (1950–1951), no. 1: 73–95. Blank observes that out of the four acts listed, blasphemy is the only one which does not appear in the Bible. 95 Cf. John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology (Dovners Grove: InterVarsity, 2003), vol. 1: 139. 96 Cf. Jeff S. Anderson, The Blessing and the Curse: Trajectories in the Theology of the Old Testament (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2014): 29–31.

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“blessed be the Lord” (e.g., in Psalms 27:6; 30:22; 67:20; 123:6; 134:21) as well as in Samuel’s address to King Saul: “Blessed be you to the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:13). In order to distinguish the benediction, which is bestowed on man by God without the possibility of a mirror relation, another Old Testament term might be used, namely ashere, rendered in the Septuagint as μακάριος. However, what seems of greater relevance for the purposes of our research is the meaning of the two previous lexemes, the Hebrew baruk and the Greek εὐλογητός. They both belong to the same semantic field and refer to a dialogic relation which moves in two directions—from man to God and from God to man. By the same token, the two benedictory situations were also merged into one within the polyonymic gene, which explains how it found itself in laudatory hymns in praise of God as well as in works in which man becomes the central focus. The lexical merger represented the initial step toward dividing the litany into the church and poetic (or sacred and secular) branches found in later periods. Within the lexical field to which blessings and beatitudes belong, there is also another speech act which is characteristic of religious language, namely malediction. By this, we do not mean an evil magical formula imposing a curse on its victim, but rather a practice which is often juxtaposed with the beatitude and which assumes, similarly to a beatitude, trust in the wisdom of God, who displays His mercy even when he punishes. Indeed, examples from biblical literature do not provide a clear distinction between malediction and curse, as in the former category. Yet, there are utterances which come either directly from God or which represent His wisdom, as well as those which were made on His behalf by a prophet. To provide some examples, malediction formulas are to be found in: the eight verses about the sins of the men of Judah in Isaiah 5:8.11.18–23, the thrice-repeated phrase “miserable are they” with reference to those who afflicted Jerusalem in Baruch 4:31–32, the five extended exclamations “woe to him” in Habakkuk 2:6b–20, the thrice-repeated “woe” against the inconstant in Ecclesiasticus 2:12–14, and in the New Testament, the woes of the Pharisees, which appear in Matthew 23:13–17.23–27 (eight woes) and Luke 11:42–44.46–47.52 (six woes). The feeling that the line between curse and malediction is not fixed and determinate results not only from our fragmentary knowledge of the distant past, but also from the fact that different interpretations of the same paragraph were possible, a fact which was characteristic of the biblical world. To illustrate the point, the conflict between Balak and Balaam, as described in Numbers (chapters 22 to 24), should be considered.

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Balak, King of Moab, becomes anxious about his kingdom after Israel’s victory and asks the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites, assuming that this will help his army defeat the opponent. Balaam rejects the King’s command, feeling that the formula of malediction only makes sense when it is inspired by God. “How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed?” is his direct reply (Numbers 23:8). Balak does not seem to understand Balaam’s decision, for he perceives the curse as a magical formula which affects reality by the mere virtue of being uttered. In a gesture of despair, he begs Balaam to at least withhold his blessing from the Israelites, if he cannot curse them (cf. Numbers 23:25). His plea seems to be based on the conviction that withholding the benediction might amend the course of events intended by God. This situation, which proves that malediction only works within the constraints established by God, seems central to the development of the character of the Jewish religion, for it reappears four more times within the Bible, evoking unexpectedly favorable sequences of events, when “our God turned the curse into a blessing” (Nehemiah 13:1b–2; cf. Deuteronomy 23:4–6; Joshua 24:9–10; Micah 6:5). At this point, it is worth mentioning that the Old Testament also describes the possibility of the reverse occurring, as exemplified by a threat from God to the Israelites in Malachi 2:2: “I will curse your blessings.” The fact that in certain biblical passages malediction is juxtaposed with benediction supports the idea that the two formulas are not endowed with performative force per se, but are subject to the choice of God (cf. Ecclesiasticus 33:11–12). Consequently, a man who utters the formula is merely a follower of a predetermined path (cf. Deuteronomy 11:26–29; Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 8:34; Jeremiah 17:5–8). Indeed, the central role of God is underscored through parallelism, as shown in Psalm 37:22: “For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off.” From our perspective, what is even more interesting than the single beatitude—malediction pairs are the serial juxtapositions, modeled on those found in Deuteronomy 27:15–26 and 28:2–8.16–19. Such juxtapositions appear not only in the biblical context, for example, Luke 6:20–26, but also in extra-biblical texts, such as the seven beatitudes and seven maledictions in the Second Book of Enoch 52:1–14, which was probably composed during the intertestamental period. Based on what has just been discussed concerning the pairing of beatitudes and maledictions, we may say that in theory the latter category should be as relevant for the development of the litany as the former. In practice, however, malediction was treated as a constitutive element of the polyonymic gene only in very specific situations. The Catholic Church, for instance, promoted the use 148

of the Litany of the Saints, but did not see fit to supplant it with the litany of the condemned. This is simply taken for granted, for to delve into the theological reasons there may be for this situation would be a digression from the main topic. Suffice it to say that the polyonymic gene, in its most mainstream version, developed with both the blessing and the beatitude. The former will be analyzed with reference to Psalm 136 and the Hymn of the Three Youths, which found its continuation in Ephrem the Syrian’s poetry, whereas the latter will be examined in the context of the beatitudes enumerated by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, as rendered by Matthew. Both variants were joined together in the Akathist Hymn, which shed fresh light on the blurred boundaries between blessings and beatitudes by placing them in a Marian context.

7.3.2.1 The Hymn of the Three Youths For Catholic and Orthodox believers, this text is part of the Old Testament, whereas Protestants situate it beyond the canon. It was performed by the Jewish community during the period of Persian and Hellenistic rule, that is, over a thousand years later than the Egyptian hymn mentioned above. Thus, a very different geopolitical situation is represented from that contextualized in subchapter 7.3.1. Even though it is completely impossible that there was any direct connection between the Egyptian and the Jewish works, the prayers in question—at least from a theoretical point of view—are similar in that they represent the next two stages in the development of the polyonymic gene. Regardless of the corpus of texts which were accessible to the biblical author, there must have been a familiarity with the evolutionary phase of the gene described in subchapter 7.3.1. Let us now reiterate the basic facts concerning the earlier, that is, the pre- or extra-Judaist, stage of the gene. In terms of form, the polyonymic gene was associated with the hymn and was responsible for the use of parallelism and enumeration, as well as anaphora and epiphora in this kind of prayer. The role of these stylistic devices was to ensure a hierarchical, and indeed systematic, arrangement of names in such a manner that each referred to a different deity and yet simultaneously—through syntactic correspondence—all the members of the pantheon are subject to the central deity. At the same time, the polyonymic gene was exposed to the context of other genes within the local variant of the Listenwissenschaft and was receptive to various formal techniques derived from that context. Consequently, during the Egyptian period it was quite clearly aligned with the neighboring generic conventions.

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In the prayers which grew out of henotheism, the gene emerged from the background as it was derived from conventions which were optional within the hymn before being elevated to the status of an obligatory element in the prayer. Even though a written version of a text may seem set in stone, the oral performances reflected the flow of energy in a cosmic system of vessels disseminating life from a central deity to all the subject deities and natural phenomena they governed. In other words, what distinguished the polyonymic gene from similar conventions was its dependence on a dynamic mechanism rather than a static condition. A familiarity with the ontological rules on which the mechanism was based—the theogonic rhythm and, in particular, the structure of the gods’ family tree—gave a feeling of control over the pantheon. It may even be suspected that a hymn which contained the polyonymic gene was performed as a magical illocutionary act. As has already been mentioned, out of a uniquely extensive repertoire of logically connected conventions, rhetorical and recitational, intertextual strategies and religious convictions, there were only two tenets that underwent a revision in the Jewish religious tradition. The first modification was that the magical illocutionary act gave way to a benedictory formula; the second involved a change in the way the different manifestations of God were approached in a monotheistic religion. What is particularly interesting is that in the Hymn of the Three Youths, the new approach was only partially introduced, which means that the theological changes took place not so much within the song’s content as in its literary surroundings. The hymn itself is preserved in two linguistic variants, Aramaic and Greek, but until the end of the nineteenth century the only widely accessible text was the Greek rendition,97 a rendition which provided inspiration for European poetry. One of the most characteristic features of the song is the use of an anaphoric verb in the plural imperative, which constantly encourages the faithful to bless God. In Aramaic, the anaphoric verb appears in the masculine form (brykw),98 whereas in Greek it is in the present tense (εὐλογεῖτε). What is more, the Aramaic word, which is derived from the same root as the Hebrew term baruk mentioned above, conveys a series of blessings—blessings which may be thought of as either equivalent to the anaphora on “Homage to thee,” employed in the 97 Cf. Moses Gaster, “The Unknown Aramaic Original of Theodotion’s Additions to the Book of Daniel,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology 16 (1894), no. 9: 280–290. 98 Cf. Łukasz Toboła, “Looking for the Origins of Biblical Litanies: The Hymn of the Three Youths in Daniel 3:52–90deut,” in LV 1: 31.

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Egyptian hymn, or as a universal formula of prayer known in many religions and cultures. In fact, however, the anaphora—in the form in which it is used in this particular hymn—has a meaning of its own, which is embedded in the immediate textual context. Prayers which contained blessings were endowed with a special importance as a result of a religious reform conducted in the time of the prophet Ezra, that is, at the time immediately preceding the composition of the Hymn of the Three Youths.99 Nehemiah, for instance, quotes formulas of praise and thanksgiving which accompany Ezra’s reading from the Book of the Law (cf. Nehemiah 8:6; 9:5). It is to this period that the regular practice of reciting blessings is dated, a practice specific to the Hebrew religion which continues until this day. Blessings were frequently and systematically evoked not only in ceremonial contexts, but also in relation to everyday activities: they were recited, for example, upon waking and before going to sleep, before and after a meal, during a journey, after crossing a desert or ocean, as well as at the sight of a storm, a rainbow or flowers, in addition to after a miraculous recovery.100 A relatively early manifestation of this practice is to be found in the lists of blessings which have been preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls (cf. numerous examples of “Daily Prayers” in 4Q503101). Qumran manuscripts, dating from c. 100 BCE, testify to the existence of an exceptionally extended liturgy of blessings which was to be performed by the angels in heaven (4Q404 and 4Q405 in particular102). Among the earliest manifestations of this widely branched tradition, there is the Hymn of the Three Youths. Although the new meaning of the anaphora was reinforced in the song through the use of blessing formulas which had long been established as part of both communal and individual Hebrew piety, the same hymn contains elements which appear to lead the reader away from a monotheistic perception of God.

Cf. Cyrus Adler and Kaufmann Kohler, “Benedictions (Hebrew, ‘Berakot’),” in Jewish Encyclopedia, eds. Isidore Singer et al. (New York: Ktav, 1964), vol. 3: 8. 100 Cf. Ze’ev Greenwald “Blessings,” in Sha’arei Halachah: A Summary of Laws for Jewish Living (Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers, 2000): 95–126; “A Paraphrase of the Weekday Amidah,” in Literature of the Synagogue…, 39–45. 101 Cf. Florentino García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson (Leiden: Brill, 1996): 407–410; Bilhah Nitzan, “Blessings and Curses,” in Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry, trans. Jonathan Chipman (Leiden: Brill, 1994). 102 Cf. Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated…, 424–426.

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It has to be granted that when read against its Egyptian equivalent, the text highlights the primacy of the central deity at the expense of the derivative gods. In the Septuagint, the role of the source of life is not assigned to the father of the gods, but to the “God of our fathers.” Likewise, the role of the derivative deities is replaced by the various manifestations of God’s creative and providential activity. Thus, the initial reference to “thy glorious and holy name” should come as no surprise, for it is the only name worth praising, in contrast to the multiplicity of names evoked in pagan prayers. Immediately following this is a reference to “the temple of thine holy glory.” Subsequent enumerations include “the glorious throne of thy kingdom,” “the cherubim” and “the firmament of heaven”; these lead us to the central part of the hymn which is devoted to listing the following “works of the Lord”: “angels,” “waters” and “powers,” as well as various natural phenomena such as the “sun and moon,” “stars of heaven,” “shower and dew,” etc. None of these phenomena are assigned divine prerogatives. εὐλογεῖτε, πάντα τὰ ἔργα τοῦ κυρίου, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, ἄγγελοι κυρίου, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, οὐρανοί τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, ὕδατα πάντα τὰ ἐπάνω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, πᾶσαι αἱ δυνάμεις κυρίου, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, ἄστρα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογείτε, πᾶς ὄμβρος καὶ δρόσος, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, πάντα τὰ πνεύματα, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογεῖτε, πῦρ καὶ καῦμα, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. (DanielDeut 3: 57–66) [O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O ye angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O ye heavens, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O all ye waters that be above the heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O all ye powers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O ye sun and moon, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O every shower and

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dew, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O all ye winds, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. / O ye fire and heat, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.]

Previous researchers have established that this biblical innovation did not extend any further, for the phenomena are not enumerated in a random order, but in fact follow the sequence adopted from pantheon lists.103 Likewise, the conviction that the names repeat the gradable hierarchy of submission to God, which may be compared to a genealogical tree, remains unchanged. Accordingly, “Thy glorious and holy name” holds pride of place among the other formulas and has the exclusive right to appear in the initial position of the enumeration, underscoring its direct closeness to God. “The temple of thine holy glory,” immediately following it, seems to be treated as the closest equivalent to the name of God. The subsequent elements—“the glorious throne of thy kingdom,” “the cherubim,” and “the firmament of heaven”—constitute a separate group of phenomena, situated slightly below but having a higher ontological rank than the “works of the Lord” which are located still further down. Thus, we move down the ladder in a manner similar to that of the Egyptian poet many years before. In a situation in which formal analogies between poetry and pagan prayers are common and far-reaching, it seems necessary to take into account the cultural context in which a specific text is embedded, a context which becomes the initial interpreter of the tradition. In a henotheistic system, formulas such as “sun and moon,” “stars of heaven” or “shower and dew” were allowed right of entry into prayers, for they either referred to the multiplicity of gods or to their areas of influence or attributes. From a theoretical perspective, each of the common nouns enumerated in the biblical song could function as a proper noun assigned to one of the derivative gods. However, no measures safeguarding against such a henotheistic interpretation were inscribed into the text; instead, they are to be found outside the text in a religious tradition which incorporated—albeit artificially—the Hymn of the Three Youths into the Book of Daniel without even blurring the boundaries between them. In the Greek text, the series of blessings is part of Chapter Three of the book—the chapter whose fundamental dogmatic message centers around showing obedience to the God Most High, as opposed to the gods of Babylon. Even though the Hymn provides grounds for assuming that it is based on a traditional henotheistic scheme, once it becomes set within

103 Cf. Toboła, “Looking for the Origins of Biblical Litanies…,” 33–39. Articles on pantheon lists are enumerated on page 33.

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a monotheistic framework, the scheme turns against the beliefs that it used to serve, and the function of its constituent elements is redefined. It might be said that without major alterations to the structure of the hymn, but with fundamental changes in the surrounding context, the polyonymic gene found itself at the heart of a revolution which affected both its ontology and onomastics, and which brought it closer to the European litany. Regardless of the changes effected in the centuries to come, the pivotal point remained unwaveringly the same and rested with the treatment of the natural world, which in the Hymn of the Three Youths was freed from the retinue accompanying the pagan deities. Whether this can be attributed to an intentional downgrading of the deities to the level of accidental phenomena or—quite contrarily—to an intentional elevation of the natural world to the heights of the cosmic hierarchy, it remains clear that a new ontology came into play that is connected with the onomastic revolution. The polyonymic gene, previously associated with listing individual beings, now becomes more closely connected with ordering and cataloging natural phenomena. Therefore, the enumeration of proper nouns is replaced by common nouns. There is one caveat, however, as the revolution is not brought to completion. Natural phenomena, referred to by common nouns, have the same right to address God as individual beings. In the hymn, the call to bless God appears as a fixed form, irrespective of whether it applies to “children of men” (DanielDeut 3:82) and “angels of the Lord” (DanielDeut 3:58), or is addressed to “nights and days,” “light and darkness,” or “lightnings and clouds” (DanielDeut 3:71–73). Each of the enumerated entities is treated as if equally able to perform the Jewish ritual in which God is constantly blessed for all that happens in the natural world. The fluctuation between proper and common nouns will be dealt with in more detail in subsequent sections of this book devoted to the use of antonomasia in the European litany. At this point, it seems more relevant to concentrate on the initial and final lines of the Hymn of the Three Youths, for—puzzlingly enough—both the opening and closing sections of the poem seem to undermine the principle on which the majority of the poem is based. Throughout the hymn, the verb εὐλογεῖτε creates an interesting framework for the indirect, two-stage means of communication between God and man, in which man calls upon other beings to sing out the blessings of God. The initial section of the hymn differs in that each of the first six calls opens with the adjective εὐλογητός (blessed), which is used interchangeably with the semantically and phonologically similar participles εὐλογημένος or εὐλογημένον (praised). Five out of the six anaphoras are followed by the verb εἶ (art thou), which allows 154

the author to begin the song with his own personal prayer. In this way, the initial lines of the hymn establish a one-stage, direct communication between man and God. εὐλογητὸς εἶ, κύριε ὁ θεὸς τῶν πατέρων ἡμῶν, καὶ αἰνετὸς καὶ ὑπερυψούμενος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, καὶ εὐλογημένον τὸ ὄνομα τῆς δόξης σου τὸ ἅγιον καὶ ὑπεραινετὸν καὶ ὑπερυψωμένον εἰς πάντας τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογημένος εἶ ἐν τῷ ναῷ τῆς ἁγίας δόξης σου καὶ ὑπερυμνητὸς καὶ ὑπερένδοξος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογητὸς εἶ ἐπὶ θρόνου τῆς βασιλείας σου καὶ ὑμνητὸς καὶ ὑπερυψωμένος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογητὸς εἶ, ὁ βλέπων ἀβύσσους καθήμενος ἐπὶ χερουβιμ, καὶ αἰνετὸς καὶ δεδοξασμένος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. εὐλογητὸς εἶ ἐν τῷ στερεώματι καὶ ὑμνητὸς καὶ δεδοξασμένος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. (DanielDeut 3: 52–56) [Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. / And blessed is thy glorious and holy name: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. / Blessed art thou in the temple of thine holy glory: and to be praised and glorified above all for ever. / Blessed art thou on the glorious throne of thy kingdom: and to be praised and glorified above all for ever. / Blessed art thou that beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the cherubims: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. / Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven: and above all to be praised and glorified for ever.]104

The division into one-stage and two-stage communication or, in other words, into direct and indirect prayer, applies not only to the initial section of the hymn, but also to the entire cosmological ladder or classification system, whose elements—as has already been noted—are enumerated in the subsequent calls. Man’s addresses to God, His Holy Name, the Temple of His Holy Glory, to Him that sits “on the glorious throne of thy kingdom,” “beholdest the depths,” and is praised “in the firmament of heaven” imply a direct and unmediated prayer to God. Moving a few steps down the ladder of being involves giving voice to the beings encountered: the “works of the Lord,” “angels,” “heavens,” “waters that be above the heaven,” etc. As a consequence, the cosmic hierarchy is divided into two spheres, one which is based on face-to-face communication with God and that which involves intermediaries.

104 With reference to the original King James Bible translation, the order of verses 54 and 55 has been changed in accordance with the critical edition of the Septuagint.

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However, in the closing lines of the hymn, the schematic structure of the verses is somewhat distorted, as the verb εὐλογεῖτε, which is given pride of place in the main section of the poem, gives way to two other verbs. The first is the imperative ἐξομολογεῖσθε, which may be translated as “make grateful acknowledgements, give thanks.” In the next verse, the word εὐλογεῖτε reappears, only to be replaced by the phrase “ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ἐξομολογεῖσθε,” which is composed of two verbs joined by the conjunction “and.” The second verb used in this phrase (ἐξομολογεῖσθε) is the same verb as that which appeared previously, whereas the first verb in the phrase (ὑμνεῖτε) expresses a call to sing hymns. This produces an interesting effect through the intertwining of εὐλογεῖτε–ἐξομολογεῖσθε– εὐλογεῖτε–ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ἐξομολογεῖσθε. The author of the poem not only uses the pattern of the polyonymic gene in order to create a multiple enumeration, but is also able to bring it to a halt—first, by replacing the anaphoric reference with a synonymous expression, and then by extending the expression to encompass three words. εὐλογεῖτε, Ανανια, Αζαρια, Μισαηλ, τὸν κύριον· ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ὅτι ἐξείλατο ἡμᾶς ἐξ ᾅδου καὶ ἔσωσεν ἡμᾶς ἐκ χειρὸς θανάτου, καὶ ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς ἐκ μέσου καμίνου καιομένης φλογὸς, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ μέσου πυρὸς ἐλυτρώσατο ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς. ἐξομολογεῖσθε τῷ κυρίῳ, ὅτι χρηστός, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ. εὐλογεῖτε, πάντες οἱ σεβόμενοι τὸν κύριον τὸν θεὸν τῶν θεῶν ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ἐξομολογεῖσθε, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τῶν αἰώνων. (DanielDeut 3:88–90) [O Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever: for he hath delivered us from hell, and saved us from the hand of death, and delivered us out of the midst of the furnace and burning flame: even out of the midst of the fire hath he delivered us. O give thanks unto the Lord, because he is gracious: for his mercy endureth for ever. O all ye that worship the Lord, bless the God of gods, praise him, and give him thanks: for his mercy endureth for ever.]105

In the initial part, the adjective εὐλογητός and the participle εὐλογημένος are used interchangeably; likewise, in the final section the verbs ὑμνεῖτε and ἐξομολογεῖσθε are treated as synonyms for the main word εὐλογεῖτε. This provokes the question whether, from the perspective of biblical mentality, the words 105 There are small but immaterial differences between the critical edition of the Septuagint and the King James Bible translation.

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εὐλογητός and μακάριος, together with their Hebrew models, exhaust all the possible categories of benediction. How far can the category of εὐλογεῖτε be extended without moving beyond the frame of the polyonymic gene? Before this question is addressed (see subchapter 7.3.3), let us underline the fact that the same verb ἐξομολογεῖσθε, which in the Hymn of the Three Youths appears twice as a substitute for εὐλογεῖτε, became the leading verb in the Greek variant of a different pre-litanic biblical hymn, that is, Psalm 136.

7.3.2.2  Psalm 136 The Hymn of the Three Youths and Psalm 136 are analogous in a number of ways. Both were composed roughly at the same point in the history of the chosen nation, that is, in times of restitution after the Babylonian captivity.106 As with the Hymn of the Three Youths, the central compositional rule behind Psalm 136 is that of multiple enumeration. Another similarity concerns the two-stage communication pattern, in which the speaker calls upon other beings to sing out the prayer. Unlike in Daniel, however, in Psalm 136 the invitation to prayer is only seen in the first three verses, as well as in the final verse. The remainder of the song focuses on enumerating God’s gifts, thus inspiring a feeling of gratitude on the part of man. The fact that the apostrophe does not emerge onto the surface of the poem does not mean, however, that it is not there in an implicit form. On the contrary, the lack of an anaphoric formula in verses four to twenty-five cannot fail to be noticed by a reader, for it is this absence that leads to the clear numerological symbolism that dominates the core of Psalm 136. There are twenty-six verses, which corresponds to the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton, and at the same time, there are twenty-two verses with an implied call, which is equivalent to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.107 Verses one, two, three and twenty-six contain an anaphora on the verb howdu, which expresses a call to “give thanks” and was translated by the Septuagint editors using the Greek word ἐξομολογεῖσθε. Since in the Hymn of the Three Youths this word is treated as a substitute for εὐλογεῖτε, if both songs are read in the Greek language, one may get the impression that they are semantically close, based on the assumption that a blessing and a thanksgiving may be perceived as

106 Psalm 136 probably predated the Hymn of the Three Youths. Cf. Dirk J. Human, “A Liturgy with Reference to Creation and History,” in Psalms and Liturgy, eds. Idem and Cas J. A. Vos (London: T&T Clark, 2004): 86. 107 Cf. Pieter van der Lugt, Cantos and Strophes in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 2014), vol. 3 (Psalms 90–150 and Psalm 1): 452.

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equivalents. In fact, the reasons for giving thanks to God, as presented in Psalm 136, are to a certain extent analogous to the blessings listed in the Book of Daniel. Verses one to three describe the inner nature of God who “is good,” who is “the God of gods” and “the Lord of lords.” Verse four, which underscores the independence and omnipotence of God “who alone doeth great wonders,” removes the boundary between the Creator and the Creation. Verses five to nine are a sequence of laudatory calls which correspond to the order of creation, when God “by wisdom made the heavens,” “stretched out the earth above the waters,” “made great lights: […] the sun to rule by day,” and “the moon and stars to rule by night.” In his comment on this passage, Dirk J. Human rightly observes the challenging nature of the enumeration: “the indication that Yahweh performs these deeds alone (‫ )לבדו‬expresses his unique character in comparison to the other (heavenly) powers and gods. […] Psalm 136 devalues the latter as being mere creations of the Supreme God, Yahweh, and lacking his power.”108 Not unlike the Hymn of the Three Youths, Psalm 136 offers a reinterpretation of the polyonymic gene, including signals in favor of a monotheistic cult in post-exilic times. Verse ten, however, marks a radical change within the psalm. The enumeration of the stages of the creation quite unexpectedly transforms into a register of events related to the journey of the chosen people from Egypt to the Promised Land. Depending on whether we perceive verses twenty-three to twenty-five as a recapitulation of the golden epoch or a premonition of the future, the section devoted to the chosen people comprises either thirteen or sixteen verses. Whichever way it is interpreted, it is the longest passage within the song. It is worth remembering that, in contrast, the Hymn of the Three Youths has a transhistorical character. The most significant difference between Psalm 136 and the Hymn of the Three Youths, however, is not related to the use of the verb howdu rather than baraku; nor is it related to the expansion of the cosmological formula to include salient events of Israelite history; instead, it is aligned with a different perception of the parts-of-speech hierarchy. We owe this in large measure to the Septuagint, for the Greek translation not only maintains but also extends the psalmist’s mode of artistic expression in a particularly interesting and systematic way. The Hymn of the Three Youths presents the reader with a patchwork of enumerated objects—“angels,” “heavens,” “waters,” “powers of the Lord,” “sun and moon,” “stars of heaven,” etc.—which clearly shows that it is a poem governed by nouns. Psalm 136 begins in a similar way, for verses one to three draw attention to the names of God which immediately follow the anaphoric word: the Tetragrammaton 108 Human, “A Liturgy…,” 79.

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and two parallel phrases—“the God of gods” and “the Lord of lords.” Yet, in verse four a shift occurs, for the psalmist no longer enumerates the names of the one who shall be thanked, but concentrates instead on His actions. Accordingly, the nouns are relegated to the background and are replaced with verbs, including participles: this applies to the onset of fourteen lines, that is, those numbered 4–7, 10– 11, 13–18, 21 and 25. The activities of God, which they describe to a certain extent, concern the same objects evoked in the Hymn of the Three Youths, but the objects themselves are no longer important. What is significant in this section of the psalm are the steps taken by God in the process of creation: forming the heavens, stretching out the earth above the waters, etc. The technique adopted by the psalmist also sheds contrasting light on the Hymn of the Three Youths, for only when we set it alongside Psalm 136 do we begin to see how many remnants of henotheism it contains. As depicted in the psalm, the beings and cosmic phenomena are deprived of the ability to perform intellectual functions. They become the objects of God’s actions, and the place they used to occupy is assigned to actions performed by God toward them. Thus, if the Hymn has been called a poem governed by nouns, it follows that Psalm 136 may be called a poem governed by verbs. Taking into consideration the role of the Psalms in everyday church prayer—a role that is not comparable to that of any other biblical book—let us make the assumption that it was Psalm 136 that became the model for the litany, in which the enumerative tension is also built up through verbal rather than nominal means. The model in question could have referred to the Greek variant of the text, thanks to which the shift in emphasis from nouns to verbs did not move the convention beyond a framework based on a list of names. To be more precise, the Greek rendition of the text did not turn it into a narrative, for the enumeration of various actions performed by God—such as creating the world, then regulating and sustaining it—gave rise to the titles that are treated on a par with the typical nominal names for God: the Creator, the Shepherd or the Savior. In the Hebrew text, at the onset of the fourteen verses mentioned above, the ratio of participles to other verb forms is nine to five.109 This feature was not automatically transformed into Greek, for the editor of the Septuagint addressed it on different levels in the translation. Starting with the outermost layer of the text, we observe that the ratio of nine to five was not maintained, for each of the fourteen words was rendered by means of participles; all but one take the –ντι ending in the dative case. Consequently, thirteen participles form a column joined by

109 I wish to express my gratitude to Łukasz Toboła, who familiarized me with the peculiarities of using these verbs in the Hebrew rendition of Psalm 136.

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rhyme, or more precisely, homoeoteleuton, which owes its unusual character to the initial position in which it appears. τῷ ποιοῦντι θαυμάσια μεγάλα μόνῳ, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ· τῷ ποιήσαντι τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἐν συνέσει, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ· τῷ στερεώσαντι τὴν γῆν ἐπὶ τῶν ὑδάτων, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ· τῷ ποιήσαντι φῶτα μεγάλα μόνῳ, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, […]. τῷ πατάξαντι Αἴγυπτον σὺν τοῖς πρωτοτόκοις αὐτῶν, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐξαγαγόντι τὸν Ισραηλ ἐκ μέσου αὐτῶν, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, […]. τῷ καταδιελόντι τὴν ἐρυθρὰν θάλασσαν εἰς διαιρέσεις, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, καὶ διαγαγόντι τὸν Ισραηλ διὰ μέσου αὐτῆς, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκτινάξαντι Φαραω καὶ τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ εἰς θάλασσαν ἐρυθράν, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ· τῷ διαγαγόντι τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ· […] τῷ πατάξαντι βασιλεῖς μεγάλους, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἀποκτείναντι βασιλεῖς κραταιούς, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, […]. καὶ δόντι τὴν γῆν αὐτῶν κληρονομίαν, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, […]. ὁ διδοὺς τροφὴν πάσῃ σαρκί, ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ. (Psalm 136: 4–7. 10–11. 13–16a. 17–18. 21. 25) [To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever. / To him that by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy endureth for ever. / To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth for ever. / To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever: […]. / To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy endureth for ever: / And brought out Israel from among them: for his mercy endureth for ever: […]. / To him which divided the Red Sea into parts: for his mercy endureth for ever: / And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy endureth for ever: / But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea: for his  mercy  endureth for ever. / To him which led his people through the wilderness: for his mercy endureth for ever. […] / To him which smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for ever: / And slew famous kings: for his mercy endureth for ever: […]. And gave their land for an heritage: for his mercy endureth for ever: […]. / Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever.]

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The corollary of replacing the nine to five ratio with a rhythmical series of participles provided a greater and more systematic regularity in the Greek version, as compared to the Hebrew. Owing to this, Psalm 136 became a model for the poets who employed participial anaphoras. A more careful examination of the text reveals, however, that in fact the ratio of nine to five was not completely ignored by the translator. The editor of the Septuagint highlights the differences between the two groups of words in an ingenious manner. The Greek participles which took the place of Hebrew participles are preceded by an article, whereas the remaining participles—which in the original correspond to other verb forms—are preceded by the conjunction καὶ rather than by an article. Since the divergence refers to a single syllable, the discrepancy between the two groups is almost negligible in melodic terms, but not in semantic terms. The consequence of this difference is that the nine Greek participles—those preceded by articles—move in the direction of a greater nominality, whereas in the remaining five cases the verbal aspect gains precedence. In this way, the gap between the two traditions is bridged. On the one hand, in the polyonymic gene, which is based on a multiplicity of names, the participle preceded by an article is treated as a means of expression characteristic of the gene. On the other hand, through the use of the participle without an article the requirements of a monotheistic religion are met, a religion in which a single God is worshipped and in which His name alone epitomizes His indivisibility. If there are any manifestations of multiplicity and diversity within this religion, they apply solely to God’s actions and not to God himself. We will return to the subject of the advantages of participles over other speech parts—such as nouns and adjectives—in the Chapter 9 focusing on antonomasia. At this point, let us conclude by citing the words of Jorg Jeremias: “Compared to the hymns of the great nations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, biblical Israel was rather hesitant to use adjectives for God in hymns. Rather, the people would tell of what they had experienced of God.”110 To continue in chronological, as well as cultural valence, order would necessitate moving on to the New Testament to focus on the examples of benedictions in Matthew, which represent a significant step in liberating the polyonymic gene from any henotheistic assumptions. Christ’s words which open the Sermon on the Mount, however, take the form of μακαρισμοί, which means that they are addressed not to God but to man. For this reason, the New Testament example will be dealt with later, and we will instead consider the works derived from the 110 Jorg Jeremias, “Worship and Theology in the Psalms,” in Psalms and Liturgy…, 91.

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Old Testament and concentrate on a selection of hymns composed by Ephrem the Syrian in the fourth century CE.

7.3.2.3  The Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian Sections 7.3.2.1 and 7.3.2.2 described what happened to the polyonymic gene when it was transposed from a henotheistic to a monotheistic environment. The present section will be devoted to a semantic evolution which resulted from transposing the gene to yet another context, namely that of the Mediterranean culture. It is true that the Hymn of the Three Youths and Psalm 136 were accessible to Greek speakers, but it is Ephrem the Syrian whose works in a dialect of Aramaic are responsible for the meeting of two traditions, the tradition underlying the songs mentioned above and the Greek tradition of rhetorical writing. The juxtaposition of the two traditions did not happen within the framework of his poetic oeuvre, but was the result of the space-time context in which it was composed, and this left a trace on the benedictory illocution characteristic of the polyonymic gene. It is relevant to mention at this point the Greek belief in the persuasive powers of rhetoric, the origins of which go back to magic formulas.111 This communicative pattern, which was initially based on the power of the word and involved an imbalance in the relation between the superior (speaker) and the subordinate (addressee), in the classical period began to be perceived in a more democratic way, thanks to which an oratory no longer entailed manipulation but instead allowed an opportunity for dialogue and argumentation. Underlying this change was the Latin-Greek idea of a social dialogue, which may be seen in terms of a moral obligation, an obligation to place systematic pressure on an authority through rhetorical education. We must bear this in mind in order to understand the series of political decisions which culminated in the legendary Edict of Milan. If the Christian writers avoided the risk of treating the liberties granted by the Edict as a purely external change of rules, this was due to their thorough rhetorical education. Almost instantaneously, religious poetry found itself immersed in the new situation, and the forms of its expression were shaped accordingly, that is, not only in the context of liberty, but also according to the terms of liberty. The more so that liberty was one of the crucial tenets of Christianity as

111 Cf. Jacqueline de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975): passim. Laurent Pernot, “The Rhetoric of Religion,” in New Chapters in the History of Rhetoric, ed. Idem (Leiden: Brill, 2009): 337–338.

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seen in John 8:32; Romans 8:21; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:1 and a number of other passages from the New Testament. In Ephrem’s poetry, liberty underscores the benedictory illocution which was adopted from the biblical tradition. There is no doubt that the Syrian poet was familiar with the Hymn of the Three Youths and that all the innovations he introduced with respect to the Old Testament model placed his works in an intertextual relation with this particular biblical text. For instance, in Madrasha 13, which belongs to a group of poems on the Nativity, Ephrem blesses God for each of the thirty years of the Savior’s life. He mentions in turn the Cherubim, the Seraphim, “Michael and his followers,” the sun, the air, the “clouds and winds,” etc.112 Both the content and the beginning of the list differ from those of the Hymn of the Three Youths, but not so much as to obscure the underlying idea which they both share—the idea that the world owes its existence to the Creator, who bestows life in a certain rhythmic order. Working in a context entirely different from that of the Old Testament, the Syrian poet could treat the innovations introduced by the biblical writer as a starting point for subsequent revisions of the model and follow the direction set by his predecessor. In this way, the transformations within the polyonymic gene that we have witnessed so far may be compared to a sequence of domino blocks. In the henotheistic religion, the central god opened the ontological perspective in order to include the derivative deities who were enumerated in the subsequent calls of the song. In the Hymn of the Three Youths—in an act of protest against the pagan attitude toward polytheism and magic—the deities were replaced by natural phenomena. In Psalm 136, which is an earlier yet more theologically advanced poem, in the anaphoric position we find a series of God’s causative actions rather than the phenomena themselves. In Ephrem’s poetry, the mode undergoes a further evolution, with the catalyst being Christian thought. The presence of the polyonymic gene in Ephrem’s poetry seems to support his belief in a sequential procession of beings. However, this does not exclude the fact that—for Ephrem—the theogonic order, which was still maintained in Daniel, contained remnants of polytheism. Otherwise, the poet would not have looked for an alternative way of ordering the universe, a way which was based on the assumption that the key to the correct hierarchy is held in the Gospel and results from the thirty years of Christ’s life. 112 Cf. Ephrem the Syrian, “Hymn 13,” trans. John Brande Morris, in NPNF II 13: 247– 250. For another English translation cf. Hymns, trans. Kathleen E. McVey (New York: Paulist Press, 1989): 159–165. For Latin translation cf. Hymni et Sermones, ed. Thomas J. Lamy (Mechelen: Dessain, 1882), vol. 1: 12–28.

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It seems relevant at this juncture to re-emphasize that after adopting the new perspective, the flame of the old world order was not completely extinguished, but rather incorporated into a different interpretative context. Thus, remnants of the traditional approach toward the relation between the structure of the text and the origin of the world are to be found in Ephrem’s decision to make cosmological references in the cycle of songs on the Nativity. As has already been mentioned, in the old Egyptian hymn the hierarchy of beings depended on the process through which parents bestow life on their children. The birth of Atum and Khepri meant that the sun would rise and set. Atum and Khepri in turn gave rise to Shu and Tefnut, which accounts for the coexistence of air and moisture. In the fourth century CE, similar beliefs were still alive in numerous pagan societies. The world was seen as ordered, but also programmed. Within their spheres of competence, the derivative deities held power over certain aspects of existence, but in the broader context of the whole system their role can be compared to that of slaves. The tasks that they were assigned by the law of nature—like the genetic code—determined the scope of their prerogatives. Therefore, without questioning parenthood as the basic rule governing existence, Ephrem challenged the notion that the world can function properly only when it is chained by deterministic manacles. The rhythmic enumeration of the cosmological elements lost their veneer of magic—magic which aimed at re-imposing perfect rules on the world in accordance with those which were dominant in the theogonic era. The birth of the only true God, Jesus Christ, in the earthly space-time endowed the enumeration with an entirely different sense. Since Christ’s decision was to exist in space-time, it follows that His life was divided into time periods which were not equivalent, but instead form a temporal sequence of growth, which has its beginning in Bethlehem. In Ephrem’s Madrasha 13, the ensuing hierarchical order is juxtaposed with the world of created beings. The idea underlying the hymn shows an affinity with the ancient belief, and indeed, is presented in an order based on theogony, with one essential caveat. The world whose order had been disrupted is repaired, but in a way that differed from what had existed previously. The sequential ordering of the beings is not imposed on them as if it were a judgment, yet neither does it penetrate their essence through deterministic means, but instead, it is assigned to them, as if it was the object of their meditation on their own fate. As depicted in Madrasha 13, the cosmic reality is subject neither to charms nor to chains. Instead, the heavenly and earthly beings are encouraged to take root in the Savior by their willing acceptance of the places which they have been assigned and which correspond to the years of Christ’s life. Ephrem does not 164

make any attempt at determining whether the world will make use of what is suggested in his work or not. What can also be seen in his hymn is a hint of the gratitude which was also characteristic of the benedictory illocution in Psalm 136. The feeling of gratitude is mixed with a certain satisfaction that God does not impose His will unconditionally, but encourages man and other beings to participate in His plans. In the atmosphere of religious freedom which existed in Ephrem’s times, there was the possibility to treat the enumerative scheme in a new way. From now on, the songs no longer relate God’s dictates, which commissioned man with different tasks, but instead, encourage meditation, and in effect the enumerative scheme becomes a framework for contemplative prayer. Therefore, the enumerative scheme, which was previously thought to intoxicate the mind and thus take control of the world and the gods, was now perceived in terms of a blueprint for considerations which took the shape of spiritual exercises, with their meditational aspect being the lasting fruit of this liberating era. This markedly different application of the traditional pattern grew out of a religious and cultural context characteristic of the Mediterranean civilization in the fourth century CE. Consequently, what used to belong to the text—the choice of illocution as well as the way of understanding the various manifestations of God and the status of God’s plan—now took place in the human mind. This does not mean that Ephrem never directly addressed the cultural changes that were underway, for one of his Hymns on the Nativity (Madrasha 15) does exactly that.113 The stanzas devoted to the monotheistic turn are accompanied by forty-one blessings in the refrains. Those that God has created lament, complaining that in the past they used to be worshipped instead of the Creator. However, when the moon was worshipped as a deity, its virtual light—a mere reflection of God’s splendor—led to blindness. At the time when man started treating it as a servant and reduced the sun to the same subservient position, reverence was given to no other heavenly body but God. By the same token, the light which shone from the Bethlehem star gave way to the light that shone from the newborn King. It is also symptomatic that He was presented with gold by the Magi—once the object of an idolatrous cult. As revealed in Madrasha 15, Ephrem’s use of the polyonymic gene as one of the components of the Christian hymn shows an awareness of a possible clash with the pagan approach toward the convention. His response was based on open polemics with henotheism, and further transformations of the enumerative

113 Cf. Ephrem, “Hymn 15,” trans. Edward Johnston, in NPNF II 13: 252–255. For another English translation cf. Hymns …, 179–186.

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scheme first applied in the Hymn of the Three Youths. His decision to retain the two changes introduced in Daniel—that is, replacing both the magical illocution with benedictory formulas and a pantheon list with the enumeration of creations—was followed by questioning the deterministic understanding of the cosmological order. What was refuted was the belief in the power to order the universe through enumerating its constituent elements, whereas what was accepted was a belief in the usefulness of the gene for meditative prayer, a prayer focusing on a global harmony voluntarily enhanced by God himself. If we return to the Bible at this point, we will see that the series of beatitudes recorded by Matthew reveal a yet further advanced stage of this development.

7.3.2.4  A Return to the Bible As claimed by Michael D. Goulder, the relation that Matthew saw between the eight beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount may be compared to that between the table of contents and the main text. The contents section, however, corresponds to the biblical convention when individual chapters appeared on a list in reverse order rather than to what is accepted today.114 It is precisely for this reason that the true role of the enumeration in Matthew 5:3–12 remained obscure to European readers. Irrespective of intentio auctoris, the beatitudes were later treated as a selfcontained pericope, a pericope which was used as a model hymn by Christian writers who praised its elaborate structure, which leaves no room for randomness. According to Julius Schniewind, whose observations were based on Wilhelm Weber’s findings, the basic enumerative pattern consists of eight elements which are divided into two groups of four elements, each encompassing thirtysix words.115 Goulder argues that the number eight is a reference to Psalm 119 which served as a model psalm, for it contains 176 verses divided into twentytwo sections, each comprising eight verses. In the Jewish liturgy, the sections were sung during Pentecost eight times a day (in a three-hour cycle). The first seven prayers each corresponded to three sections of the psalm, whereas the last prayer to a single section. The symbolism behind the number eight is best understood in the context of the liturgical calendar. Pentecost referred to the fiftieth day after Passover, and thus—if the weeks are counted—the first day of week 114 Cf. Michael D. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2004): 250–251. 115 Cf. Julius Schniewind, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1936): 40.

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eight. In Goulder’s opinion, the fact that Matthew maintained the eight-element pattern in the series of beatitudes as well as in the Sermon of the Mount allows us to examine chapters five to seven in the context of Pentecost.116 What also connects the Old and the New Testaments is the beatitude formula itself. In the initial lines of Psalm 119, it is repeated twice. Symptomatically, the adjective baruk is replaced by ashere, which in the Septuagint is rendered as μακάριοι. The word μακάριος also appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Ecclesiastes, where it links two passages: 14:20–27 and 25:7–11. According to Richard Thomas France, of all the Old Testament texts, it is the last two sapiential passages that— through their structure—prepared the ground for the beatitudes as recorded in Matthew.117 It seems, however, that Matthew’s rejection of εὐλογητοὶ in favor of μακάριοι did not only result from his intention to refer to the Septuagint, but may also be seen as the outcome of a careful semantic analysis of the two words. The choice of μακάριοι implies a benediction that is impossible to return. Nor may it be earned by man, for in order to deserve it man has to belong to one of the eight groups listed (“the poor in spirit,” “they that mourn,” “the meek,” and so forth). The gift given by God, however, moves beyond a reward for man’s merits or compensation for harm and loss. Man would not be able to offer a similar benediction to God, for there is no room in the language itself for a symmetrical man–God relation. Instead, the preference for μακάριοι over the adjective εὐλογητοὶ imposed on the text a one-way system of communication. For readers of the Bible, one of the most intriguing aspects of God’s beatitudes has always been the choice of the categories which were not only commended by God, but also—which is particularly relevant for the purposes of this book— earned a place in the elaborate poetic enumeration. The end of the Babylonian exile brought a gradual purification of the polyonymic gene from the remains of henotheism. Initially, the list of enumerated items was reserved for gods, and the recitation of their names aimed at underscoring their subservient position with respect to the central deity. When the role of interpretant was played by the biblical theology of benediction, it was no longer the individual deities that gave glory 116 Cf. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew…, 185–6, 252. 117 Richard Thomas France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2007): 160: “Sir 25:7–11, with its list of nine or ten types of people whom the sage ‘calls happy,’ resembles Matt 5:3–10 in range but not in regularity of form (Sirach uses the verb makarizō once and the adjective makarios only twice); in Sir 14:20–27 there is a similar description of a (single) person whom the sage designates makarios (using the adjective once only, to introduce the series of descriptive clauses).”

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to the Highest God, but the beings that He created—as is the case in the Hymn of the Three Youths—and His own actions, as in Psalm 136. Matthew 5:3–12 may thus be seen as the next stage in the same religious reform. The Bible offers us the image of God who, having listened to the eulogies sung in His honor, descends from His pedestal, in order to express words of praise to man. Consequently, the attributes which once belonged to the derivative deities are replaced by feelings and virtues which are typically human, such as spiritual poverty, sadness, humility, a desire for good, mercy, purity of the heart, irenicism and suffering persecution in the name of justice. Likewise, the Litany of the Saints also belongs to this evolutionary stage, for those who possess the abovementioned attributes replace the derivative gods in being closer to God. In this way, the anaphora on μακάριοι becomes a prototype for the anaphora on sanctae. Yet, the studies on Matthew’s beatitudes draw attention to two factors which disrupt this ideal parallelism of his pericope. The first refers to the expanded nature of beatitude eight, which is composed of three verses, and the second to the introduction of a second-person verb in verses 5:11–12, which breaks the third-person continuity of the earlier verses. Both variations from the fixed scheme question the intention of the biblical writer to maintain a uniform eightelement structure and have led to further hypotheses that suggest a nine-118 or ten-element pattern.119 The latter hypothesis seems to support the belief that “the

118 Cf. Jacques Dupont, Les Béatitudes (Paris: Gabalda, 1973), vol. 3 (Les évangélistes): 308; Charles H. Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004): 48–49; René Coste, Le Grand Secret des Béatitudes: Une spiritualité unifiée et créative pour notre temps (Paris: Éditions de l’Emmanuel, 2004): 119; Dan Lioy, The Decalogue in the Sermon on the Mount (New York: Peter Lang, 2004): 121; Joseph Pathrapankal, The Christian Programme: A Theological and Pastoral Study of the Sermon on the Mount (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2005): 73; Esa Autero, Reading the Bible across Contexts (Leiden: Brill, 2016): 140. 119 The hypothesis was put forward in the middle of the nineteenth century by Franz Delitzsch, Neue Untersuchungen über Entstehung und Anlage der kanonischen Evangelien (Leipzig: Dörffling und Franke, 1853), Part I (Das Matthäus-Evangelium): 76. Cf. also his Old Testament: History of Redemption, trans. Samuel Ives Curtiss (Edinburgh: Clark, 1881): 188. It finds support in, amongst others, Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5: 3—7: 27 and Luke 6: 20–49) (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995): 108–109 and John W. Welch, The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009): 45–47.

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beatitudes stand at the head of the Sermon on the Mount as […] the Decalogue stands at that of the first instalment of the Mosaic Law in Exodus.”120 However, for the purposes of our book, it is not necessary to continue a discussion on the actual number of beatitudes. What is significant is that studies addressing the issue tend to treat the final two-verse sentence in the second person as a development of beatitude eight; in other words, a means of rephrasing it, with the intention to broaden its meaning and make it more precise. In this way, the problem of martyrdom which this beatitude addresses gains greater prominence than the other praise-worthy attributes and actions evoked in the preceding beatitudes. It is not our intention to question this idea, but one more element needs to be taken into account—an element which appears at the end of the series of beatitudes. The words in 5:11–12 may be regarded as offering a deeper insight into the theological dimension in all the previous verses. The reason for this is that they contain the formula “χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε, ὁτι” (“rejoice and be exceeding glad for”), which does not appear in any of the preceding eight beatitudes, even though it seems to be semantically relevant to each of them. Our contention is that it is this formula that led to the change from the third to the second person in verses 5:11–12. For a reason which will be examined subsequently, the formula had to appear in the imperative. “Rejoice and be exceeding glad for” does not begin a separate blessing, blessing number ten, which would place it in a position analogous to that of the anaphora on μακάριοι in the previous verses, but functions as a linking expression and as such is responsible for adding inner coherence to the final extended sentence. As has already been noted, none of the eight beatitudes contains a similar connector, even though its remains can be seen in the conjunction ὁτι (for) which is placed between protasis and apodosis. The content signaled by the conjunction exists as a concealed, implicit message which is not revealed until verse 12; that this is so becomes apparent only upon reaching verses 5:11–12. The rhetorical technique used is that of zeugma. Matthew’s reason for employing it is hardly unusual when George Puttenham’s detailed description of the technique is taken into consideration.121 As has already been noted, if the expression “χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε, ὁτι” was to be fully repeated in 5:3–10, 120 H. Benedict Green, Matthew, Poet of the Beatitudes (Sheffield: Academic Press, 2001): 284. Green himself, however, favors the eight-element structure. 121 Cf. George Puttenham, The Art of English Poesy: A Critical Edition, eds. Frank Whigham and Wayne A. Rebhorn, Book 3, Chapter 12 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007): 247–249.

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the imperative would have to be used. This would produce the effect of syllepsis—that is, a clash between the grammatical forms, in this case between the second and third person, the latter being used in all eight beatitudes. To conceal the clash of forms, the technique of hypozeugma is used, which means that only the final appearance of the expression is acknowledged through its actual articulation, with all those preceding it transferred into implicit references. This produces a double effect, namely preventing the clash of grammatical structures without in any way impairing the parallel enumerative structure. It seems enough to insert the missing words to become sure that what was hidden is made explicit: Blessed are the poor in spirit. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. [May they rejoice, and be exceeding glad]: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

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There is one question which remains to be answered, namely why it was necessary that the formula “rejoice and be exceeding glad” should appear in the imperative in verses 5:11–12, thus effecting a grammatical change and breaking the consistency seen in verses 5:3–10. The problem of the two approaches toward the text, one favoring the second person and the other the third, has been discussed from various perspectives, including a comparison between the accounts of Matthew and Luke. Since it is not possible to address all the hypotheses which have been put forward, let us limit ourselves to supporting the common contention that Matthew cannot have overlooked the grammatical clash which resulted from using different forms in the eight beatitudes and the final section, for its scale was not negligible. Whenever such inconsistencies appear, they may be related to a pressure to follow traditional and well-respected patterns sanctioned by use. The pericope 5:3–12, for instance, exemplifies the influence of two patterns. The first goes back to the Old Testament songs mentioned above, that is Psalm 119 as well as Ecclesiastes 14:20–27 and 25:7–11. In each of these texts the beatitudes were articulated in the third person, which explains the use of the same person in the eight-element series in Matthew 5:3–10. The second pattern is more difficult to pinpoint, for the phrase “rejoice, and be exceeding glad” appears only once in the Greek Bible and that is in Matthew.122 However, taking into account the similarity it shares with the expression “ἀγαλλιᾶσθε καὶ εὐφραίνεσθε οἱ κατοικοῦντες Σιων” (“Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion”) from Isaiah 12:6a,123 we may assume an ideological connection between Matthew’s beatitudes and the formula “rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,” which was discussed in the subchapter analyzing the chairetismic gene. The affinity is based on the concept of “passing from misery to happiness” which relates to a transition from the negative to the positive or, to put it another way, results from the “pronouncements of salvation” in which “the new Moses pronounced the blessings of spiritual exodus.”124 Even if Matthew’s reliance on the Greek translation of Joel 2:21.23, Zephaniah 3:14, Zechariah 9:9 and Isaiah 49:13 was not intentional, the formula “rejoice greatly” is placed in the position of the interpetant and as such sheds light on 122 Very similar words “χαίρωμεν καὶ ἀγαλλιῶμεν” (“let us rejoice and be exceeding glad”) are to be found in Revelation 19:7. 123 It should be noted that in an analogous verse in Luke 6:23 the allusion to the prophetic tradition was replaced with a call “χάρητε […] καὶ σκιρτήσατε” (“rejoice […] and leap”). 124 Charles Quarles, Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2011): 39–40.

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his beatitudes. Thanks to this formula, the Sermon on the Mount does not begin with a series of simple naive wishes evoking the prospect of the future, albeit an unspecified future, but instead with the prediction of a tangible ontological transformation, caused by a direct, almost corporal, identification of God with man. Since “rejoice greatly” is a prophetic formula of consolation, it appears most often in apostrophic contexts. In fact, the prophetic tone of the apostrophe serves a particular function: it signals that man has been admitted into God’s presence. The road which leads to the Savior should not be secured in fear through the use of any intermediary formulas, like magical chants, for a direct encounter with God is guaranteed by a beatitude brought about on His own initiative. It was probably with this idea in mind that in verses 5:11–12 Matthew appended the verb ἐστε (are you) to the word μακάριοι (blessed): this produced the effect of a subtle transition from the third to the second person, although this happened at the expense of departing from the scheme adopted from Psalm 119 as well as Ecclesiastes 14:20–27 and 25:7–11. The alternative, which Matthew did not use, was to turn the formula “rejoice and be exceeding glad” into “may they rejoice and be exceeding glad,” which would deprive the text of its prophetic context. Whatever Matthew’s motivation may have been, his contribution to litanic verse is of great significance, for the affinity between the call “χαῖρε” addressed to the Virgin Mary in Luke 1:28 and “χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε” addressed to the just in Matthew 5:12, seems to be responsible for the connection between the polyonymic and chairetismic genes, which can be seen in the genre of χαιρετισμός. Before we proceed to the best example of this connection, which is to be found in the Akathist Hymn, it seems necessary to return to the repertoire of polyonymic means—philosophical tenets, approaches toward prayer as well as mere syntactic patterns—at the disposal of those writers who composed in Greek and who modeled their works, either directly or indirectly, on the Judaic and Christian works which have been discussed so far.

7.3.3  On Balance Due to the affinities it shares with similar forms as well as to its dependence on the external interpretant, the polyonymic gene is unusually strongly embedded in the context. It could be said that it has its own subject matter, which invariably relates to the different manifestations of God, even though the subject is never fully verbalized in the text. In fact, the subject may not be mentioned at all, for the mysterious structure of the enumeration is fully explained only when the external information, which is based on the dominant theological doctrine, is taken into account. 172

In pagan religions, the doctrine which was best suited for this purpose was henotheism. Judaism and early Christianity, which initially adopted the entire henotheistic matrix of the universe, came to associate it with a monotheistic interpretant. Consequently, this deepened the inner contradictions within the individual beings enumerated in the representative works. In the henotheistic period, the identity of the beings was based on negotiations between their own distinct selves and their status, which was derived from the highest deity. In the monotheistic period, the inner division was broadened to such an extent that the beings were suspended between the realms of objects and persons, as well as between the realms of earthly men and beings superior to men. In the Hymn of the Three Youths, the calls are most frequently addressed to natural phenomena, and yet these themselves possess a characteristically human ability, namely the ability to address when participating in communication. “The poor in spirit,” “the meek” and “the merciful,” who are addressed in Matthew’s beatitudes, are all ordinary men, and yet they become the objects of a eulogy that is close to a religious hymn. Each of the eight groups depicted possesses two names: one is synonymous with the virtue underlying the beatitude, and the second is common to all—the “blessed.” Taking into account the issue of divided or blurred identities, it remains to be said that, from the point of view of poetry, it is interesting to see the world depicted in categories independent of the commonly used oppositions, such as the familiar–the unfamiliar, this–the other, or one–many. The introduction of a monotheistic interpretant was combined with a radical redefinition of the illocutionary act in songs. Starting with the Hymn of the Three Youths, the polyonymic gene cannot be mistaken for either a mantra or magic. Its basic illocutionary act is benediction, which may be directed upward as well as downward. Thus, it is not only man that directs a polyonymic hymn to God, as God also addresses man by means of a similar form. The basic component of the benedictory illocution is a belief in God’s mercy. Thanks to this belief, the fear of gods no longer exists, and more joyful tones are adopted which foster calm meditation. With a more optimistic attitude, the benedictory illocution breaks down the predictability of the textual structure. The enumeration no longer functions as a repetitive remedy overpowering the ills of the world, but becomes an invitation to freely enjoy the universal order, an order designed by God with man’s well-being in mind. The benediction is based on a carefully thought-out theology which is not restricted simply to a message conveyed through inflectional forms in two basic lexical variants: εὐλογητός and μακάριος. Therefore, in the polyonymic gene, the benediction may also appear in other anaphoric words with different functions, 173

such as thanksgiving, extolling or telling, for their verbal articulations are conceptually drawn into the repertoire of benedictory expressions. As an example, in the Hymn of the Three Youths, the verb εὐλογεῖτε appears interchangeably with ἐξομολογεῖσθε, which also serves the polyonymic gene in Psalm 136. Among the functional synonyms accepted by the gene was the word ὑμνεῖτε, as well as a verb with a rather general meaning, εἰπάτω (let him say or let her say, e.g., in Psalm 118:2–4). The adjective εὐλογητός, in turn, was used interchangeably with the participle εὐλογημένος. In five instances in the Hymn of the Three Youths, for instance, either the former or the latter was expanded into a predicate, εὐλογητὸς εἶ (blessed art thou) or εὐλογημένος εἶ (praised art thou). To provide one more example, the adjective μακάριοι, in turn, may be extended to produce the expression μακάριοί ἐστε (blessed are ye), as was the case in Matthew 5:11 and Luke 11:22. Since the boundary between a blessing and a beatitude was blurred, the polyonymic gene permeated texts written in different grammatical forms. These include indirect blessings, that is, texts which call upon an intermediary to either bless God (the main part of the Hymn of the Three Youths) or give thanks to Him (Psalm 136), as well as direct blessings articulated either in the third (Matthew 5:3–10) or the second person (the first six calls in the Hymn of the Three Youths). Both major kinds of blessings—the direct and the indirect—allowed for confirmatory answers within the text. In the case of an indirect blessing, the most natural response was the refrain which in the Hymn of the Three Youths took the form of “praise and exalt him above all for ever,” and in Psalm 136 “for his mercy endureth for ever.” That both refrains contain similar phrases, namely “εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας” and “εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα,” respectively, is not accidental. In fact, they both refer to man’s response to God’s action; in this sense they do not react to the content of a given song, but to the act of blessing itself or to its theological context. In the case of a direct blessing, the situation appears to be somewhat different. In Matthew 5:3–10, instead of the classical division into the main text and the refrain, a division into protasis and apodosis is introduced, the latter being subject to systematic modification according to the content of the former. Apodosis does not respond to the act of blessing as such, but to a particular blessing which has just been articulated. Even though the refrain and apodosis differ in structure and function, they also share certain similarities. A response which contains the apodosis clause is shaped according to certain criteria. In Matthew 5:3–10, both constant and changeable elements can be distinguished. The former element in each verse includes the conjunction ὁτι (for) 174

and the pronoun αὐτός (they) in various declination forms. The latter element is in turn based on the principle of parallelism. Thus, we may say that the recurrent aspects of the response bring the apodosis closer to the refrain. Simultaneously, the form of the refrain is not always as fixed as was the case in Psalm 136, in which all the 26 verses repeated exactly the same acclamation. In the Hymn of the Three Youths, for instance, the refrain varies, thereby showing an affinity with apodosis, as employed in Matthew 5:3–10. The reason is that in the Hymn, as in Matthew, the refrain is made up of two components. While the second component—“εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας” (for ever)—is repeated with no change in form throughout the song, that is, in total thirty-eight times, slight modifications are made in the first component. The predominant pattern in this section consists of an apostrophe on “ὑμνεῖτε καὶ ὑπερυψοῦτε αὐτὸν” (“laud and highly exalt Him above all”), which appears thirty-one times, with alternative patterns applied to the remaining seven verses. The variant which is closest in form to the dominant pattern is “ὑμνείτω καὶ ὑπερυψούτω αὐτὸν” (“let it laud and highly exalt Him above all”), whereas the other six variants are found toward the beginning of the song, in a section which contains a direct blessing. Their form differs from the dominant pattern, which is made up of two verbs, in that they employ other parts of speech, namely adjectives and participles. These grammatical forms appear in the following sequence: καὶ + adjective/participle + καὶ + adjective/participle. Despite the different shape of this section, slight allusions to the dominant form can be seen, as firstly, a conjunction is used, and secondly, lexemes with the same stems as those in the verbs mentioned above are used, that is, ὑμνεῖτε and ὑπερυψοῦτε. Thus, what we observe is a juggling with words, namely with the derivatives of the adjective ὑμνητός (lauded) and the participle ὑψούμενος (exalted). Additionally, words such as αἰνετὸς (praiseworthy), ένδοξος (glorious) and δεδοξασμένος (magnified) are employed and are often preceded by the prefix ὑπερ- (highly). It is in this initial section of the hymn that the refrain is particularly subject to alteration and in which it most resembles the apodosis—a form used in the direct blessings in Matthew 5:3–10. The anaphora in Matthew is followed by the names of the addressees, who are referred to using three parts of speech: nouns (“the peacemakers” in 5:9), adjectives (e.g., “the meek” in 5:5) and participles (e.g., πενθοῦντες in 5:4, which is rendered as “they that mourn”). Each of these words is preceded by an article οἱ, which extends the anaphora to “μακάριοι οἱ.” The participial expression is particularly noteworthy, for it places Matthew’s text halfway between the objectand the action-orientation, following on from what was seen in Psalm 136. Based on those maledictions which appear in Chapter 23 in the same Gospel, it can be 175

assumed that apart from the three parts of speech mentioned above, the writers were also allowed to use personal pronouns. In Matthew 23:13–17 and 23–27— and similarly, in Luke 11:42–44 and 46–47—the pronoun takes the form of the dative plural (“to you”); the alternative is the nominative singular, the model for which is found in the Greek translation of Deuteronomy 28:3. The polyonymic gene, which was very sensitive to context, was transmitted to Greek and Latin early Christian poetry together with its characteristic patterns. Among these was anaphora which co-created an enumerative part and was followed either by a refrain or by apodosis. The gene, however, did not reach the genre of European litany in exactly the same form in which it had left the Near Eastern world. What happened on the way was a major change that was connected with merging of genes—a change that will be discussed below.

7.4  Merging the Genes Up till this point, each of the litanic genes has been discussed separately. This approach was intended to show not only their distinct formal markers and origins, but also to underline the genres in which their specific genetic features were developed. The ektenial gene appeared in three different kinds of Byzantine prayer: synapte, ektene and litaneia; the chairetismic gene was present in the Greek hymn as well as in funerary and nuptial laments; and the polyonymic gene was shaped through the influence of the Egyptian henotheistic hymn and in relation to other Listenwissenschaft genres. Between the fourth and sixth centuries CE, the process of merging the genes was effected in Byzantine literature. The genes which were to become the building blocks of the litany were “extracted” from their primary genres and used to build a new genre, with the leading role played by the polyonymic gene as discussed above. Its tendency to merge with the two other litanic genes may be attributed to its definitional features as the polyonymic gene was a convention which melded into particular local cultures. On the one hand, it shared certain formal features with a wide range of genres belonging to the vernacular Listenwissenschaft, yet on the other, it acquired its semantic shape in relation to the external interpretant. After it moved beyond the Near Eastern context, that is, when it was passed from the Semitic languages to Greek literature, it still retained a memory of its earliest roles—a memory which stretched back to the times when it served the henotheistic cosmology—but found its new interpretant in the ektenial and chairetismic genes. From then on, its substance depended on the interaction between elements which were inherited from its oriental past, that is, those elements which justified the polyonymic predilection 176

for enumerating long series of names and titles, and the elements which were closest to the contemporary times, that is, those elements which endowed the text with either chairetismic (in joyful or lamenting contexts) or ektenial (in petitionary and propitiatory contexts) characteristics.

7.4.1 The Byzantine Salutations: The Polyonymic and Chairetismic Genes A recurrent idea advanced in this chapter is that the connection between the polyonymic and chairetismic genes was fully developed in the Akathist Hymn. In the case of salutations—those which were part of this text and neighboring texts from the same period—the connection between the two genes may be attributed to more than just the openness of the polyonymic gene to context, a fact which has already been mentioned. Both genes, although derived from different sources and developed in different cultural environments, were to intersect and so both became exposed to the Old Testament tradition of “rejoice greatly.” The polyonymic gene was the first to reach the place where the traditions met. As may be inferred from subchapter 7.3.2.4, in the Sermon on the Mount the tradition of “rejoice greatly” is revealed through two different means: the use of the “passing from misery to happiness” pattern, which underlies all the beatitudes, and the use of the apostrophe “χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε” in the concluding beatitudes. The chairetismic gene was exposed to the convention next and—as may be inferred from the existing research (see subchapter 7.2)—the connection between the gene and the Old Testament tradition was made possible through Luke’s use of the word “χαῖρε” as a reference to the Prophetic Books. Thus, it may be said that the meeting between the traditions was effected by this particular apostrophe on “χαῖρε.” As has already been mentioned, the verb enriched the text with a variety of meanings attached to the different roles it performed in the Greek genres. When it became an object of interest within the two genes—the chairetismic and polyonymic—its polysemic nature was further enhanced; accordingly, the word itself became a powerful statement, rich in meaning. It follows, therefore, that it may be perceived as a separate text, a selfcontained work, which is enclosed within its own frame and, as such, adopted by other works in a similar way to a citation, that is, with all the thematic content inscribed inside it. The complexity of its semantic structure was not without consequences for the texts which employed the apostrophe on “χαῖρε.” One line of thought connects this word with the Annunciation scene, in which Mary makes her crucial decision as far as the story of salvation is concerned. Another line of thought connects the 177

same word with the series of beatitudes directed by God to man in the Sermon on the Mount. The awareness that “χαῖρε” is not merely a simple word with a single meaning encouraged deeper reflection in the course of which its semantic scope was fully analyzed. This brings us to the role of the polyonymic gene, which was to provide an analytic tool in the form of the enumerative scheme. Thus, Early Byzantine salutations should not be viewed as a simple continuation of the tradition of classical Greek salutations. Neither can they be regarded in evolutionary terms, that is, as a later development of the Greek hymn or laments. Instead, they gave rise to an essentially new genre, which came into being during the Ephesian period and in which the chairetismic and polyonymic genes were joined to such an extent that it was no longer possible to view the various influences within a single work as being independent of one another. To illustrate this, in the enumerative sections of the Akathist Hymn, the oikoi are neither more chairetismic nor more polyonymic. Rather, the chairetismic and polyonymic particles seem to function in perfect unison, anticipating the structure of the litanic genre. What the polyonymic gene finds in the chairetismic tradition is its interpretant: this helps the performer of the song recognize the appropriate illocutionary act in order to recite a list of Mary’s attributes. The chairetismic gene, in turn, finds in the polyonymic gene a useful tool that enables a thorough linguistic analysis of the apostrophe on “χαῖρε.” Yet despite the chairetismic-polyonymic unity on the level of the whole work, some lines of the Akathist Hymn reveal a more chairetismic inspiration and some are more polyonimically oriented: the former brings the meaning of “χαῖρε” closer to “rejoice”; the latter to “blessed art thou.” This is not to say, however, that the distinction leads to a breach between the two senses, for what is hidden behind both is the same supposition drawn from the prophetic tradition, a supposition which can be verbalized in expressions such as “—against,” “—despite,” and “—after all.” The manifestations of the chairetismic gene in the Akathist Hymn were discussed in subchapter 7.2. Therefore, it seems sufficient at this point to focus on those elements of the text introduced by the polyonymic gene. Indeed, it was the polyonymic tradition that was responsible for the syntactic structure of particular calls, a structure based on a long series of repetitions and elaborate parallelisms. The structure appears in multiple variants which prevent monotony without disturbing the transparency of the scheme. Thus, it seems that the Byzantine salutations incorporate litanic but not mantra-like features, with the latter being associated with a persistent, and almost subconscious, submission to a monotonous rhythm. The author of the Akathist Hymn, Roman 178

the Melodist—if we accept his authorship—resorts to different syntactic means which disrupt the automatic predictability of the text. This may be seen as the next step away from the realm of magical practices. The tradition of the polyonymic gene may also account for the general impression that a reader gains from the Akathist Hymn, which is that God’s beatitude is bestowed upon the world through Mary and it is bestowed abundantly, not unlike a fruit-bearing tree which divides into many branches. The onset of each line evokes Elizabeth’s words from Luke 1:42 (“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb’), yet the message which is hidden within the lines is nevertheless indicated in the introduction to the salutations of oikos nine—“they […] cried to her who is blessed.” In oikos five, the poet contemplates the scene of the Visitation, relating the moving of Elizabeth’s child in her womb to the series of salutations with which John the Baptist addressed the Mother of God pointing to the carnucopia of blessings that she was filled with: “Corn-land growing fertility of mercies,” “Table sustaining abundance of oblations.” Taking into account the difference between the singular (used with reference to Mary) and the plural (used by Jesus with reference to mankind), the Byzantine salutations may be viewed as a multiplication of “χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε,” which is found in Matthew 5:12. It should be mentioned at this point that the relation between the verbs χαίρω and ἀγαλλιάω, as also was the case in Matthew’s text, was used by the author of the hymn in the expression “χαῖρε, κρατὴρ κιρνῶν ἀγαλλίασιν” (“Rejoice, Wine-bowl for the mingling of joy”), which appears in oikos twenty-one. Since one of the crucial themes in the text is God’s beatitude bestowed on man, the Akathist Hymn can be considered a successor to the religious tendencies which dominated the polyonymic gene in the previous centuries. As has already been noted, in a text created as early as the Hymn of the Three Youths, the theology of benediction was in opposition to the magical illocutionary acts which were characteristic of the gene in its initial stages. It was at this point that the list of polytheistic deities was replaced by an enumeration of common nouns in accordance with monotheistic doctrine. Psalm 136, in turn, shows the potential of the gene to depict beings and events suspended between the realms of objects and actions. In the next stage, a new religious doctrine claimed that God decided to share with man the role which in previous centuries belonged solely to Him: this is how man becomes the addressee of a series of beatitudes. A further development may be seen in Ephrem’s hymns, in which the convention acquires a meditative character. All these advances may be viewed as the contribution that the polyonymic gene brought to the Akathist Hymn. The influence 179

of the gene explains why the direct addressee of the salutations is Mary rather than God—it is her example that demonstrates the fulfillment of all the promises contained in Matthew’s beatitudes. However, the more obviously the Byzantine song manifests the fact it belongs to the polyonymic tradition, the more we become aware of two crucial modifications which shed a new light on the gene and which are connected with each other. The first difference concerns human insight into God’s plan. In the Sermon on the Mount, the syntactic parallelism underlines the simplicity of God’s actions: the miserable will be comforted, the meek will inherit the earth, the merciful will be shown mercy, etc. A similarly predictable enumerative scheme was used by Ephrem in what may be viewed as his lecture on the new cosmology. As shown in his hymns, Christ—throughout the years of His earthy life—opened up the ontological positions to individual beings; in this way His life-giving power is reflected in the universe. Such a worldview was transmitted into European culture, a culture which in no way denied the oriental roots of the litany. The Litany of the Saints, which will be discussed in the next subchapter, may allow the faithful equally direct access to the order followed in the procession of the saved. Yet the Akathist Hymn fails to provide any insight into the cosmic hierarchy of beings or any rules governing God as he bestows beatitudes on man. The author of the Byzantine masterpiece forgoes the ontological certainty shared by Matthew and Ephrem that the order of the world can be knowingly transposed onto the surface of the text. When the polyonymic gene was transferred to Marian Greek poetry and recognized its closest interpretant in the chairetismic gene, God’s plan for the world ceased to be subject to analytic reconstruction, a reconstruction which would involve the passing down of encyclopedic knowledge about the cosmic scheme of things. Instead, God’s perfect plan became an object of adoration. The author of the Akathist Hymn never doubts that God’s plan for the world is a simple and well-arranged construction; his absolute certitude finds expression in a series of enumerations governed by the polyonymic gene. Simultaneously, the hymn is deprived of a clear compositional allusion to the series of beatitudes found in Matthew. Nor does it reflect the cosmic hierarchies, as was the case in earlier works. The heavenly choirs, for instance, appear only in two short series containing limited information, with one example found in oikos seven: Χαῖρε, ὅτι τὰ οὐράνια συναγάλλεται τῇ γῇ· χαῖρε, ὅτι τὰ ἐπίγεια συγχορεύει οὐρανοῖς. Χαῖρε, τῶν Ἀποστόλων τὸ ἀσίγητον στόμα· χαῖρε, τῶν ἀθλοφόρων τὸ ἀνίκητον θάρσος.

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[Hail, for the things of Heaven rejoice with the earth; / hail, for the things of earth join chorus with the Heavens. / Hail, never-silent Voice of the Apostles; / hail, neverconquered courage of the Champions.]125

and the another in oikos fifteen: Χαῖρε, ὄχημα πανάγιον τοῦ ἐπὶ τῶν Χερουβίμ· χαῖρε, οἴκημα πανάριστον τοῦ ἐπὶ τῶν Σεραφίμ. [Hail, all-holy Chariot of Him Who rideth upon the Cherubim; / hail, all-glorious Chair of Him Who sitteth upon the Seraphim.]126

It seems that the sequences of the phrases enumerated in the text are in no way reflective of the order of the world. This demonstrates that the author of the hymn refrained from making daring ontological claims, yet without refraining from using the polyonymic gene, a gene always employed for exactly the same reason, that is, to exemplify the order of the world. This gave rise to a paradoxical understatement: the enumeration proclaimed the well thought-out cosmic arrangement which was nevertheless impossible to decipher, even though it was cataloged in numerous salutations. What the reader sees before him or her is an open book which lists heavenly and earthly bodies and includes the story of redemption, starting with Adam and Eve and continuing until the author’s own times. However, the actions of God the Creator and God the Savior are presented as short and fragmentary sequences and the only approach that the reader may adopt toward the text is praise for the mysterious ways of God. Interestingly, men—having acknowledged their smallness and insignificance— are not left to rely on their own resources when it comes to satisfying their cognitive curiosity. This is because the poet, careful not to usurp any knowledge about the rhythm of God’s actions, decides to make use of Ephesian theology. To be more precise, in certain places in the poem he seems to imply that the world which was created by God must by the same token have been somehow derived from God’s mother. This implication gives the poet more confidence in reconstructing the cosmological order and enables him to extend the short references to God’s plan. To illustrate this, in Psalm 136, the miraculous events in which the chosen people were led from Egypt were the reason behind giving thanks to God. On the contrary, in oikos eleven of the Akathist Hymn, the eight events which constitute the journey from Egypt are related to the Mother of God:

125 AH 26–27. 126 AH 40–41.

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Χαῖρε, θάλασσα ποντίσασα Φαραὼ τὸν νοητόν· χαῖρε, πέτρα ἡ ποτίσασα τοὺς διψῶντας τὴν ζωὴν. Χαῖρε, πύρινε στύλε, ὁδηγῶν τοὺς ἐν σκότει· χαῖρε, σκέπη τοῦ κόσμου πλατυτέρα νεφέλης. Χαῖρε, τροφὴ τοῦ Μάννα διάδοχε· χαῖρε, τρυφῆς ἁγίας διάκονε. Χαῖρε, ἡ γῆ τῆς ἐπαγγελίας· χαῖρε, ἐξ ἧς ῥέει μέλι καὶ γάλα. [Hail, Sea which drowned Pharaoh and his schemes; / hail, Rock which refreshed those athirst for Life. / Hail, fiery Pillar, leading those in darkness; / hail, Shelter of the world, broader than a cloud. / Hail, Sustenance in succession to Manna; / hail, messenger of holy joy. / Hail, Land of promise; / hail, thou from whence flow honey and milk.]127

Mary is depicted as a prototype for the phenomena which make up the reality that has been created: Χαῖρε, βλαστοῦ ἀμαράντου κλῆμα· χαῖρε, καρποῦ ἀκηράτου κτῆμα. Χαῖρε, γεωργὸν γεωργοῦσα φιλάνθρωπον· χαῖρε, φυτουργὸν τῆς ζωῆς ἡμῶν φύουσα. Χαῖρε, ἄρουρα βλαστάνουσα εὐφορίαν οἰκτιρμῶν· χαῖρε, τράπεζα βαστάζουσα εὐθηνίαν ἱλασμῶν. [Hail, Branch of unfading growth; / hail, Wealth of unmingled fruit. / Hail, thou who labourest for Him, whose labour is love; / hail, thou who tendest Him who tendeth our Life. / Hail, Corn-land growing fertility of mercies; / hail, Table sustaining abundance of oblations.]128

The author’s conviction that Mary has a special role in both the workings of nature and the course of historical events has not only wide-ranging theological consequences, but also has its counterpart in the peculiar way in which the meanings within the text are reached. To correlate the anatomy of the world with the body of a woman—admittedly the woman who had the privilege to give birth to its Creator—is to redefine each being. In this way, a system is created before our eyes, an internal semantic system in which particular words depend less for their meaning on dictionary definitions than define one another. The result of this sense-creating operation—which Yury Lotman would probably

127 AH 30–31. 128 AH 20–21.

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call “внутренная перекодировка” (“internal recoding”129)—is that the reader’s mind goes in two opposite directions. One line of thought transposes onto Mary the descriptive techniques used in religious traditions in the depictions of God. Hence, before meditating on the Virgin, it is necessary for the knowledge of earthly phenomena, such as “branch,” “land,” “fruit” and “field,” to be recalled. The mind evokes images from a familiar space-time in order to elevate Mary in the same way it used to praise God for His work of Creation. Simultaneously, an opposing line of thought develops which is based on the belief that all Creation, including our considerations, is anchored in the Mother of God, for it is she who provides a model for the objects enumerated. Since the dominant tendency of the work is to overcome cognitive claims by means of chairetismic enthusiasm, the paradoxical understatement mentioned above— which was previously related to God’s actions—now refers to Mary and through her to all earthly creations. Referred to as a “bridge leading from earth to Heaven” and “door of solemn Mystery,” Mary provides an insight into the origins of things yet at the same time reveals the essence of beings in an almost inconceivable way, for in the very same works she appears as the “height hard to climb, for human minds” and the “depth, hard to explore, even for the eyes of angels.” In this way, a new relation between the human mind and God’s knowledge of the world entails a further modification within the polyonymic gene, this time of a lexical nature. The idea of an interdependence between Mary and God—that is, an ontological interdependence which permeates the world and is as deep as the essence of being—not only leads to a revision of existing assumptions concerning the fundamental nature of individual creations, but also to a revision of the terminology used to convey that knowledge. In his search for the appropriate words to depict the paradoxical relation between Mary and God, the author of the Akathist Hymn draws upon the pool of terms common to the Hymn of the Three Youths, Psalm 136, the eight beatitudes and Ephrem the Syrian’s poetry, but does not limit himself to this repertoire of conventions. He also introduces examples of antonomasias, epithets and allegorical images that did not belong to the tradition of the polyonymic gene. This may be connected not only with the development of Marian theology, but also with a new contextual environment.

129 Cf. Yury Lotman, The Structure of the Artistic Text, trans. Gail Lenhoff and Ronald Vroon (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1977): 73.

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The earlier representations of the gene appeared in the context of the thriving Listenwissenschaft culture, which meant that the enumerative technique— together with the repertoire of syntactic devices—was derived from Near Eastern lists of deities. In the case of the Akathist Hymn, the openness to the context constitutes a distinct feature of the polyonymic gene. Since the context has undergone significant changes, the phraseological patterns characteristic of the gene are to be found not so much in the lists of deities, kings and heroes, as in those genres of Greek literature which specialize in enumerations, that is the homily, panegyric and acclamation. The influence of each of these genres on the Akathist Hymn has been the subject of earlier research, in which the work is referred to as a “homily in verse”: this not only points to its function, but also underscores the origins of the terminology which is used in the text. Likewise, the second genre, the panegyric, may also be viewed as a great provider of ready-made poetic formulas. As established by Vasiliki Limberis, the introduction of conventional laudatory terminology to the genre of χαιρετισμός was not merely the consequence of the general rhetorical training that the homiletic writers received, but was a matter of a consciously chosen artistic strategy. These observations were based on the works of Proclus, who used an identical repertoire of poetic devices in his encomium in praise of Mary—discussed in subchapter 7.2—and in the speech on the Resurrection of Christ, in which words of praise were addressed to the Empress Pulcheria.130 According to Limberis, the status of the panegyric among literary forms dating from the early Byzantine period was enhanced in the fourth and fifth centuries, that is, during the rule of Constantine II and his followers.131 It was at this point that a whole lexicon of laudatory terms, epithets, formulas and syntactic structures was established—poetic means which were used in litanic references to Christ and Mary. Thus, the homily and panegyric contributed certain lexical elements which were transmitted together with the polyonymic gene to the Mediterranean cultures. The contribution of the third genre, the acclamation, is a different case. Similarly to the other two genres, in the case of the acclamation, it is also possible to pin down the specific Greek and Roman laudatory terms which eventually made their way to the litany, but the main contribution of this genre lay elsewhere, in the characteristic conceptual frame which made possible a different interpretation and articulation of the Near Eastern enumerative technique.

130 Cf. Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress (Routledge: London, 1994): 86–87. 131 Cf. Ibid., 65.

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The idea of remedying the world’s ills through a series of magical formulas, thus evoking the henotheistic concept of the primary order, had long since ceased to be perceived as the main aim of the polyonymic gene. Indeed, it was as early as the biblical period that the place of the interpretant was taken by the benedictory illocution. The latter, however—contrary to what may be thought— is not a universal act and so had to be reinterpreted by the Greek and Latin cultures. The oriental pattern was adopted by those who understood its mysterious nature either in terms of rhetorical persuasion derived from homiletic writing, or in terms of the elevation that was characteristic of panegyrics. However, the new users of the pattern associated enumeration primarily with acclamation, that is, a repetitive chanting of the same name or a set of names during state and religious ceremonies. Researchers investigating the development of acclamation stress that the genre continues to the present day, although its contemporary application is restricted to a very narrow range of uses, such as political demonstrations and sports events.132 In the Roman Empire, by contrast, the genre was endowed with a much greater significance133 and was, therefore, mirrored in the development of literary conventions, both religious and artistic. The acclamation formula that was of relevance to the Akathist Hymn was χαῖρε φῶς (hail, the light), which constituted the traditional greeting of a new day, a greeting which was employed in prayer and must have undergone certain modifications due to the influence of Christianization when it entered the Divine Office.134 In Paul Maas’s opinion— which still holds true today even though it was put forward over a hundred years ago—the phrasal structure of the acclamation constituted a prototype for the Byzantine accentual-syllabic verse.135 Its origins have been attributed either to “soldiers’ […] rallying cries before battle,”136 or religious ceremonies, based on

132 Cf. Sara E. Phang, “Acclamation,” in Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia, eds. Eadem, Iain Spence, Douglas Kelly, and Peter Londley (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2016), vol. 3: 675. 133 Cf. Gregory S. Aldrete, “Uses of Acclamations by the Urban Plebs,” in Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). 134 Robert Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993): 37. 135 Cf. Paul Maas, “Metrische Akklamationen der Byzantiner,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 21 (1912). 136 Serena Connolly, “Constantine Answers the Veterans,” in From the Tetrarchs to Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture 284–450 CE, eds. Scott McGill, Cristiana Sogno, and Edward Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010): 101.

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the assumption that “unanimous acclamations […] have a divinely inspired authority.”137 When Christianity was elevated and became the official religion, the unanimity articulated in acclamations came to be viewed as the voice of the Holy Spirit which legitimized the power of the Byzantine emperors. The Emperor Constantine attached so much significance to public demonstrations that he commissioned members of his administration to produce denunciations of the acclamations chanted in the provinces of the Roman Empire.138 The acclamation proved such an expansive genre that it began to affect the course of church gatherings. Brent D. Shaw evokes the words of Augustine who—scandalized by the cheering crowds—instructed the faithful to distinguish between the church and the theatre.139 From the fourth century onward, the decisions of general councils were sealed through the use of the collective formula placet,140 and it does not seem surprising that the oriental polyonymic convention was at this point regarded as yet another manifestation of acclamatory practices. The structure of typical Roman formulas favored this interpretation, for—similarly to the calls in the polyonymic gene—they were often based on the fusion of apostrophe and antonomasia.141 The first scholar to discuss in broad terms the connection between acclamation and litany was Ernst Kantorowicz, who related it primarily to the Litany of the Saints.142 However, it is true to say that an acclamatory tone is also to be sensed in the Byzantine salutations recited during the Council of Ephesus. Inasmuch as the heated debate on the status of Mary could only be disrupted by the communal placet, the use of salutations by Cyril and Proclus when addressing the council may have aimed at promoting unanimity on the final decision through encouraging the crowd to repeat the formulas in unison.143 137 Charlotte Roueché, “Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire: New Evidence from Aphrodisias,” Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984): 188. 138 Cf. Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000): 203. 139 Cf. Brent D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011): 451–454. 140 Cf. Roueché, “Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire…,” 182. 141 Cf. Connolly, “Constantine answers the veterans…,” 101. 142 Cf. Ernst Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Medieval Ruler Worship (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946): 13–21. 143 This was a frequent practice at the emperor’s court. Cf. Patrizia Arena, “Crises and ritual of ascension to the throne (first-third century A.D.),” in Crises and the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop of the International Network Impact

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In this way, the polyonymic gene again reveals its sensitivity to the contextual environment. The benedictory illocution, which underlined all the appearances of the gene in the Bible as well as in Ephrem the Syrian’s poetry, still infused the texts with joyful tones, yet alongside another kind of illocution appeared—the triumphalist illocution which was imposed by the practices of Roman public life. Endowed with semantic complexity, the genre of χαιρετισμός moved west. The route of its journey was painstakingly reconstructed by Gilles Gérard Meersseman, whose observations will now be presented, albeit briefly, below.144 According to Meersseman, the transfer of the convention to the Italian Peninsula and the territories of the Frankish Empire should be attributed to a man called Christopher, who was born in 781 and spent his childhood and early youth in Constantinople, where he familiarized himself with the Akathist Hymn. Even though the genre of χαιρετισμός had been recognized in the West before, it was popularized through Christopher’s translation of the text into Latin (between 787 and 813). The great success of the translation was not only a matter of its faithfulness toward the original, but also of the political circumstances at the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries. In short, Doge John, the ruler of Venice, in an attempt to free himself from the church administration, pushed through the candidacy of the sixteen-year-old Christopher—whom he considered an inexperienced and naive hobbledehoy—for the bishopric of Olivolo Island. Since the patriarch of the neighboring Grado was in no hurry to approve the decision, he “was seized and dragged up to the top of his palace tower, from which, already badly wounded, he was hurled to the ground.”145 However, contrary to the Doge’s plans, this cruelty did not silence his opponents. Instead, it ignited a mass rebellion as the populace took to the streets to prevent a reign of terror. Consequently, both Doge John and his protégé Christopher had to flee from Venice. The latter, after much wandering, was to find peace in a Benedictine monastery situated on the Isle of Reichenau in Lake Constance. The dramatic events, in which the young cleric was a victim rather than a perpetrator, were to have a beneficial influence on the popularity of the Akathist Hymn, partly because Christopher always carried a copy of the Byzantine hymn and, most probably, its Latin translation as well. Moreover, the Benedictine congregation in Raichenau were so actively devoted to God that they commissioned copies of the translation and ensured its dissemination among other religious centers, including significant of Empire (Nijmegen, June 20–24, 2006), eds. Olivier Hekster, Gerda de Kleijn, and Daniëlle Slootjes (Leiden: Brill, 2007): 330–334. 144 Cf. HAA 1: 49–51. 145 John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice (London: Penguin Books, 2003): 19.

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centers such as St Gall and Paris. This de facto meant that the hymn was popularized all over Europe, as evidenced by its numerous imitations which soon began to appear in Latin. Their crowning achievement is the Marian litanies which— quite interestingly and perhaps not accidentally—were initially associated with St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. However, before moving on to an analysis of these litanies, let us concentrate on an earlier litany with a slightly different generic form, the Litany of the Saints.

7.4.2 The Litany of the Saints: The Polyonymic and the Ektenial Genes Similarly to the way in which the findings of Gilles Gérard Meersseman were crucial in demonstrating the influence of the Akathist Hymn on Latin poetry, in order to trace the origins of the Litany of the Saints, the studies of Michael Lapidge need to be taken into account. In fact, the histories of both prayers are not dissimilar, and as with the chairetismic salutations, which were popularized by Christopher, the Constantinople-born bishop of the Venetian Olivolo Island, the Litany of the Saints arrived in Canterbury from Antioch in the seventh century, as Lapidge has established. Yet over a hundred years ago, a probable Syrian prototype of the Litany of the Saints was identified by Anton Baumstark.146 The text examined by the German scholar characteristically allocates the names of the saints to broader categories, such as prophets, apostles, martyrs, priests, the Church Fathers, holy women or—with no reference to individual names—saints. The prayer must have been composed no earlier than the seventh century. It is generally accepted that the text is a product of the long liturgical tradition of the Antiochian Church, a tradition which may go back as far as the fourth century.147 A lengthy discussion of the origins of the Litany of the Saints is unnecessary, for they were painstakingly reconstructed by Lapidge, who in turn, based his observations on earlier research conducted by Theodor Schermann, Louis Duchesne, Anton Bamstark, Edmund Bishop, Fernand Cabrol148 and others. The 146 Cf. Anton Baumstark, “Eine syrisch-melchitische Allerheiligenlitanei,” Oriens Christianus 4 (1904): 98–120. 147 Cf. ASLS 20. Michael Lapidge refers to the views expressed by Francis John Badcock in “A Portion of an Early Anatolian Prayer-Book,” Journal of Theological Studies 33 (1932), no. 130: 176. 148 Cf. Theodor Schermann, “Griechische Litaneien,” Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte 17 (1903): 333–338; Louis Duchesne, Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution. A Study of the Latin Liturgy up to the

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Litany of the Saints is of interest in this context merely as a vehicle for the polyonymic and the ektenial genes, a vehicle thanks to which these two conventions were transmitted from the East to the West, thus finding their way into poetic works, such as the elegiac distich by Hrabanus Maurus, dating from the eighth century. The following quote is from the opening part of the text: Arbiter omnitenens, rerum tu summe creator, Aspice de superis, omnipotens genitor. Omnipotens genitor, ex quo sunt omnia vere, Principium aeternum, tu miserere tuis. Filius ipse Dei, per quem sunt condita cuncta, Tu clemens nostras suscipe, quaeso, preces. Spiritus alme Dei, coeli terraeque repertor, In quo sunt cuncta, tu pia vota vide. Trinus personis, natura conditor unus, O Deus altithrone, semper adesto pius. Clara Dei genitrix, sanctissima virgo Maria, Ora pro nobis, rite favendo, Deum. Pro nobis poscas Michael archangelus ipse, Et Gabriel fortis et Raphael medicus. Cum aethereis turmis placantes sceptra superna, Propitium nobis celsithronum facite. Zachariae natus, praeco cunctique prophetae Et sancti patres, conciliate Deum; Coetus apostolicus, Christi comitatus honestus, Tu precibus nobis limina pande poli. Claviger aethereus Petrus Paulusque magister, Andreas, Iacobus atque Ioannis amor; Thomas cum Iacobo, Philippus, Bartholomaeus, Mattheus et Simon, Thadeus et Mathias; Doctrina gratulans, rutilans et sanguine rubro, Victorum alme chorus, nos rege tu monitis; Barnabas, Sylas, Stephanus Marcusque Titusque, Lucas, et Clemens, sanctus Apollinaris; Syxtus, Alexander, Cornelius et Cyprianus, Felix, Urbanus, Mauritiusque pius. Cum quis tu doctor Bonifacius, inclyte martyr,

Time of Charlemagne (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1904): 58–63, 164–167, 198–201, 285–289; Baumstark, “Eine syrisch-melchitische Allerheiligenlitanei…,” passim; Edmund Bishop, “The Litany of Saints in the Stowe Missal,” in Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918): 137–164; Fernand Cabrol, “Litanies…,” 1540–1570.

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Placans altithronum, funde preces, petimus. Alme tuos socios moneas, Martine, precamur, Pro nobis Dominum poscere rite pium.149

The order in which the addressees appear in the text resembles, to a certain extent, that found in the Litany of the Saints. The first two couplets refer to God the Creator, with the antonomasia on “omnipotens genitor” repeated twice, which may be understood as a title for God the Father while simultaneously evoking the idea of a primeval parent of all beings—an idea that was characteristic of the polyonymic gene. In the third couplet, the poet addresses God’s Son, in the fourth the Holy Spirit, before directing his words to the Holy Trinity in the fifth. These couplets are followed by calls to the saints, some of whom are addressed individually. For instance, in couplet six, the formula “ora pro nobis” is directed to “the Blessed Virgin Mary,” couplet nine contains a reference to “the son of Zachary,” that is, John the Baptist, couplet sixteen addresses Boniface and couplet seventeen Martin. Somewhat similarly to the previous prayer, in this case, too, the general tendency is to group the saints and list their names one by one, with as many as four included in a single line. Both the Syrian prayer edited by Baumstark and Hrabanus Maurus’s poem may be classified as litanies which are addressed to God, the heavenly powers and a series of saints, even though neither of the texts strictly corresponds to the model of the Litany of the Saints that was shaped in the Middle Ages and is still used in the Catholic Church. This makes both texts particularly interesting from our perspective, for it shows the reproducibility of the genre and its openness to various textual implementations. In this respect, the prayers are much more than mere copies of a single traditional scheme. Indeed, their example shows that as a result of the very same process that led to the formation of the Litany of the Saints, a poetic convention emerged which was expressed—primarily but not solely—through the Western litanic model. Baumstark’s arguments based on the Syrian liturgy demonstrate that the Antiochian church bequeathed to the West a genre that provided the faithful with a framework of syntactic patterns within which a wide array of compositional conventions could be used, thereby enabling the free arrangement of the constituent elements. The Litany of the Saints, by contrast, was characterized by a much more rigid organization of its elements and an overwhelming need for standardization. Yet despite this, it seems to have played a crucial role in popularizing the oriental pattern, thereby encouraging 149 Hrabanus Maurus, “Versus More Litaniae Facti,” in Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, ed. Ernest Duemmler (Berlin: Wiedmann, 1884), vol. 2: 217–218.

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ties between Eastern culture and Western literature. In fact, it was in the Litany of the Saints that certain tendencies were inscribed which were later to be seen in the poetry governed by the polyonymic and the ektenial genes. Within the fully developed form of the Litany of the Saints, Anton Baumstark distinguished three sections, which he termed sections A, B and C. Section A is composed of calls to the Holy Trinity, which are connected with miserere nobis, as well as addresses to the saints, which are followed by the response ora(te) pro nobis.150 The dominant formula in B is libera nos, Domine, which constitutes a response to calls that are divided into two groups. These groups were not assigned separate symbols by Baumstark, but for our purposes they will be referred to as B1 and B2. The former is made up of addresses which open with either a or ab and present God with the main dangers threatening man, whereas the latter refers to calls which contain the preposition per and evoke the main acts of salvation. The final element within the pattern described by the German scholar is C, which by means of a conjunction introduces more detailed supplications, each of which closes with the words te rogamus, followed by the response audi nos. The assumption behind Baumstark’s division of the litany into three consecutive sections was that it might help trace the origins of the prayer, a prayer in which previously separate modules were joined together. Since for our purposes, the Litany of the Saints is seen merely as a vehicle for transmitting a poetic convention from the East to the West, there is no need to examine the prototypes of each of these modules in the religious practices of the early church. All the more so, as from the perspective of poetics, that is, the compositional techniques used to convey theological content, the litany appears in a different framework than that propounded by the German liturgist; the difference in question refers not only to the number of conjoined patterns, but also to the way in which they were brought together. Regardless of the section—that is whether A, B1, B2 or C are considered—all of the responses in the Litany of the Saints are based on a central formula, namely Kyrie eleison, which is either translated into Latin (miserere nobis), replaced by a synonymous expression (libera nos, Domine or audi nos), or transformed in such a way that the prayer is directed to the saints who act as intermediaries (ora pro nobis). Thus, we may say that—in visual terms—the right-hand side of the prayer is governed by a single spirituality based on 1 Timothy 2:1–6, which, in our interpretation, is associated with the ektenial gene. Since the rules governing Paul’s pericope are also respected in sections B1 and C on the left-hand side, we may 150 Cf. Baumstark, “Eine syrisch-melchitische Allerheiligenlitanei…,” 99.

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assume that both B1 and C are in their entirety dominated by the ektenial gene, whereas the left-hand side sections of A and B2 are dominated by the polyonymic gene. This demonstrates that the structure of the Litany of the Saints is not based on three consecutive modules, but rather on two columns: the right-hand column which is dominated by a single gene, namely the ektenial gene, and the left-hand column which is made up of four phases that are dominated alternately by two genes in the following order: polyonymic–ektenial–polyonymic–ektenial, as shown in the table below. Tab. 3:  The generic structure of the Litany of the Saints. Gene Left-hand column Phase calls to God POLYONYMIC A and the saints EKTENIAL a / ab … POLYONYMIC per … EKTENIAL ut … te rogamus

Right-hand column Gene miserere nobis EKTENIAL and ora(te) pro nobis

B1

libera nos, Domine EKTENIAL

B2

libera nos, Domine EKTENIAL

C

audi nos EKTENIAL

The fact that the division of the text into columns is of primary importance finds expression in the visual outline of the Litany of the Saints, for in prayer books the text is often visually divided into two sections. The sections are distinguished from one another either by being placed in different rows within the text or by being marked in two different colors—the salutations in black and the responses in red—or by being written in roman or italic type, respectively. However, regardless of whether the prayer is approached from the perspective of liturgical history, which advocates the three-module structure, or from the perspective of poetics, which is based on the polyonymic and ektenial genes, it appears that Baumstark was right in observing that in the Litany of the Saints the boundaries between the individual formulas, modules or columns are exceptionally distinct. The corpuscular structure of the text becomes all the more pronounced when we take into account what has already been said with reference to the Akathist Hymn, namely the fact that in the hymn the polyonymic and chairetismic genes were integrated to such an extent that the impact of the genes on individual elements was no longer clearly visible. For this reason, it became very difficult—in some cases almost impossible—to distinguish which elements were governed by which gene. By contrast, the Litany of the Saints contains two genetic structures which do not blend into one synthesis. However, there is more to it than that. Interestingly, the genes even seem to emphasize their separateness

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from each other, a fact which becomes more noticeable in the context of earlier works based on the polyonymic gene, as discussed in subchapter 7.3.2. Having said that, the Litany of the Saints opens with an enumeration of God’s names, which are followed by the names of angels and individuals, listed hierarchically, in what may be seen as a Christian transformation of the cosmological scheme. When, after having addressed God as the three Divine Persons, as well as the Holy Trinity, the text moves on to addressing the saints, it is a move which is reminiscent of Psalm 136 with its similar transition from the Creator in the initial verses to the Creation in the ensuing verses, as well as the Hymn of the Three Youths, in which the boundary between heaven and earth was symbolically demarcated after the sixth call, signaled by the change from the second to the third person. In contrast, in the Litany of the Saints as it is used nowadays in the Catholic Church, the connection between section A and cosmological thinking seems blurred, although it becomes clearer if a sufficiently early edition of the prayer is analyzed. Ferdinand Cabrol, therefore, is right in drawing attention to the litany appended to a tenth-century Breton psalter151 which was published by Frederick-Edward Warren in 1888. In this text, the standard initial addresses to God are followed by an address to Mary and then by addresses to an extended list of angelic choirs. The latter element is clearly based on the theological concept of a heavenly hierarchy and respects an order which is close to, but not synonymous with, that propounded by Isidore of Seville in The Etymologies VII 5, 4. Having devoted fourteen addresses to the inhabitants of heaven—the number fourteen being by no means accidental—the author moves on to mortal men, beginning with the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, before focusing on a list of the apostles, headed by Peter: Sancte Michael, [ora pro nobis]. [Sancte] Gabriel, [ora pro nobis]. [Sancte] Raphael, [ora pro nobis]. Omnes Sancti Angeli, orate pro [nobis]. [Omnes] Sancti Archangeli, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes] Sanctæ Uirtutes, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes] Sancti Throni, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes] Sanctæ Dominationes, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes] Sancti Principatus, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes] Sanctæ Potestates, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes] Sanctæ Sedes, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes] Sancti Cherubim, [orate pro nobis].

151 Cf. Cabrol, “Litanies…,” 1556.

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[Omnes Sancti] Zeraphim, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes Sancti] Ordines Coelorum, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes Sancti] Patriarchæ, [orate pro nobis]. [Omnes Sancti] Prophetæ, [orate pro nobis]. Sancte Petre, ora pro [nobis].152

The prayer quoted above means the assumption that the earliest compositions drew upon cosmological knowledge for their lists of holy addressees is plausible. In fact, the heavenly hierarchy was not the only element with biblical prototypes, as section A of the Litany of the Saints may also bring to mind the series of blessings from the Sermon on the Mount. Following this interpretation, the adjective sanctus, inflected for number and gender and systematically repeated in the anaphora, may be traced back to the apostrophe μακάριοι from Matthew 5:3–12. Bearing in mind such biblical contexts, it might be expected that the tradition of the polyonymic gene would be employed consistently in the Litany of the Saints. Indeed, it would not be surprising to see a blessing or thanksgiving formula as a response to the addresses evoked in section A, regardless of whether they resembled the psalmic refrain “for his mercy endureth for ever,” evoked the oft-repeated hymnic “praise and exalt him above all for ever,” or referred back to Matthew’s “rejoice, and be exceeding glad,” even if indirectly. Our expectations, however, are not fulfilled, for the tone of the prayer alters, with laudation giving way to supplication. Instead of any of the responses characteristic of the polyonymic gene, a formula is introduced which represents a distinctly different gene, the ektenial gene. This applies to each of the addresses from section A, with the result being that our thoughts move away from contemplating the abundance of God’s blessings to focus on our painful, temporal existence, as evidenced in the Kyrie eleison responses. Since the response “pray for us, sinners” had already been used in the Syrian litany which was mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, we may assume that the clear distinction between the polyonymic and the ektenial sections can be traced back to the oriental convention on which the structure of the prayer was modeled. Soon after the Syrian text was published by Anton Baumstark, Edmund Bishop put forward a hypothesis that the Litany of the Saints was popularized in the West by Pope Sergius I, whose family originated from the Antiochian region and whose pontificate covered the years 687 to 701. Sergius’ other contributions to the liturgy were provided as arguments. Even if the pope did not introduce the Syrian custom of singing the Agnus Dei to the Western

152 Frederick-Edward Warren, “Un monument inédit de la liturgie celtique,” Revue Celtique 9 (1888): 89.

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Church, he certainly approved of it. Does it not stand to reason—Bishop asked— that he also popularized another oriental practice, namely one which involves entreating the saints for help by calling their names? Bishop’s hypothesis seemed to find justification in the fact that the formula Agnus Dei appears in the earliest editions of the Western litany. Michael Lapidge, however, in his attempt to trace whoever may have brought the litanic prayer to the British Isles all the way from Antioch, put forward a rival candidate, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, who was born in Tarsus, a city under Antiochian jurisdiction, and died seventeen years before Sergius I was appointed Pope. Our intuition is to follow Lapidge’s hypothesis, while bearing in mind that none of the scholars, including Bishop, questions the fact that it was in England alone rather than elsewhere that the Litany of the Saints gained popularity. Having reached the British Isles toward the end of the seventh century, the Litany of the Saints was not the first litanic prayer to which the native inhabitants were exposed. The previous hundred years had seen the appearance of various forms of prayer which were similar to one another and which we classified as ektenial litanies in subchapter 7.1. Their range and variety was described by Lapidge in the following way: By the end of the sixth century, therefore, the word litaniae (or letaniae/laetaniae as it came—wrongly—to be spelled) could embrace a wide range of meanings, from litanic or supplicatory prayers used in Mass and Office, to penitential processions accompanied by petitions or rogationes (which must have included litanic prayers of some sort), and to the annual feasts on which such processions took place, namely the Major Litanies (Great Rogations) of 25 April, and the Minor Litanies (Lesser Rogations) on the three days before Ascension. These forms of liturgical observance will have been familiar to the Roman monks who in 597 brought Christianity to England, inasmuch as St Augustine was a close associate of Pope Gregory, and was prior of Gregory’s monastery of St Andrew at the time of his appointment to the see of Canterbury. Augustine brought Roman liturgical practice to England, and this will have included the use of litanic prayer.153

Thus, when Theodore’s ship reached England, his diocese was already familiar with the contemporary trends in the Western Church. This explains why the interest that the Litany of the Saints generated cannot be regarded as extraordinary. What is extraordinary, however, is that the idea of propagating and reproducing the prayer in countless variants—which was adopted out of necessity by different European nations—originated neither in the Eastern nor the Western Empire. In fact, the process of large-scale transmission was, for reasons unknown, initiated on the British Isles. This somewhat surprising situation may have been due to 153 ASLS 11.

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the set of characteristic features the prayer possessed, features which must have generated great interest in the furthest reaches of Europe at that time. Therefore, consideration should be given to those components of the litanic structure which are the most puzzling and which may, as a result, explain the way the litany was originally perceived by the inhabitants of the British Isles. The text of the litany brought by Theodore to Canterbury in the seventh century has not been preserved, although two of its later copies do still survive, one dating from the eighth century and the other from the 930s.154 Written in Latin and Greek, respectively, the copies are housed in the British Library.155 According to Lapidge, the former text is an extended translation of the latter.156 Both texts, however, record the prayer at the moment of transition, that is, when it was being transmitted from the East to the West and thus was part of both traditions. On the one hand, in the latter the prayer was written in the Latin rather than the Greek alphabet, which may be seen as a marker of its westernization. On the other hand, the most noticeable feature of the text is the order in which the saints appear, which was characteristic of oriental prayers; the address to Mary is preceded by those to Michael, Gabriel and Raphael and in the Latin version, also John the Baptist. The same order was over a certain period of time preserved in the earliest Western litanies, such as those composed in Cologne at the beginning of the ninth century, as discussed by Maurice Coens.157 Additionally, it is important to mention that Bishop, basing his views on Baumstark’s ideas, suggested that an analogous order was prevalent in the liturgies of the Syrian Jacobite Church.158 The subsequent variants of the Litany of the Saints involved repeating the addresses that appeared in the earliest records of the prayer, as well as introducing new supplications. In fact, each of the sections distinguished by Baumstark was expanded, with the greatest expansion seen in the polyonymic content which co-formed section A. Although seemingly restricted to the schematic structure “sanctus plus name,” in practice the section was subjected to the most inventive modifications. It was not long before the litanic framework was filled not only with the names of international saints, enumerated in the Roman Canon of the Mass, but also with a list of local figures, some of them legendary and not fully 154 155 156 157

Cf. ASLS 15. Cf. ASLS 172, 212–213. Cf. ASLS 15. Cf. Maurice Coens, “Anciennes litanies des saints,” Analecta Bollandiana 54 (1936): 10–14. 158 Cf. Baumstark, “Eine syrisch-melchitische Allerheiligenlitanei…,” 102.

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approved by the universal church. The idea that this particular section was especially prone to expansion was implied in the Greek version mentioned above, as its consecutive sections are made up of the following numbers of verses: A–eight verses, B–four verses, C–three verses and the Agnus Dei. Even though section A has a greater number of verses than sections B and C combined, it is the closing passage of this particular section that contains the Latin note “et reliqua” (“and so on”). This might suggest that either the Greek text contains an omission— according to Lapidge, “some 55 saints” who are missing but appear in the Latin version159—or that the praying members of the congregation could continue the enumeration in their own way. The fact that from then onward the canon of litanic saints could be freely modified contributed to the enrichment of the genre and, together with the additional names of the local saints, the German and Celtic phonetic systems were also introduced. In this way, the polyonymic gene was responsible for developing the local varieties of the litanic prayer. For instance, one of the books of prayers specifically written for nuns, which—in Lapidge’s opinion—may have been created in the eleventh century in Winchester, “includes the royal martyrs Edward and Edmund, the confessors Machutus, Byrnstan, Grimbald, Hæddi, Æthelwold and Byrnwold, and the virgin Æthelthryth.”160 All the names listed may be seen as vehicles through which foreign phonemes, either singularly or in a series, wended their way into the prayer. Additionally, if we assume that the petitions which were listed in the ektenial sections, that is B1 and C, followed the instructions provided in 1 Timothy 2:1–6, in which Paul advocates the primacy of common intentions over the individual—and the Winchester litany observes this rule—this opens the way for a kind of generic specialization, with the ektenial gene being responsible for the universal and the polyonymic for the particular and the local. When seen from this perspective, the juxtaposition of the polyonymic and the ektenial passages in a given text—which may be compared to the juxtaposition of black (suffering) and white (beatitude)—did not have to result from the vicissitudes of life on the threshold of the Middle Ages, when success easily became failure and joy was mingled with sorrow. It may also be seen as a marker of the double identities possessed by the contemporary citizens who saw themselves as representatives of the pagan world as much as a part of the Mediterranean civilization.161 159 Cf. ASLS 15. 160 ASLS 70. 161 John Carey in his book entitled King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000): 10 addresses this issue in the following way: “The medieval Irish were themselves aware of the hybrid character of their heritage, and

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To pursue this idea further, it may be stated—with a certain exaggeration but not without reason—that the ambivalent attitude toward European culture, an attitude characteristic of the so-called British splendid isolation, found its parallel in the litanic juxtaposition of the polyonymic and the ektenial genes. At this point, let us return to the question posed by Bishop over a hundred years ago, that is, why did the impetus for the popularizing movement, a movement which was to disseminate the Litany of the Saints all over the Christian world, come from England rather than Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople or Rome? In fact, an analysis of the British factor in the process must allow for alternative interpretations, which leads us to the next question. Was it possible that the litany was popularized by a European nation other than the British? If this was indeed the case, then the most likely nation would be the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. About forty years before the birth of Theodore, Isidore of Seville was born. His compilatory work, which was fueled by his systematizing drive, may have provided the perfect theological basis for constructing inventories of saints, for cataloging examples of universal evil which cried out for God’s intervention and for turning acts of salvation into categories which could be grouped and preserved in the memory, analogously to books on shelves. Isidore’s ideas did not remain on the sidelines. The example of the Iberian Peninsula alone shows that they gave rise to an entire intellectual tradition which spanned subsequent centuries and which reached one of its high points at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that is, at the time when Ramon Llull produced his impressively systematic list of God’s names. In fact, the tradition was not limited to the Iberian Peninsula, but spread over the whole continent, even reaching as far as Poland.162 As early as the seventh century, Isidore’s works were read in Ireland, and they soon inspired “biblical commentaries and grammatical treatises.”163 Indeed, traces of his ideas are to be found in numerous Irish works which are based on enumeration. Edmund Bishop went so far as to argue that the Mozo-Arabic culture was a melting pot, where influences from different civilizations came together. When viewed from this perspective, the culture contributed reflected upon it in innumerable poems and tales. They saw themselves as a nation of converts, their identity essentially determined by the marriage of two cultures. Patrick was the agent and emblem of this marriage—perhaps indeed this was the principal reason for his status as the greatest of Irish saints.” 162 Cf. Teresa Michałowska, Średniowiecze [The Middle Ages] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1995): 252. 163 Luned Mair Davies, “Isidore of Seville, St” in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. John T. Koch (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006): 1025.

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to establishing a link between the Syrian tradition and the religious centers in Europe, especially on the British Isles.164 Despite this fact, the role of the Iberian Peninsula in popularizing the litany was negligible. Although in the Middle Ages the popularizing process was certainly counteracted by the Arab Islamic conquest, what is truly puzzling— especially to those researching the history of poetry—is that even during later periods the Iberian versification failed to adopt the litanic rhythm on a greater scale. The influences of litanic verse on Castilian, Catalan, Galician and Portuguese literatures are few and far between until the nineteenth century,165 either because the taxonomic drive that achieved so much in Isidore’s works was then channeled into Iberian allegorical drama, in which each character is an embodiment of a certain moral category, or for reasons as yet unknown. Thus, it seems reasonable to believe that the leading role in popularizing the litany was played not by the Peninsula, but by the British Isles, at least at the earliest stages of the process. In an attempt to account for this situation, Bishop writes about the contemporary social relations which determined the place of an individual with respect to other individuals, but also—as was then believed— with respect to the spirits: The Irish masters in the early days of England’s conversion were by nature attracted to solitude […]. But if men such as these lived in solitude, they still were not alone; their world was peopled by spirits, angels, good and bad, all either friends or foes, with whom they were in continual communion or conflict. […] In such a spiritual atmosphere as this nothing is more easy than to understand (the impulse once given) the development and rapid spread of such a devotion as that which we call the litany of the saints, with its combination of freedom and variety in the choice of deceased persons to be invoked, and the ease, brevity, and uniformity of the actual prayer itself: “Ora pro nobis.”166

This explanation is theological in nature. From the perspective of a literary historian, however, the reasons behind the spread of the Litany of the Saints on the British Isles appear somewhat different. Regardless of the foreign invasions 164 Cf. Bishop, “The Litany of Saints…,” 161–163. 165 Cf. Marta Piłat-Zuzankiewicz, “Castilian Poetry and Autos Sacramentales during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in LV 1: 155–156; Maria Judyta Woźniak, “The Iberian Peninsula from the Eighteenth Century till the 1930s: Opening Remarks,” in LV 1: 169; Eadem, “‘Thou, the most beautiful; thou, in whom the pink morning star shines’: Castilian Poetry in the Eighteenth Century,” in LV 1: 171, 181; Eadem, “On the Trail of Litany in Catalan, Galician, and Portuguese Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the 1930s,” in LV 1: 197. 166 Bishop, “The Litany of Saints…,” 148.

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to which Britain’s shores were exposed—invasions which brought with them a wealth of foreign inspirations—British culture may have offered fertile ground for the development of the litany. The body of literature that has been preserved on the British Isles, which dates from the most distant periods of English and Welsh history, and—even more importantly—of Irish and Scottish history, is to a large extent dominated by catalogs and as such is an unparalleled phenomenon in Europe. There was no field of writing which did not share in the all-embracing fascination with listing and enumerating the elements of reality, a reality which applied as much to the world of the living as to that of the dead. Legal, geographical and historical texts as well as texts of prayer and gnomic wisdom, all became products of an enthusiasm for making lists and records.167 The works were composed within the framework of different genres which employed enumeration and which formed the local variant of the Listenwissenschaft. Certain of these genres were grouped into different series, including duads, triads, tetrads, etc., with the last in the group being heptads. These genres enumerated various kinds of phenomena which consisted of two to seven different aspects, factors or components. The Irish author of Liber de numeris, who lived in the eighth century and was initially confused with Isidore, had the ambitious idea of stretching the list to as far as 24-element phenomena. Even though his objective was not achieved—the list does not go beyond octads168—the idea itself underscores the reproductive potential of the literary system, a potential which enables the genres to produce not only new variants, that is, new texts, but also to transform themselves into new genres. Even a glance at these genres reveals that they employ the same techniques that were characteristic of the polyonymic gene—that is, numerous parallelisms, anaphoras, and epiphoras; they also show a predilection for enumerations and antonomasia. This leads to the assumption that the similarity must have been

167 Cf. Colin A. Ireland, “Introduction,” in Old Irish Wisdom Attributed to Aldfrith of Northumbria: An Edition of Bríathra Flainn Fhína maic Ossu, ed. Idem (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1999): 47. 168 Cf. Charles D. Wright, “The ‘enumerative style’ in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993): 52–55. On page 56, Wright quotes an example of tetrads from Liber de numeris: “The section, ‘Quid quattuor adserit,’ for example, includes items such as the four letters of the name of God (IV.1), the four seasons (IV.4), the four births of Christ (IV.21), and the four kinds of questions (IV.33), in addition to didactic motifs such as the four things that stain the soul (IV.51).”

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noted by those who lived fifteen hundred years ago—at the time when Theodore arrived in the British Isles. From the rich repertoire of the vernacular literary tradition, three generic fields, that is, those which are the most relevant for the present discussion, will be selected for analysis. Even though for each of the selected conventions parallels can be found in the poetic legacy of the other European nations, it is on the British Isles that such a particularly large number of examples exist. Having said that, however, it may be the case that the scale of the phenomenon is a side effect of the limited extant textual evidence in Europe, and yet, there are certain premises which allow us to assume that the predilection for the literary devices mentioned above developed to a much greater extent on the British Isles than on the Continent. Therefore, the first genre which led to this conclusion will be examined below.

7.4.2.1  The List of Maxims The genre of speculum principis consists in enumerating a series of maxims addressed to a young ruler in the presence of his subjects. The purpose of the enumeration is to remind those gathered that it is on the wise government of the prince that the well-being of the state depends; the successful policies and their positive impact are listed one by one. Interestingly enough, the genre appeared in both the earliest Irish169 and Greek literatures. To account for this situation, Richard P. Martin argues convincingly for the persistence of the same convention within both cultures, a convention which grew out of their common Proto-IndoEuropean roots.170 However, a comparison between the earliest Greek examples of the genre by Homer and Hesiod with the earliest Irish example, Audacht Morainn (The Testament of Morainn), which was inspired by Isidore’s thoughts,171 reveals that the Irish example contains a catalog-like enumeration, whereas the Greek examples, by contrast, do not:

169 Cf. Robert Frank Leslie, “Introduction,” in The Wanderer, ed. Idem (Manchester University Press, 1966): 27. 170 Cf. Richard P. Martin, “Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 114 (1984). 171 Cf. Claudia Di Sciacca, Finding the Right Words: Isidore’s Synonyma in Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008): 143; Ralph O’Connor, “Christian Kingship and the Heathen Past: the Vernacular tecosca,” in The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel: Kingship and Narrative Artistry in a Mediaeval Irish Saga (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013): 279–283.

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οἳ δὲ δίκας ξείνοισι καὶ ἐνδήμοισι διδοῦσιν ἰθείας καὶ μή τι παρεκβαίνουσι δικαίου, τοῖσι τέθηλε πόλις, λαοὶ δ᾽ ἀνθέουσιν ἐν αὐτῇ· Εἰρήνη δ᾽ ἀνὰ γῆν κουροτρόφος, οὐδέ ποτ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἀργαλέον πόλεμον τεκμαίρεται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς· οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἰθυδίκῃσι μετ᾽ ἀνδράσι Λιμὸς ὀπηδεῖ οὐδ᾽ Ἄτη, θαλίῃς δὲ μεμηλότα ἔργα νέμονται. τοῖσι φέρει μὲν γαῖα πολὺν βίον, οὔρεσι δὲ δρῦς ἄκρη μέν τε φέρει βαλάνους, μέσση δὲ μελίσσας· εἰροπόκοι δ᾽ ὄιες μαλλοῖς καταβεβρίθασιν· τίκτουσιν δὲ γυναῖκες ἐοικότα τέκνα γονεῦσιν· θάλλουσιν δ᾽ ἀγαθοῖσι διαμπερές· οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ νηῶν νίσονται, καρπὸν δὲ φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.172 [But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to the men of the land, and go not aside from what is just, their city flourishes, and the people prosper in it: Peace, the nurse of children, is abroad in their land, and all-seeing Zeus never decrees cruel war against them. Neither famine nor disaster ever haunt men who do true justice; but lightheartedly they tend the fields which are all their care. The earth bears them victual in plenty, and on the mountains the oak bears acorns upon the top and bees in the midst. Their woolly sheep are laden with fleeces; their women bear children like their parents. They flourish continually with good things, and do not travel on ships, for the graingiving earth bears them fruit.]173 τὴν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς· ‘ὦ γύναι, οὐκ ἄν τίς σε βροτῶν ἐπ᾽ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν νεικέοι· ἦ γάρ σευ κλέος οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἱκάνει, ὥς τέ τευ ἦ βασιλῆος ἀμύμονος, ὅς τε θεουδὴς ἀνδράσιν ἐν πολλοῖσι καὶ ἰφθίμοισιν ἀνάσσων εὐδικίας ἀνέχῃσι, φέρῃσι δὲ γαῖα μέλαινα πυροὺς καὶ κριθάς, βρίθῃσι δὲ δένδρεα καρπῷ, τίκτῃ δ᾽ ἔμπεδα μῆλα, θάλασσα δὲ παρέχῃ ἰχθῦς ἐξ εὐηγεσίης, ἀρετῶσι δὲ λαοὶ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ.174 [Then wise Odysseus answered her and said: “Lady, no man upon the boundless earth may speak dispraise of you, because your fame is wide as is the sky. Such is the glory of a blameless king who reverences God and rules a people numerous and mighty, upholding justice. For him the dark-soiled earth produces wheat and barley, trees bend low

172 Hesiod, Works and Days, 225–237, ed. Martin L. West (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978): 106. Cf. also page 213 for West’s commentary. 173 Hesiod, Works and Days, 225–237, in Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (London: William Heinemann, 1924): 19, 21. 174 Homer, Ὀδύσσεια, XIX, 106–114, eds. Johann Heinrich Voß and Emil Rudolf Weiß (Leipzig: Der Tempel, 1922): 102.

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with fruit, the flock has constant issue, and the sea yields fish, under his righteous sway. Because of him his people prosper. […]”]175 Is tre ḟír flathemon fo- síd sámi sube soad sádili -sláini. Is tre ḟír flathemon ath- (mór)cathu fri crícha comnámat -cuirethar. Is tre ḟír flathemon cech comarbe con a chlí ina chainorbu clanda. Is tre ḟír flathemon ad- manna mármeso márḟedo -mlasetar. Is tre ḟír flathemon ad- mlechti márbóis -moínigter. Is tre ḟír flathemon ro-bbí(?) cech etho ardósil imbeth. Is tre ḟír flathemon to- aidble (uisce) éisc i sruthaib -snáither. Is tre ḟír flathemon clanda caini cain-tussimter. [It is through the justice of the ruler that he secures peace, tranquillity, joy, ease, (and) comfort. / It is through the justice of the ruler that he dispatches (great) battalions to the borders of hostile neighbours. / It is through the justice of the ruler that every heir plants his house-post in his fair inheritance. / It is through the justice of the ruler that aboundances of great tree-fruit of the great wood are tasted. / It is through the justice of the ruler that milk-yields of great cattle are maintained (?). / It is through the justice of the ruler that there is (?) abundance of every high, tall corn. / It is through the justice of the ruler that aboundance of fish swim in streams / It is through the justice of the ruler that fair children are well begotten.]176

We may, therefore, assume that in the Proto-Indo-European culture speculum principis was not yet part of the Listenwissenschaft and was only incorporated into the list-making canon in the Irish culture. However, the reverse may also be true: the genre may have employed enumeration and parallelism only to lose them in the Greek renditions. Whichever is the case, having reached Greece, the polyonymic gene was not recognized in Homer’s and Hesiod’s poetry. This only happened after the advent of Christianity in Ireland and may be seen in the texts discussed below. Audacht Morainn, commonly dated to the end of the seventh century,177 may be connected with the plagues that ravaged Ireland between 664 and the 680s, as

175 Homer, The Odyssey, XIX, 106–114, trans. George Herbert Palmer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921): 294. 176 Audacht Morainn, Text (B), ed. and trans. Fergus Kelly (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advances Studies, 1976): 6–7. 177 Cf. Fergus Kelly, “Foreword,” in Audacht Morainn…, xxxiii; Michael Enright, Iona, Tara, and Soissons: The Origin of the Royal Anointing Ritual (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1985): 51; Katharine Simms, From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2000): 24; Fergus Kelly, “Wisdom literature, Irish,” in Celtic Culture…, 1809.

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suggested by Lester K. Little.178 The text, however, recalls much earlier times with its evocation of a scene which allegedly took place between the mythical rulers of the island in the first century. The text forms a series of instructions delivered “by the legendary judge Morann to a young king, Feradach Find Fechtnach.”179 According to Ralph O’Connor, the earliest part of the work is an example of “a syncretic text,” in which “pre-Christian and Christian elements become very hard to distinguish,”180 unlike Tecosca Cormaic (The Instructions of Cormac), a later work which represents the same genre and contains “slightly more obvious references to the Christian God.”181 While Audacht Morainn is a relatively short work, Tecosca Cormaic, dated to the ninth century,182 is made up of many parts, some very long, but with the majority based on enumeration. It describes the events of the third century, when “the legendary king Cormac mac Airt—who is compared with Solomon in later Middle Irish texts—offers advice to his son Cairbre Lifechair.”183 The text contains a great number of short syntactic schemes, consisting of only a few words that list catalogs of human features, which are repeated ad infinitum throughout long sections of text. A sequence made up of three words: A + cech (every) + B enables the pairing of virtues as well as of vices. Examples of the former include: “every generous person is righteous,” “every patient person is persevering,” “every faithful person is a good counsellor” or “every docile person is sage.”184 Asked by his son about the days of his youth, Cormac also describes his past behavior using three-word sentences with an anaphora on ba (was). Some of the expressions he uses may be seen as preparing the ground for early antonomasias, which were to appear in a similar form in later litanies dedicated to Mary. To quote from the text: ba dulig irgaile, ba solam d’ ḟoraire, ba cennais cairdine, ba liaig lobor,

178 Cf. Lester K. Little, Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 224. 179 Fergus Kelly, “Audacht Morainn,” in Celtic Culture…, 142. 180 O’Connor, “Christian Kingship…,” 281. 181 Ibid., 279. 182 Cf. “Wisdom literature, Irish,” in Celtic Culture…, 1809. 183 O’Connor, “Christian Kingship…,” 278. 184 The Instructions of King Cormac Mac Airt, ed. and trans. Kuno Meyer (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1909): 20–21, 28–29.

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[I was stern in battle, / I was ready to watch, / I was gentle in friendship, / I was a physician of the sick].185

What also seems to bring the text close to Marian litanies is the enumeration of the virtues that a good ruler should possess, which are found at the beginning of the work: Fosta cen ḟeirg, Ainmne cen debaid, Soacallaim cen mórdataid, Deithide senchasa, Frithḟolad fír, Géill i nglassaib, Slógad fri deithbiri, Fír cen ḟuillem, Trócaire co ndlúthugud rechta, [Firmness without anger, / Patience without strife, / Affability without haughtiness, / Taking care of ancient lore, / Giving truth for truth, / Hostages in fetters, / Hosting with reason, / Truth without addition, / Mercifulness with consolidation of law].186

The repertoire of ready-made formulas used to depict human virtues and vices is likewise found in other relics of early Irish literature, such as the collection of maxims ascribed to King Aldfrith, “who ruled Anglo-Saxon Northumbria from ca. 685 to 705.”187 It would be no exaggeration to say that such collections could be called catalogs of catalogs, for all or nearly all of their chapters are governed by enumeration. Therefore, the difference between individual chapters within the collection is restricted to the syntactic structure which frames the list. The authors of such works proved adept at conveying their thoughts within almost any possible syntactic pattern, thereby demonstrating—albeit indirectly—their competence to be, in fact, promoters of the litany. Hence, the vast and consistent body of Irish texts seems to validate Lapidge’s intuition, as when tracing the history of the Litany of the Saints, the researcher drew attention not only to England, but also to Ireland. The litany may have been popularized in Canterbury, Lapidge argued, but it was in Ireland that local color was added.188

185 186 187 188

Ibid., 16–17. Ibid., 2–3. Colin A. Ireland, “Introduction…,” 2. Cf. ASLS 32.

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7.4.2.2  The List of Heroes Among the earliest Irish genres, it is the speculum principium, discussed in the previous paragraph, which gives us an idea as to how the litany was employed by early Irish writers. Yet a much greater insight into the original reception of the prayer on the Emerald Isle is provided by another early convention, namely the list of the deceased. Both genres are widely reported and were probably known to various Proto-Indo-European peoples. Indeed, it is possible that the list of the deceased was a very strong convention in medieval Europe, for its relics and reverberations are still recognizable within the modern culture. Therefore, it is necessary to briefly consider this and move from the early medieval reality toward the present time. One of the customs rooted in the French military tradition is l’appel des morts. Dating back to the nineteenth century, or the Franco-Prussian war to be precise, it consists in reading out a list of the soldiers who have lost their lives, which includes “the name of the deceased, his regiment, military decorations, and finally the date of the battle and of his death.”189 During the state ceremony, those gathered repeat the response “Mort pour la France” (“Died for France”). Since the religious connotations of the custom were openly acknowledged in the early years of the French Third Republic, in rural, and so more local, ceremonies the practice to respond with “Amen” survived even up to the twentieth century.190 Similar customs prevail in other European countries, such as Italy (l’appello dei caduti) and Poland (apel poległych). In Poland, the roll call of the deceased takes place at night and consists of summoning the souls of the soldiers to appear during the ceremony. The souls are called either individually, as in the case of the commanders, or in groups—this applies to ordinary soldiers who met their death on the same battlefield. After a number of calls, the collective formula “Stańcie do apelu!” (“Appear for the roll call”) is said. It seems that this tradition, which was not officially approved until the nineteenth century, would not have gained such significance had not the ground been directly prepared. If the Proto-Indo-European lists of the deceased were among its distant sources, then the Irish works may be seen as its earliest renditions. A case in point is a work by an Irish poet, Cináed ua hArtacáin. Dating from the 189 Christina Theodosiou, “La mobilisation des morts: culte du souvenir et culture de guerre en France pendant la Grande Guerre,” LISA 10 (2012) no. 1, https://lisa.revues. org/4844 (accessed August 29, 2016). 190 Cf. Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, and Annette Becker, France and the Great War 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003): 164–165.

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tenth century, the poem is composed of forty-nine quatrains and it enumerates a long list of legendary kings, commanders, and warriors, including their burial places. Some of the deceased are grouped according to the battles in which they lost their lives,191 with one of the battles in turn becoming the central focus of an anonymous work entitled Cath Almaine (The Battle of Allen). Composed between the eighth and tenth centuries,192 it focuses on “a battle fought in 722 at the Hill of Allen.”193 Besides the events immediately preceding the military conflict, the progress of the battle as well as its miraculous aftermath, the poem also records the names of the deceased who are divided into two groups: the kings of the North and the kings of the South.194 The idea behind such poems seems to be that even acts of extraordinary valor cannot guarantee the hero will be remembered for eternity, as this only becomes possible when his name appears on the list of famous warriors drawn up after their death. The practice of reading out the names of the deceased did not disappear with the advent of Christianity. On the contrary, for those linked to their Celtic background, the new religion did not represent a complete break with their past, as it described the deeds of the dead read from the book of life during the Last Judgement (cf. Revelation 17:8; 20:15; 21:27). Likewise, the cult of the martyrs, connected as it was with revering sites of martyrdom by building churches on them, would have seemed familiar to the Irish. However, the names of the deceased as well as the sites of bloodshed and of burial were not the only items recorded by the Celtic poets. They also compiled inventories of mythical and historical warriors at the peak of their military careers, such as the list of 99 governors who are described as arriving in threes in the epic Táin Bó Cúalnge (The Cualnge Cattle-Raid).195 Additionally, the descriptions of legendary feasts provided the perfect opportunity to recite a list of heroes. The well-known Fled Bricrenn (The Feast of Bricriu)—which is dated to the tenth century due to its linguistic characteristics,196 but in fact depicts “the period subsequent to the establishment

191 Cf. Cináed ua hArtacáin, “On the Deaths of Some Irish Heroes,” ed. and trans. Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique 23 (1902): 303–317. 192 Cf. Alan John Fletcher, Drama and the Performing Arts in Pre-Cromwellian Ireland (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001): 506. 193 Andy Halpin, “Historical Tales,” in Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia, ed. Seán Duffy (New York: Routledge, 2005): 370. 194 Cf. “The Battle of Allen,” ed. and trans. Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique 24 (1903): 52–55. 195 Cf. The Ancient Irish Epic Tale: Táin Bó Cúalnge—“The Cualnge Cattle-Raid,” ed. and trans. Joseph Dunn (London: David Nutt, 1914): 351. 196 Cf. John T. Koch, “Fled Bricrenn,” in Celtic Culture…, 753.

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of the Viking urban settlements in Ireland from the mid-tenth century”197— includes two groups occupying two different parts of the palace: the King of Ulster with his warriors make up one group and his wife with her ladies, the other. The reader is then presented with the lists of names from each group.198 To quote one more example, Lebor na Cert (the Book of Rights), dating from the second half of the eleventh century, enumerates in verse the provincial kings, warriors and heroes to whom the Irish king was obliged to pay tribute, devoting seven of its major parts to a seemingly endless list of goods and rents. The number of tributes, which were probably evoked for their symbolic significance, appear as anaphoras in the stanza-initial position: Deich n-eich do ríg Raithleand ruaid, deich cuirn ó ríg Caisil chruaid, deich scéith, deich claidim chalma, deich lúireacha lánbadba. Seacht n-eich, seacht n-inair derga secht coin re caithim selga, seacht lúireacha i lló gaili don ḟir fá mbiad Múscraigi. [Ten horses to the king of mighty Raithlenn, / ten horns from the king of stalwart Cashel,  / ten shields, ten valiant swords, / ten martial coats of mail. // Seven horses, seven red tunics, / seven hounds for hunting, / seven coats of mail for the day of battle, / to the man whom the Múscraige obey.]199

Finally, much of what has been discussed above also applies to a text known as the Litany of Irish Saints II, which—according to different accounts—was composed either around the year 800 or in the tenth century.200 The text does not correspond to the Litany of the Saints, which was slowly becoming standardized, but seems to be a compromise of sorts between the Christian and the pagan criteria for distinguishing those worthy of respect. What is of greatest interest, however, 197 Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost, The Irish Language in Ireland: From Goídel to Globalisation (London: Routledge, 2005): 74. 198 Cf. Fled Bricrend: The Feast of Bricriu, paragraphs 12 and 28, ed. and trans. George Henderson (London: Irish Texts Society, 1899): 12–13, 34–35. 199 Lebor na Cert—The Book of Rights, ed. Myles Dillon (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1962): 32–33. 200 A review of the various accounts is provided by Rachel Butter, Cill-Names and Saints in Argyll: A Way Towards Understanding the Early Church in Dál Riata?, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow (Glasgow, 2007): 23. Available at: http://theses.gla. ac.uk/4509/1/2007ButterV1.pdf (accessed December 22, 2017).

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is the very strong numerological focus of the text. For instance, the author mentions seven hundred pilgrims traveling to one place and thrice fifty traveling to another; seven holy bishops governing one area and seven holy bishops governing another, etc. The way those worthy of renown are grouped around their leader brings to mind the previous references to the commander and his warriors: In da ailither déc dollotar la Moedóc Ferna dar muir, Per Iesum. Da óclach déc dochotar for nem la Molasse, cen galar, log a narlettad, Per Iesum. Da oclach déc lotar la Colum cille i nailithri i nAlbain, Per Iesum. In da ailither déc dia narnaic Brenaind inn oen fher i ninis in chaitt i mbethu, Per Iesum. [The twelve pilgrims who went with Maedoc of Ferns across the sea; Per Iesum. / Twelve youths who went to heaven with Molasse without sickness, the reward of their obedience; Per Iesum. / Twelve youths who went with Columcille on pilgrimage to Alba; Per Iesum. / The twelve pilgrims of whom Brendan found one man alive in the Cat’s Island; Per Iesum.]201

The list of pilgrims traveling to places of worship is not unlike that of the warriors heading for the battlefield. Some are grouped according to their destinations, as was the case in the lists of the deceased: Ind ailithir im Mochua mac Luscan i nDomnuch Resen, Per Iesum. Ind ailither i mBeluch forcitail, Per Iesum. Ind ailither i Cúil Ochtair, Per Iesum. In gaill in Saillidu, in gaill i mMaig Shalach, Per Iesum. In gaill i nAchud Ginain, Per Iesum. In Saxain i rRigair, Per Iesum. In Saxain i Cluain Mucceda, (Per Iesum). Ind ailither i nInis Puinc, Per Iesum.

201 Litany of Irish Saints II, in Irish Litanies, ed. and trans. Charles Plummer (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1925): 62–63.

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[The pilgrim with Mochua son of Luscu in Domnach Resen; Per Iesum. / The pilgrim in Belach Forcitail; Per Iesum. / The pilgrim in Cuil Ochtair; Per Iesum. / The foreigners in Saillide; the foreigners in Mag Salac; Per Iesum. / The foreigners in Achad Ginain; Per Iesum. / The Saxons in Rigair; Per Iesum. / The Saxons in Cluain Mucceda; (Per Iesum.) / The pilgrim in Inis Puinc; Per Iesum.]202

The Litany of Irish Saints II is important for our purposes in that it allows us to trace the way in which the polyonymic gene was familiarized by the same peoples who popularized the Litany of the Saints. The polyonymic gene—as we are keen to underline—was from its earliest days characterized by its receptivity to the external context. In the case of the British Isles, as exemplified by Irish literature, the context manifested a deeply embedded practice of compiling, recording, and reading out lists of heroes. This does not mean, however, that this practice—originally pagan in nature—canceled out the semantic possibilities of the polyonymic gene, for the gene retained the character of a deeply Christian convention. Still, it is true to say that the enumeration of the warriors’ names— whether in the context of describing the burial grounds, battlegrounds or feasts in which the military elite of the mythical world were entertained—became an important component of the interpretant and contributed considerably to the perception of the litany. The figure of the valiant hero, whose name was sanctified the moment it was entered onto the list of the deceased, could be perceived behind the image of the saint, whose name was evoked in prayer. The fact that the boundary between the categories of hero and saint was blurred paved the way for expanding the scope of the Litany of the Saints so that, apart from the most revered names in the church, it also included the names of those whose achievements in the local community were politically rather than religiously inspired. Simultaneously, certain techniques for depicting the pagan worldview could more easily be incorporated into Christian literature, thereby enriching the poetic branch of the litany. The litanic inspiration behind the earliest Christian works composed on the British Isles reveals itself in the characteristic combination of the Mediterranean and vernacular content. In the Litany of Irish Saints II, the impact of the latter is such that the omission of the response “Per Iesum” in certain parts of the work may have allowed the pagan convention to gain total control over the text. A different case in point can be seen in a seemingly analogous prayer, composed in the eighth century, which is known as the Litany of Jesus I:

202 Litany of Irish Saints II…, 64–65.

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Ateoch frit, a Isu nóib, do cethri suiscelaige ro scribsad do shoscelai comdheta, i. Matha, Maircc, Lucas, Ióin; Ateoch frit do cethri prim-fhaide ro thircansatar th’inchollugud, Daniel & Erimias, & Essias, & Ezechel; Ateoch frit nói ngrada na heclaise talmanta, o salmchedlaid co hesscubaide; Ateoch frit ina huile thuicsenchu arroedatar na grada sin o thossach nuad-fhiadnaise cosaníu, & arfoemad ondiu co laithe in mhesa; Ateoch frit nói ngrada na heclaise nemdha .i. aingle & archangle, uirtutes, potestates, principatus, dominationes, troin, irrophin, saropín; Ateoch frit na da uasal-aithrech déc, ro thaircnatar tresna ruinib spirdaldaib; Ateoch frit na da mhin-fáidh déc rot fiugraidsetar; Ateoch frit na da apstal déc, rot carsatar, & rot ailsetar, & rot sechsetar, & rot lensatar, & ro róegatar re cach; [I entreat Thee, o Holy Jesus, by Thy four evangelists who wrote Thy divine gospels, to wit, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; / I entreat Thee by Thy four chief Prophets who foretold Thy Incarnation, Daniel, and Jeremiah, and Isaiah, and Ezekiel; / I entreat Thee by the nine orders of the Church on earth, from psalm-singer to episcopate; / I entreat Thee by all the intelligent ones who received these orders from the beginning of the New Testament up till now; and who [shall] receive them from now till the Day of Judgment; / I entreat Thee by the nine orders of the Church in heaven, to wit, Angels and Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim; / I entreat Thee by the twelve Patriarchs who foretold Thee through spiritual mysteries; / I entreat Thee by the twelve minor Prophets who foreshadowed Thee; / I entreat Thee by the twelve Apostles who loved Thee, and besought Thee, and followed Thee, and clave to Thee, and chose Thee above every one].203

Grouping the characters according to numerical principles recalls the previous work. However, when it is used in this prayer the technique clearly aims to transpose the Litany of the Saints into Irish. The apostrophe on “Ateoch frit” seems to be the equivalent of the litanic response “te precor,” even though it appears in the line-initial position. Likewise, the enumeration of the saints follows a cosmological order, not unlike that underscoring the parallel litanic convention. For instance, the hierarchy presented in petition number five, which is addressed to the heavenly choirs, is strikingly similar to that found in the litany included in the tenth-century Breton psalter discussed above. Another point of similarity is the two subsequent entreaties, addressed to the patriarchs and prophets, which are immediately followed by an address to the twelve apostles. This is not to say that the Litany of Jesus I is deprived of its own peculiarities, one of which is the place in the hierarchy that is assigned to the four Evangelists, who immediately follow Jesus. Yet, some

203 Litany of Jesus I, in Irish Litanies…, 30–31.

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techniques used in the prayer seem well suited for both pagan and Christian traditions. For instance, the practice of enumerating the names consecutively and of grouping them together is analogous to a similar practice used in both Celtic lists of heroes and Antiochian litany discovered by Baumstark. Without doubt, this example clearly demonstrates the affinity between the Irish and Syrian poetic traditions. Even though it diverges significantly from the earliest Greek and Latin versions of the Litany of the Saints, the Litany of Jesus I appears to be an impressively early and surprisingly successful translation of the text into Irish. However, it should be noted that what we mean by translation is certainly not a word replacement operation which produces equivalent sentences, for the way the Litany of Jesus I diverges from the Litany of Irish Saints II, that is, mainly by a different balance between the foreign and vernacular elements, reveals the process of translation to be a complex semiotic operation. An examination of the list of heroes and maxims has yet to allow the nuances of this operation to be fully understood. So, in order to gain an insight into the main mechanisms behind the flourishing of the European litany—in particular the development of its poetic branch—let us focus on yet another archaic form.

7.4.2.3  The Cataloging Charms and Lorica Among the conventions which form the building blocks of Christian poetry, scholars quite often mention the cataloging charms. The affinities between the various national literatures in this respect point to the universal dimension of the genre. Contrary to what may be supposed, its prevalence on the British Isles should be accounted for not so much by the predilection for magical thinking, which was characteristic of the native religion, as its parasitical strategy which enabled it to thrive on a body of conventions supplied by other external forms rather than by functioning as a separate genre. This explains the ease with which the charm traveled between religions, only changing the frame in which it appeared, as if shedding its skin but preserving its skeleton. The ability of the genre to function within various frameworks is best seen by juxtaposing texts which could not have influenced one another (as they come from geographically remote areas), but which nevertheless share the same compositional strategy. The first to be discussed is a prayer composed in the sixth century in Palestine, which is traditionally attributed to a relatively important figure in the Talmud, Rabbi Yannai.204 The poem is composed of twenty-three 204 Cf. Yannai, “From Soul to Flesh,” in The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, ed. and trans. T. Carmi [Carmi Charney] (London: Penguin Books, 1981): 215–216; Ronald L.

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lines and it describes the suffering of the Jews no longer living in Palestine. However, it is not each individual in their entirety that is afflicted with pain, but rather different parts of their body: shaking legs, weakened knees, palpitating heart, etc. In fact, a considerable number of elements in the human body are enumerated in this way, elements which are linked through pain. Yet the general message of the poem is by no means pessimistic, for in verse’s initial, central and final lines the Israelite nation declares its allegiance to God. The lines display a vast semantic scope which applies to the entire text. Seen from this perspective, they may be compared to a semiotic frame into which all the remaining lines are fitted and on which their meaning depends. As a result of this framing, the poem cannot be used for magical purposes since the poet eventually entrusts man’s fate to God. However, this does not change the fact that the structure of the internal lines corresponds perfectly to the structure of the cataloging charms, as demonstrated by Vladimir Toporov. The philosophy behind the genre is based on a belief that the world resembles an encyclopedia as it is composed of a set of elements which make up a system. Consequently, all the catastrophes and calamities that the world faces, such as plague or disease, strike when one of the key elements is missing. The role of the cataloging charm is to restore the cosmic order through an exhaustive enumeration of its constituent elements.205 In the example described above, it is the human body that is in need of reconstruction, and the text may thus be seen as a silent entreaty to God who is asked to heal and restore man. The second work to be mentioned, a Scottish folk song recorded in the nineteenth century, has a similar structure: Chaidh Criosd a mach Maduinn moch, Fhuair e cas nan each ’Nan spruilleach bog; Chuir e smior ri smior, Chuir e smuais ri smuais, Chuir e cnaimh ri cnaimh,

Eisenberg, “Yannai,” in Essential Figures in the Talmud (Lanham: Jason Aronson, 2013): 255–256. 205 Cf.  Владимир Н. Топоров, “Об индоевропейской заговорной традиции (избранные главы)” [“On the Indo-European Tradition of Incantations (selected chapters)”], in Исследования в области балто-славянской духовой культуры. Заговор [Studies in Baltic-Slavonic Spiritual Culture: The Incantation], eds. Вячеслав В. Иванов and Татьяна Н. Свешникова (Москва: Наука, 1993).

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Chuir e streabhon ri streabhon, Chuir e feith ri feith, Chuir e fuil ri fuil, Chuir e creais ri creais, Chuir e feoil ri feoil, Chuir e saill ri saill, Chuir e craicionn ri craicionn Chuir e fionn ri fionn, Chuir e blath ri blath, Chuir e fuar ri fuar; Mar a leighis Righ nam buadh sin Is dual gun leighis e seo, Ma ’s e thoil fein a dheanamh. A uchd Ti nan dul, Agus Tiur na Trianaid. [Christ went out / In the morning early, / He found the legs of the horses / In fragments soft; / He put marrow to marrow, / He put pith to pith, / He put bone to bone, / He put membrane to membrane, / He put tendon to tendon, / He put blood to blood, / He put tallow to tallow, / He put flesh to flesh, / He put fat to fat, / He put skin to skin, / He put hair to hair, / He put warm to warm, / He put cool to cool, / As the King of power healed that / It is in His nature to heal this, / If it be His own will to do it. / Through the bosom of the Being of life, / And of the Three of the Trinity.]206

If the affinity between the Scottish and the Hebrew texts extended much further than the formal shape, we could say that the parasitic genre was transferred from a Judaist into a Christian organism, preserving all its structural properties. Similarly to the previous text, this song also contains “a complete list of all the conceivable constituents of the human anatomy,”207 even though its frame is derived from a different religious tradition. The boundary between the cataloging charm for sprain and its Christian framework is so distinct that the first and last two lines are completely cut off from the rest of the text. From a semiotic point of view, the individual who sings the song, when crossing the border between the 206 “Charm for Sprain,” in Carmina Gadelica. Hymns and Incantations, ed. and trans. Alexander Carmichael (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1928), vol. 2: 20–21. Cf. Andrew Wiseman, “Bho Thoiseach gu Deireadh: Taghadh de dh’Obair-cruinneachaidh Chaluim MhicGilleathain” [“From First to Last: A Selection of Calum Maclean’s Fieldwork Collection”], in Tobar an Dualchais: Ulaidh Naisteanta—Kist of Riches: A National Treasure, ed. Chris Wright (Skye: Tobar an Dualchais, 2014): 43. On page 36 Wiseman refers to another similar text, recorded in 1935. 207 Henk S. Versnel, “An Essay on Anatomical Curses,” in Ansichten Griechischer Rituale, ed. Fritz Graf (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1998): 223.

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second and third line, leaves behind the outer world of Christianity and enters a pagan interior only to turn back toward it at the end of the performance to find peace in Christian teaching. Yet an awareness of the Christian framework extends over the entire text, whose compositional structure is subjected to its framing lines. Thus, the ritual enumeration of body parts, even though conducted in a pagan manner, is seen throughout from what is perceived as the superior Christian perspective. The structure of a text within a text is typical of many folk songs which were “orally collected in the highlands and islands of Scotland” and recorded in Alexander Carmichael’s anthology (1928). For instance, the song entitled “Uirnigh” (“Prayer”), documented in 1889, contains a short address to God, followed by a series of lines such as “In my deeds,” “In my words,” “In my wishes,” etc., which are completed by a concluding “May be blessed Virgin Mary.”208 Many such prayers are evoked by Eleanor Hull in her pioneering ethnographic work dating from 1910. Hull treats the texts as a kind of living fossil which is reminiscent of the form that the poetic convention took more than a thousand years ago.209 In fact, a similar two-tiered composition is characteristic of another relic of Irish antiquity, probably dating from the eighth century,210 but traditionally ascribed to St Patrick. It was in the period preceding the Middle Ages that a term arose that signified a poetic convention in which the cataloging charm was fitted into a higher order, juxtaposed in a manner that was not merely formal, but also ideological. In Irish, the convention is known as lúirech,211 but it is more widely

208 Cf. Carmina Gadelica…, vol. 1: 26–27. On page 14, in the description of the song and two others, we read that they were “obtained from Dr Donald Munro Morrison in 1889, a few days before he died. Dr Morrison heard them from an old man known as ‘Coinneach Saor’—Kenneth the Carpenter—and his wife, at Obbe, Harris. These aged people were habitually practising quaint religious ceremonies and singing curious religious poems to peculiar music, evidently ancient. In childhood Dr Morrison lived much with this couple, and in manhood recorded much of their old lore and music.” 209 Cf. Eleanor Hull, “The Ancient Hymn-Charms of Ireland,” Folklore, 21 (1910), no. 4. 210 Cf. Peter Dronke, The Medieval Poet and His World (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1984): 134. 211 Cf. Jacqueline Borsje, “Druids, Deer and ‘words of power’: Coming to Terms with Evil in Medieval Ireland,” in Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies, eds. Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008): 129.

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recognized under its Latin name—lorica (breastplate).212 The Latin term not only refers to the process of embedding one text within another, but also points to the theological justification behind this process. By common critical consensus, the biblical reference to the breastplate— derived from Ephesians 6:14—speaks for the Christianization of the charm. Paul the Apostle’s words about facing evil “having [one’s] loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness,” were understood by the Celts in their own unique way, based on the assumption that the word “breastplate” refers to a kind of magical protection which, as with a worldly breastplate, is bestowed upon man in the form of prayer. However, another interpretation is also plausible, namely that the term lorica refers not so much to the power of prayer as to its two-tiered structure, in which an inner layer was framed by an outer structure. In other words, the pagan poetic conventions, represented by “loins,” are enveloped by a layer of Christian “truth” and “righteousness”; thus, a Celtic poet, who remains a Celt and thinks like a Celt, may simultaneously wear Christian garb. The adoption of the cataloging charm within the new religion may have been fostered by one of the central Christian ideas, namely the notion of God’s presence. “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me” are the words of the anonymous author of Psalm 139. Likewise, Paul the Apostle, when he spoke to the Athenians on the Areopag, preached about God in the following way: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts of the  Apostles 17:28a). This image implies an analogy between God’s presence and the space in which man exists, a space which surrounds man entirely and impinges on him, but which can neither be seen nor felt. The presence of God with respect to any aspect of the human soul or body, however small, encourages meditation on the workings of Providence, as expressed in Psalm 139:7–12: Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

212 The connection between lorica and incantation is discussed by John Carey, King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998): 127.

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The Bible teaches us to acknowledge God’s presence in every circumstance of life: “in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings” (2 Corinthians 6:4b–5). When this approach is applied to prayer, it is only natural that it takes the form of enumeration, as is seen in the quote from Psalm 139. In the enumeration, man—who is never alone—refers back to his encounters with God. If he belongs to the pagan world, his meditation may be based on the order followed in the cataloging charms, which at the same time does not necessarily mean accepting the pagan worldview. This can be seen in a work traditionally known as St Patrick’s Breastplate. The text is made up of several compositional units, which vary in character so much that they may have originated independently, as separate, self-contained units. The section quoted below was inspired in equal measure by Paul’s words to the Athenians and the convention of the cataloging charm contained within a Christian frame. However, the difference between the Scottish folk song quoted above and St Patrick’s Breastplate is that in the former, the boundary between the pagan and the Christian is horizontal in form, with the cataloging charm sandwiched between the lorica. In the latter, a similar boundary can be seen, but it is of a vertical nature with the text divided into two columns along a line demarcated by anaphora: Crīst lim, Crīst reum, Crīst im degaid, Crīst indium, Crīst íssum, Crīst úasum, Crīst dessum, Crīst tūathum, Crīst illius, Crīst isius, Crīst inerus; Crīst i cridiu cech duini rodomscrútadar, Crīst i ngin cech óin rodomlabrathar, Crīst hi cech rusc nodercædar, Crīst hi cech clūais rodomchloathar. [Christ with me, / Christ before me, / Christ behind me, / Christ in me, / Christ beneath me, / Christ above me, / Christ on my right, / Christ on my left, / Christ in breadth, / Christ in length, / Christ in height, / Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, /

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Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, / Christ in every eye that sees me, / Christ in every ear that hears me.]213

While the right-hand column retains the traditional structure of the cataloging charm, the numerous repetitions of the name “Christ” in the left-hand column seem to have been inspired by the polyonymic gene. The role of this gene in the prayer is to anchor the pagan way of ordering reality within a Christian foundation. Indeed, the presence of the polyonymic gene in the quoted passage can be seen more clearly when set alongside another prayer, a later composition, but also traditionally attributed to St Patrick, which is preserved in Lebor na Cert. It contains benedictory illocution, which was typical of the gene from Biblical times: Beannacht nime nélbendacht, beandacht mara mescbeandacht, beandacht thíri toradbennacht, beandacht drúchta, beannacht daithe, beandacht gaili, beandacht gaiscid, beandacht gotha, beandacht gníma, beandacht ordan, [blessing of heaven, cloud-blessing; / blessing of sea, fish-blessing; / blessing of land, fruit-blessing; / blessing of dew, / blessing of light, / blessing of valour, / blessing of weapons, / blessing of word, / blessing of deed, / blessing of dignity].214

The attitude toward pagan inspiration as revealed in the “Blessing of St. Patrick” recalls the technique used by the Jewish author in the Hymn of the Three Youths. While the Biblical text retained the order characteristic of henotheistic cosmologies, the text quoted above incorporates the cataloging charm convention, as can be seen in its right-hand column. In the “Blessing of St. Patrick,” the pagan scheme of expression has not undergone any major alterations and has not been completely removed, for in order to free the text from the elements which were not compatible with St Patrick’s beliefs, the author did not have to censure it. Similarly to the technique used in the Hymn of the Three Youths, in this case, too, it was only necessary to juxtapose the pagan model of thinking with the

213 “Patrick’s Hymn,” in Thesaurus Paleohibernicus, ed. Whitley Stokes and John Strachan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), vol. 2: 357–358. For another edition and translation cf. Carey, King of Mysteries…, 134. The line division has been changed. 214 Lebor na Cert…, 120–121. The text has been divided into segments.

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monotheistic vision of a merciful God. Hence, it was enough for the author to move the Christian benediction to the anaphoric position, that is, to the outer layer of the prayer, in order to “cover” the content of the cataloging charm, thereby altering the semantic function of this genre. The British Isles were not the only area where the cataloging charm was subjected to Christianization. Entirely independently of the British context, an analogous process took place in the Eastern culture, as evidenced by one of the earliest examples of Bulgarian literature—a tenth-century text discussed by Emilian Prałat, namely Похвала за Кирил Философ (Words in Praise of Cyril the Philosopher). Attributed to Clement of Ohrid, the text contains twelve extended calls with an anaphora on “Облажавам” (“I bless”), followed by an enumeration of the Slavic Apostle’s body parts, which receive praise.215 The passage is framed above and below by an extensive prayer, non-litanic in character, and as such it forms yet another example of a text within a text. This analogy means that in European poetry the convention of the cataloging charm was transferred several times from a pagan into a Christian frame, and the poetic branch of the litany was affected by these changes at different stages of its development. That being said, at the time when the Litany of the Saints was being adopted by the Western culture, there was only one direction of influence that mattered, that is, that which came from the pagan religions of the British Isles. From the perspective of poetics, a particularly interesting group of poems are those texts in which the two-tiered structure is additionally reflected in a rhythmical diversification of the text. Among such works, there is a series of Irish medieval prayers, edited by Charles Plummer and known as De confessione sancte Ciarane. One of the texts in the collection, “Oratio,” begins with the anonymous author considering his sins. Having acknowledged their vast number, the poet— traditionally identified as Ciarán, a sixth-century figure—decides to entreat God, asking him to fight them in a battle. As soon as we reach the main section of the prayer, however, the rhythm changes and the entreaty turns into a systematic enumeration, with the text adjusting itself to the rules of alliterative verse. To be more precise, this internal text is composed of twelve lines—the number is by no means accidental—ordered alphabetically on the left-hand side and linked with a single epiphora on the right. Each line contains three verbs, with the whole text being composed of exactly thirty-six verbs. This not only testifies to the author’s

215 The work is quoted and discussed by Emilian Prałat, “‘The Word that feeds hungry human souls, the Word that gives power to your mind and heart’: Bulgaria from Clement of Ohrid to the ‘September Literature’ Circle,” in LV 1: 239–241.

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skill in employing synonymous expressions, but also is evocative of magical thinking, namely the idea of searching for a powerful word through gathering a multitude of possible candidates in one enumeration: At ili aidbli mo pecctha ina ndluim trem cridi, & imme, amal lín no luirig. A rim, a Ríg, ni cumaing, Airc me impo, a Dé. Bris, buail, baig iat; Crech, crom, crin iat; Digaib, dingaid, díleg iat; Eirg, esreig, esbadaig iat; Féch, faisc, fasaig iat; Gáel, gair, gortaig iat; Leirc, loisc, letair iat; Marb, meith, is mill iat; Pian, pairt, púr iat; Reib, ruaig, reidig iat; Scar, scail, scoilt iat; Troeth, traig, toirrn iat. [Many and vast are my sins in their mass, through my heart and round about it like a net or a breast-plate; / O King, they cannot be numbered; / Despoil me of them, O God; / Break, smite, and war against them; / Ravage, bend and wither them; / Take away, repel, destroy them; / Arise, scatter, defeat them; / See, repress, waste them; / Destroy, summon, starve them / Prostrate, burn, mangle them; / Kill, slay and ruin them; / Torture, divide, and purify them; / Tear, expel, and raze them; / Remove, scatter, and cleave them; / Subdue, exhaust, and lay them low.]216

When reading such works, we get the impression that it was only a matter of time before the Litany of the Saints appeared in the outer layer of the text. It is not surprising, therefore, that the final lines of “Oratio,” which are dominated by the Christian perspective, contain a passage evidently inspired by the series of per from the litanic section B2: Ar gach ngalar ra fhoiris, Ar gach rigi ro coimdignais, Ar do coimpirt a mbroinn Mure oigi, Ar do geinemain a mBethil Iuda, Ar do ruidib trégda, Ar do rélaind rigda, Dilaig.

216 “De Confessione Oratio,” in Irish Litanies…, 8–9.

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[By every disease Thou didst help; / By every arm Thou didst comfort; / By Thy conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary; / By Thy birth in Bethlehem of Judea; / By Thy pierced hands; / By Thy royal star; / Forgive.]217

Since De confessione sancte Ciarane is most probably a relatively late cycle, it seems more appropriate to refer at this point to an earlier prayer which is also framed by the Litany of the Saints, namely a bilingual poem preserved in the Book of Cerne,218 the Book of Nunnaminster219 and the collection known as Lacnunga,220 which are examples of the earliest Anglo-Saxon records of poetry. In the parallel English-Latin text, the author prays for protection against danger. He starts with individual addresses to the Holy Trinity and the army in heaven, the cherubim, the seraphim, as well as the archangels Michael and Gabriel, which are followed by collective invocations to patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs. The addresses are interlaced with prayerful entreaties which in the Latin version begin with the litanic conjunction “ut” (“that may”). About halfway through the poem, however, the section inspired by the litany gives way to a long enumeration of body parts which are in need of protection, starting with a detailed description of the head. In the Latin text, the names of the parts of the body which are located below the head are subjected to an anaphora on “tege,” in which God is apostrophized to “cover” them all with his armor. Tege ergo Deus forti loricca cum scapulis humeros et bracia; tege ulnas cum cubis et manibus, pugnas palmas digitos cum unginibus; tege spinas et costas cum artibus, terga dorsum nervos cum ossibus;

217 Ibid. 218 Cf. “Suffragare trinitati unitas…,” in The Prayer Book of Aedeluald the Bishop, Commonly Called The Book of Cerne, ed. Arthur Benedict Kuypers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902): 85–88. 219 Cf. “Suffragare trinitas unitas…,” in An Ancient Manuscript of the Eighth or Ninth Century: Formerly Belonging to St. Mary’s Abbey, or Nunnaminster, Winchester, ed. Walter de Gray Birch (London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1889): 91–95. 220 Cf. “Suffragare trinitas unitas…,” in Edward Thomas Pettit, A Critical Edition of the Anglo-Saxon Lacnunga in BL MS Harley 585, PhD thesis, King’s College London (London 1996): 197–206. Available at: https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/2935969/ DX204980_1.pdf (accessed December 22, 2017).

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tege cutem sanginem cum renibus, catas crinas nates cum femoribus; tege gambas suras femoralia, cum genuelis poplites et genua; tege talos cum tibiis et calicibus, crura pedes plantarum cum bassibus; tege ramos concrescentes decies, cum mentagris ungues binos quinquies. [Cover, therefore, O God, with strong corslet, / along with shoulder blades, shoulders and arms. // Cover elbows with elbow-joints and hands, / fists, palms, fingers with their nails. // Cover back-bone and ribs with their joints, / hind-parts, back, nerves and bones. // Cover surface, blood and kidneys, / haunches, buttocks with the thighs. // Cover hams, calves, thighs, / knee-caps, houghs and knees. // Cover ankles, shins and heels, / legs, feet with the rests of the soles. // Cover the branches that grow ten together, / with the toes with the nails ten.]221

Similarly to the works considered previously—two of which were traditionally ascribed to St Patrick, and one to Ciarán—the attribution of this text, supposedly authored by the sixth-century monk Gildas the Wise, is also somewhat doubtful, as is the case of other similar texts preserved in medieval insular manuscripts— whether composed in Old Irish, Old English, or Latin—which were thought to have been written by the most venerable contemporary figures. This testifies to the great renown that the litanic prayers enjoyed on the British Isles. Thus, the list of more or less plausible authors opens with St Patrick, Ciarán and Gildas the Wise, and also includes Columba the Older, one of the twelve apostles in sixthcentury Ireland, the bishops Cummian the Tall (seventh century) and Aengus the Culdee (eighth century), before finishing with the name of Alcuin’s teacher, Colgan, who is thought to be the author of the Litany of Jesus I discussed earlier. In her examination of Old English manuscripts, Anna Czarnowus provides a list of works in which the Litany of the Saints—most frequently in a simplified form—co-exists with a charm or is included in a collection of charms. She also enumerates a number of quasi-liturgical statements which, in the face of illness or another misery, recommend reciting a text with charm-like properties; the recitation may be either connected to the litany or reinforced by litanic

221 “The Lorica of Gildas,” in Gildas, The Ruin of Britain, Fragments from Lost Letters, the Penitential, Together with the Lorica of Gildas, ed. Hugh Williams (London: Society of Cymmrodorion, 1899): 310–311.

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formulas.222 This reveals that the ektenial gene, and even more so the polyonymic, were interpreted by the earliest British writers in the light of pre-existing genres. When it comes to the particulars of this interpretation, however, there is no critical consensus. Do the poems testify to a feigned adoption of the Christian faith by those who, in fact, refused to change their way of thinking? Or is the intermingling of the foreign and vernacular conventions a sign that the liturgical prayers were absorbed, but with certain aspects of the pagan worldview still remaining? Or, to suggest yet another possibility, perhaps the cataloging charm, together with other insular conventions based on enumeration, merely provided the means for expressing the Christian message in the vernacular? After all, the missionaries who find themselves in a new cultural context have to find a way of conveying the new Christian content, not only through using the local language, but also by placing the content within the well-entrenched categories, endemic syntactic patterns and comparisons that can be comprehended, all of which are connected with the vernacular way of ordering reality. The reception of the polyonymic and ektenial genes on the British Isles was probably governed by rules similar to those that influence the process of translation. Indeed, their assimilation may have simply been analogous to a process of searching for the local equivalent of the Latin word sanctus. Instead of the adjective weihs, which appeared in the Gothic Bible of the Arians, the North European clergy decided on another term, which later appeared in English as holy, in German as heilig, in Dutch and Norwegian as hellig, etc. Since it was an adjective with the same stem as the adjective whole,223 we may assume that it described a saint as a warrior who returned safe and sound from the military expedition called life. It was probably in a similar way that the vernacular equivalent of the polyonymic gene was found. Due to the fact that the oriental convention was translated by means characteristic of local genres, the Litany of the Saints was domesticated and more importantly was able to be comprehended. Consequently, the list of the heroes was adapted and updated to a list of salutations to the saints (governed by the polyonymic gene), and the cataloging charm was replaced by an enumeration of entreaties (in line with the ektenial convention). This process contributed to bridging the gap between the two poetics, the Christian and the pagan or, to put it another way, the Mediterranean and the insular. In fact, the Celtic and Germanic literary traditions remained valid and were to a certain 222 Cf. Anna Czarnowus, “‘That order of apostles is widely honoured by the nations,’: Pre-Chaucerian English Poetry,” in LV 2: 17–22. 223 Cf. Gustav Must, “English ‘Holy,’ German ‘Heilig,’” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 59 (1960), no. 2.

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degree legitimized by being placed within the framework of a Christian worldview. Indeed, this framework may have been thought to serve a protective function, safeguarding the mind of man against direct exposure to such traditions. This probably applied to situations in which the frame constituted the outer surface of the text, but perhaps, also to those in which the frame existed only in the reader’s consciousness and was part of his or her a priori knowledge. It was this form of polyonymic-ektenial litany that was transported back to Europe in the eighth century. The earliest French version of the prayer, recorded in the eighth-century Sacramentary of Gellone, contains names which were important to the Carolingian church. Out of the twelve saints who are enumerated immediately after Mary in part A, the first six are representative of the universal church and the following six belong to the local church. Indeed, the last four names are French saints: Symphorian, Martin, Melaine and Germain; they are preceded by Maurice and Nazarius, saints especially revered in France.224 This shows that the Litany of the Saints was returned to Europe to serve not merely as a model for prayer, but also to provide a naturalizing tendency, which applied to the polyonymic section. This happened at approximately the same time that the monk Christopher was working on the Latin translation of the Akathist Hymn, which brings us to the final stage of the earliest evolution of the litanic genre.

7.4.3 The Litany of Loreto: The Polyonymic + the Ektenial + the Chairetismic Genes In order to describe the origins of the Litany of the Saints, in which the polyonymic gene is combined with the ektenial gene, it was necessary to leave our considerations of the Akathist Hymn and its Latin translation. However, let us now return to this subject, which was last discussed at the end of subchapter 7.4.1, and remind ourselves that in medieval culture the cooperation between the polyonymic and the chairetismic genes which produced the great Byzantine masterpiece that is the Akathist Hymn in the Eastern Christian culture, contributed to the development of a rich tradition of Marian poetry with multiple structural variants in the Western culture, as discussed in detail in Meersseman’s book.225 Regardless of the formal variant adopted, three recurrent features can be distinguished within the vast number of prayers, features which appear in both very short poems of a few lines and multi-stanza works.

224 The litany is discussed by Michael Lapidge in ASLS 33–34. 225 Cf. HAA passim.

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First of all, the overwhelming majority of the texts conveyed theological knowledge which was based on the dogmas determined at the Council of Ephesus. The combination of the polyonymic and the chairetismic genes became so inextricably connected with the worship of the Virgin Mother of God that all the verse and prose texts which shared the same structure were automatically associated with Marian poetry, even if they were addressed to God or one of the saints. Secondly, and this also applies to the great majority of the texts, the poems were marked by the repetition of one of the following verbs—ave, salve, gaude or vale—verbs which were justifiably treated by Meersseman as Latin equivalents of the Greek salutation χαῖρε226. These verbs were repeated with different frequencies and in different patterns—they could be repeated in every successive line or stanza, as well as in anaphoras and refrains—but all these possibilities were effected within the same convention. Thirdly, and most importantly, one of the main techniques used in these poems was the enumeration of Marian antonomasias, which were to a large extent adopted from the Akathist Hymn. According to a very convincing hypothesis propounded by Meersseman, over time these antonomasias were incorporated into the Litany of the Saints. Thus, let us now return to the description of the prayer presented in subchapter 7.4.2. Following the structure of section A, the line which opened the enumeration of the saints—“sancta Maria, ora pro nobis”—was originally subject to only two of the three genes: the left-hand side of the call developed from the polyonymic tradition, whereas the right-hand side drew upon the ektenial tradition. As has already been noted, this structure was not only characteristic of the lines addressed to Mary. In fact, as each subsequent call referred to a being on a lower level of the cosmological ladder than the previous one, with each new line the world of heavenly beings slowly unfolded, again by virtue of the same polyonymic-ektenial pair of genes. At a specific point in time, however, the call “sancta Maria, ora pro nobis” began to be repeated a number of times, with each repetition having a different antonomasia: “sancta Maria, dei genitrix,” “sancta Maria, virgo virginum,” etc. In this way, in the initial part of the prayer, which preceded the list of short, one-word names of the individual saints, the long titles of a single person, that is, the Mother of God, were enumerated. Since these titles took a shape similar to the chairetismic salutations from the Akathist Hymn, this indicated that it was the chairetismic gene that was placed next to the polyonymic gene on the left-hand side of the call. As a result, the whole call, including both the leftand right-hand sides, was no longer limited to the polyonymic-ektenial pair of 226 Cf. Ibid. 2: 15, 25, 183.

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genes, as was the case in section A of the Litany of the Saints, but was henceforth composed of all the three genes: the left-hand side was the domain of the polyonymic and chairetismic genes; the right-hand side of the ektenial. Over the course of time, the number of calls continued to increase until, as Meersseman suggests,227 they were treated as a separate group of prayers, which are preserved in a few twelfth-century manuscripts. Only one of those prayers was adopted more widely and is known as the Litany of Loreto. The name of this litany comes from the Holy House in Loreto, where the prayer was systematically recited. Situated on the Adriatic coast, south of Ancona, the location of Loreto underlines that it was in Italy—whether in Venice or Aquileia— that the Western Marian litanies were born, with the twelfth century probably the terminus ad quem. It was in this century at the latest that the ektenial, chairetismic and polyonymic genes ceased to be perceived as independent literary conventions, and each text which contained the genetic features of all, or indeed even one of them, was automatically classified as an example of a litany. Other prayers which were modeled on the Litany of Loreto include the medieval Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus and the seventeenth-century Catholic Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This brings us to the moment at which the litanic genre emerges in a fully shaped form, a moment which should allow the perfect transition from an analysis of the litanic genes to an examination of the history of the genre. However, we intend to focus a little longer on the origins of the genre, for the fact that the polyonymic, chairetismic and ektenial genes were all combined within a single text raises the problematic issue of the differences between these genes. This issue seems all the more pressing as it became clear that each of the genes brought its own tradition to the text, and each required a relevant tone, which caused tensions and discrepancies between them, tensions which should—at least in theory—preclude their combination into one common genre. In the first Christian millennium, that is, the period discussed in subchapters 7.4.1 and 7.4.2, the litanic genes appeared in pairs. The polyonymic gene was combined either with the chairetismic gene, as in the Byzantine salutations, or with the ektenial gene, as in the Litany of the Saints. Each of the genes had its own role: the polyonymic gene was responsible for the enumerative pattern, and as such guaranteed the cohesion of the text; the chairetismic or the ektenial gene—depending on which was used—was responsible for the central tone of the text, and thus, its coherence. This was either a laudatory, acclamatory tone, or a tone of supplication or deprecation, with these two options seeming to be 227 Cf. HAA 2: 45–46.

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mutually exclusive. Even though in both cases the syntactic structure of the text was governed by the polyonymic gene, on the level of the semantic organization of the text, the ektenial supplication was incompatible with the chairetismic joy. Therefore, the result of combining all the three genes within one generic framework was an eclectic, heterogeneous text, which could lead the reader in two directions simultaneously. For instance, antonomasias such as “Sedes sapientie,” (“Seat of wisdom”) or “Virgo potens,” (“Virgin powerful”) which are to be found in the earliest record of the Litany of Loreto, are infused with a sense of joyful triumph which instantly collides with the painful entreaties of “ora pro nobis.” While a similar tension was not to be seen in the Byzantine chairetismic salutations which were discussed in 7.4.1, the first signs could be clearly felt in the Litany of the Saints, examined in 7.4.2. Our analysis revealed that section A of the Litany of the Saints does not make full use of the tradition of the benedictory hymn. The apostrophes “Sancte Michael,” “Sancte Gabriel,” “Sancte Raphael,” etc. are not followed by an admiring and grateful response—as might have been expected based on a knowledge of the biblical prototypes of the prayer—but by a deeply supplicatory response, which expresses a feeling of deficiency rather than benediction. Consequently, since in the Litany of Loreto the apostrophes are not only polyonymic in nature, but are also influenced by the chairetismic gene, the left- and right-hand sides of the call are opposed to each other to an even greater extent than they were in the Litany of the Saints. In the Litany of Loreto, two independent voices are intertwined, each fulfilling its own individual purposes. While the object of the antonomasias is elevated to heaven and sings laudatory songs in praise of beauty, as well as of Mary’s inexhaustible power and wisdom, the choir on the opposite side, restricted by the limitations of the human condition and incapable of mystical elation, can only sigh in pain as it rather monotonously recites the formula “ora pro nobis.” In no other prayer is the tension between the genes as clearly manifested as in the Litany of Loreto. It now seems that subchapters 7.4.1 and 7.4.2, together with this subchapter, do not merely describe the three consecutive stages in the development of the litany in its Western European understanding; nor do they demonstrate the three stages in which the genes combine to form more and more elaborate constructs. In fact, what they try to illustrate is a paradoxical principle, namely that the closer the genre is to revealing the totality of its features, the more internally disintegrated it becomes. Since the worshippers who recite the Litany of Loreto do not seem to sense the semantic incoherence of the text, it follows that in our description of the genre an element of crucial importance may have been overlooked. Instead of 227

the origins of the litanic genre, we have presented the origins of its constitutive genes, assuming that the characteristic features of the litany can be accounted for by our knowledge of the functioning of the three genes within the genres which preceded the litany. As a result, observing how the polyonymic gene seeks its interpretant in the chairetismic and ektenial genes, we have examined the origins of the litany in the context imposed by other genres. The procedure adopted was not flawed in the sense that it was within certain ancient conventions—the Egyptian henotheistic hymn (the polyonymic gene), the Greek nuptial and funerary lament (the chairetismic gene), as well as in the early Christian ektenes—that the litanic genes were endowed with features which allowed them to become part of a new convention. By following the three different genetic paths, we hoped to situate the litany in the context of its past and to look at the genre through the eyes of ancient men. A similar approach, but with respect to the epic, was adopted by Vladimir Propp, who discerned within the genre forms which had previously appeared in the mythic convention.228 Mikhail Bakhtin, too, in his examination of the Greek novel, highlighted elements of its generic legacy, the legacy of other ancient genres, such as “Hellenic love poetry,” “tragedy,” “rhetorical genres,” etc.229 It is our conviction that any serious examination of generic origins should always involve a reconstruction of its prototypes. However, despite its relevance, this approach was incomplete and should be supplemented with a discussion on the reasons why specifically these three genetic conventions were combined within one generic framework—it has to be assumed that it was not simply a matter of chance. Certainly, Propp and Bakhtin did not perceive the literary genre as a container in which the remains of earlier generic forms are stored. In their opinion, the emergence of a new form is never accidental. This line of thought is especially evident in Propp’s analysis of the heroic epic, for his view is that the new genre appropriated the entire repertoire of features that previously belonged to the myth for the purpose of using them against the old genre.230 This demonstrates that the peculiarity of a certain genre does not lie in the choice of its constituent features, but in the rationale behind their novel combination. Each genre needs to contain a unifying element that follows the guidelines inscribed in the genes, which—although it adds coherence 228 Cf. Владимир Я. Пропп, Русский героический эпос [Russian Heroic Epic] (Москва: Государственное издательство художественной литературы, 1958): 32–34. 229 Mikhail Bakhtin, “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel,” in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981): 88–89. 230 Cf. Пропп, Русский героический эпос…, 33.

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to a certain genre—simultaneously has a disintegrating effect on other similar genres made of the same genes, but in different combinations. Ferdinand Brunetière was correct when, over a hundred years ago, he introduced into literary studies the concept of a genre’s death.231 The analogy between death as experienced in the realm of literary conventions and in the natural world lies not in the fact that a certain phenomenon ceases to exist, but rather in the fact that forms in nature and literature alike disintegrate, leaving behind remnants of themselves. The literary genre breaks down into dysfunctional parts either if it is not sustained in the social consciousness by the principle of cohesion or if another principle emerges which paves the way for a new genre. Therefore, the principle of cohesion on which the litany is based is also the principle governing the disintegration of the pre-Christian generic structures which furnished the litany with all its formal markers. This explains why the litany freely employs a wide range of literary traditions, including those with pagan roots, for it does so on the assumption that these traditions are merely collections of disintegrated elements, elements which become ordered when the litanic principle is imposed upon them. The principle that integrates the litanic genes into a common genre is the generic worldview, which will be discussed in the third part of the book.

231 Cf. Brunetière: L’Évolution des genres…, 13.

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Part III:  The Generic Worldview of the Litany In our examination of the litany, the generic worldview is regarded as the primary factor that ensures coherence across the litanic genre, a coherence which does not result exclusively from the nature of its constitutive genes. Even though the litanic worldview is always expressed within the framework of gene conventions and by means of the artistic techniques inscribed in the genes, it is more than the mere sum of the three genetic traditions. There are two main reasons which may account for this fact. First of all, the litanic genre allows various formal configurations. For instance, the Litany of Loreto contains all the three genes, whereas in numerous other church litanies the selection is more restricted: the Litany of the Saints contains only the polyonymic and ektenial genes, in medieval Marian songs—which are based on the Akathist Hymn—the polyonymic gene coexists only with the chairetismic gene, whereas Luther’s and Cranmer’s litanies exclusively use the ektenial gene. The various formal configurations in the abovementioned prayers occasion different semantic consequences, but despite this, they all display the same generic worldview. Second, the generic worldview is not to be mistaken for the semantic scope of the text which is related to the intertextual references within a certain literary tradition. Contrary to what might be assumed, the reader who wishes to grasp the essence of this worldview does not need to be familiar with the history of the genes which have been outlined previously in this book. It is true that a knowledge of the canonical church litanies is a prerequisite for a correct understanding of the generic norm, but while reading a specific litany the generic worldview becomes manifest in a single moment, generated by a particular work that is representative of the genre.

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8  The Structure of the Generic Worldview This chapter will be devoted to a careful delineation of the litanic worldview, although initially there will be a short theoretical introduction.

8.1  What is the Generic Worldview? The concept of the generic worldview has been addressed in our earlier works, from 2009 onward.1 The term should be understood as analogous to the concept of Weltansicht or the “linguistic worldview,” which was formalized at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a result of the language studies conducted in Germany.2 The achievements of the leading, and indeed pioneering, researcher, Wilhelm von Humboldt,3 are worth particular mention as they inspired eminent German linguists of the twentieth century, such as Leo Weisgerber, Helmut Gipper4 and Jürgen Trabant.5

1 Cf. Witold Sadowski, “Fenomen narracji litanijnej wobec stereotypu gatunkowego litanii” [“The Phenomenon of Litanic Narration Against the Generic Stereotype of the Litany”], Przestrzenie Teorii 12 (2009): 219. 2 Cf. Janusz Anusiewicz, “Problematyka językowego obrazu świata w poglądach niektó­ rych językoznawców i filozofów niemieckich XX wieku” [“Problematics of the Linguistic Worldview as Viewed by Selected German Linguists and Philosophers of the Twentieth Century”], in Językowy obraz świata [The Linguistic Worldview], ed. Jerzy Bartmiński (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 1999). 3 Cf. Martin L. Manchester, “Humboldt’s Philosophical Grounding of the Linguistic Relativity Thesis,” in The Philosophical Foundations of Humboldt’s Linguistic Doctrines (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1985); James W. Underhill, “Humboldt, Man and Language,” in Humboldt, Worldview and Language (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009); Jürgen Trabant, “Weltansichten, Wort und Wahrheit: Über Philosophie und Sprache,” in Weltansichten: Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachprojekt (München: Beck, 2012). 4 Cf. Anusiewicz, “Problematyka językowego obrazu świata…,” 266–281. 5 Cf. Helmut Gipper, “Understanding as a Process of Linguistic Approximation: The Discussion Between August Wilhelm von Schlegel, S.A. Langlois, Wilhelm von Humboldt and G.W.F. Hegel on the Translation of Bhagavadgita and the Concept of ‘yoga’,” in Studies in the history of Western linguistics: In honour of R.H. Robins, eds. Theodora Bynon and Frank R. Palmer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986); James W. Underhill, Creating Worldviews: Metaphor, Ideology and Language (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011): 281–284.

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The notion of the “linguistic worldview” presupposes a certain conceptual network which is imposed by the mother tongue upon the human mind and which affects our conceptualization and categorization of the outside world. Based on the presence or absence of certain lexemes and grammatical forms, the language determines which phenomena we can distinguish from the glimmering reality of the world around us and how we perceive the mutual relations between them. What is also significant with reference to the “linguistic worldview” is the fact that from its earliest days, namely from the eighteenth century onward, the concept was associated with the development of national ideas, as can be seen particularly in the works of Johann Gottfried Herder.6 During the time that preceded the Austro-Prussian War, among German-speakers—who were divided along religious and state lines—the language was not only shared as a single common property, but also came to be treated as an effective and sufficient factor in the formation of nations. The assumption was that the use of a common language, a language which presupposes a single way of perceiving the world, would help build and legitimize a common national identity among its users. This identity was not to be seen on the political map of Europe, nor was it acknowledged by the state administration or referred to in the local churches. Yet, the speakers of the German language were united in a deep feeling of belonging to a single national community which only a common language could promote.7 This argument about the unquestioned importance of the role of language in uniting a society around national and quasi-national programs will be discussed later in the book. The concept of the generic worldview draws upon the theory of the “linguistic worldview,” but the plane of reference is different. Thus, from a linguistic perspective, which includes language together with both its vocabulary and grammatical potential, we now move to a generic perspective, which encompasses all the complexities of the literary form. 6 Cf. Robert Reinhold Ergang, Herder and the Foundations of German Nationalism (New York: Octagon, 1966): 93, 149–150, 258; Isaiah Berlin, Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000): 193; Alan Patten. “‘The most natural state’: Herder and Nationalism,” History of Political Thought 31 (2010), no. 4. 7 Witold Sadowski, “A Generic Worldview: The Case of the Chronotope of Litany,” in Literarische Form: Theorien – Dynamiken – Kulturen. Beiträge zur literarischen Mo­ dellforschung, eds. Robert Matthias Erdbeer, Florian Kläger, and Klaus Stierstorfer (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2018): 349.

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The actual idea of associating the worldview with particular genres began to take root among the German philosophers of the early nineteenth century. Their main focus, however, was the system of values governing social life rather than the conceptualization of the world. The beginnings of this philosophical trend date back to Hegel’s ideas on the epic—a literary category whose generic coherence was ensured not so much by the construction of the plot as by “an outlook on the world and life”8 (Welt- und Lebensanschauung). For the German philosopher, the genre was a vehicle through which a given form of social organization achieved a higher level of development, having moved from the sphere of nonverbalized interpersonal relations to the sphere of literature.9 Both Hegelian issues, that is, the idea of the social dimension of the genre and the case of the epic, which best represents this dimension, undeniably had an impact on Vladimir Propp’s monograph on the Russian epic poems which will be referred to below. However, the thesis concerning the decisive connection between the genre and a particular worldview is not to be found in Hegel’s, but instead in Wilhelm Dilthey’s works. As the latter postulates, the observations and views which guide us on our path through our life are by their very nature unreliable and unstable, which is why they need the support of the genres, genres which ensure their permanence, in which they find expression, and which provide the means for their dissemination within a society.10 Our understanding of the term “worldview” refers to both the conceptualization of the world as a key element of the cognitive process as well as all the ideas which infuse our lives with meaning and which concern axiological as well as ethical issues. In other words, we are equally interested in the view of the world (Weltansicht) as in the outlook on life (Lebenschauung). Even though ordering reality through conceptualization is very different from ordering a society through a set of guidelines, the idea of coordinating the cosmic reality with the

8 Georg W.F. Hegel, “The Epic as a Fully Unified Whole,” in Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. Thomas Malcolm Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), vol. 2: 1093. 9 Cf. Zofia Mitosek, “Historia i poznanie (Hegel 1770–1831)” [“History and Cognition (Hegel 1770–1831)”], in Teorie badań literackich [Theories of Literary Research] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1998): 63–66. 10 Cf. Wilhelm Dilthey, Philosophy of Existence: Introduction to Weltanschauungslehre, trans. William Kluback and Martin Weinbaum (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978): 30–39; Idem, “The Types of World-View and their Development in the Metaphysical Systems,” in Selected Writings, trans. Hans Peter Rickman (Cambridge University Press, 1976); David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002): 88–90.

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social life of a people has been deeply embedded in the European culture, as can also be seen in the context of literary genres. A contemplation of the cosmic order is usually thought to have a bearing on the particular values and principles we adopt in life. Those values and principles, in turn, affect the categories through which we perceive the surrounding reality. What has been said so far, albeit with a certain degree of simplification, may lead to the assumption that both the national language and the literary genres play a subservient role with regard to epistemological and axiological ends. Even though this thesis may to some extent be true, for—from the human perspective—such ends are in fact more important than the means of achieving them, we need to highlight a certain reservation, a reservation which will apply only to literary genres; we will allow linguistic investigators to determine whether it also applies to language. As was correctly noted by Dilthey, the cooperation between the worldview and the literary genre was occasioned by the need for a more distinct conceptual structure, by means of which the otherwise elusive and ungraspable worldview could be captured, preserved and handed down from one generation to the next. Our contention is that this cooperation also results from the fact that the literary genre is in need of a unifying element, that is, the worldview, without which it loses coherence and disintegrates into a multitude of constitutive elements. Therefore, without a relevant worldview, the genre is no longer comprehensible, and its representative works seem deprived of sense, inner integrity and a coherent perspective. Thus, the genre is not merely a tool for transmitting a worldview which is common to a given culture, but is also a means in itself. In fact, it is a prerequisite for understanding literary texts, transmitting meaning and establishing aims and values in society. Indeed, a lack of coherence might lead not only to semantic, but also to social disintegration. The relationship between literature and society may seem caught in a vicious circle, but this is exactly how it works: the coherence of the genre, which is ensured by the worldview, has a bearing on social relations, and they, in turn, centered as they are around a common worldview, affect the coherence of the genre. This was brilliantly demonstrated in the canonical work of Vladimir Propp on the Russian folk epic. Propp perceived the epic as a genre which reflected an event that was central to the future of our civilization, namely the development of the concept of the nation. As can be inferred from the scholar’s extended and subtle analyses, this idea was unknown in the period preceding the emergence of the epic, when all the structural elements which later became characteristic of this genre were situated within an earlier genre—that is, the myth. According to Propp, the myth belonged to the era of clans, not nations. It existed as long as 236

their primacy remained unquestioned. A turning point in the development of the epic came with a crisis of faith in the ancestral system, a crisis which was experienced in the archaic period when it led to a breach of generic coherence and subsequently, to the disintegration of the mythological genre. This paved the way for the consolidation of a new genre, the epic, in which the same mythological elements were present but were arranged differently. All of the constitutive elements of the epic which had used to belong to the genre of the myth were subordinated to a new dominant, namely the figure of the protagonist. The plot and the world presented in the story became centered around a figure who was unlike any real-life counterpart because of the overwhelming, and indeed cumulative, effect of his valiant deeds and virtues. In fact, the accomplishments achieved by the hero within the narrative space of an epic poem may have seemed the work of a whole army rather than a single man. Accordingly, it was not as much a single individual, as an entire nation that could identify with the hero. In this way, the figure of the hero contributed to the promotion of the concept of a nation among archaic societies, a nation that has its own subjectivity and is able to make decisions and implement them effectively, even though it consists of a great number of individuals with their own opinions, aims and characters. In short, Vladimir Propp’s examination of the epic unveiled the nation-forming potential of the genre, a potential which two hundred years earlier had been ascribed to language by Herder. Accordingly, the coherence of the epic, which was guaranteed by the figure of the hero, was reflected in national bonds, and a feeling of national unity, in turn, promoted a view of the epic as a genre that is coherent, comprehensible and convincing. Without the support of national ideology, listeners to the epic would find the extraordinary accumulation of triumphs in the stories implausible and almost ridiculous in the context of a single lifespan, yet—conversely—without the epic, they would not have been able to unite themselves into the highly complex organism that is the nation. This correlation serves to underscore the absolute indispensability of the generic worldview. Seen from this perspective, the generic worldview may be defined as an element mediating between the literary conventions and the mechanisms of social organization, or—to use the terminology of Dilthey’s times—between life and literature. Even though Propp himself was not concerned with the generic worldview, this concept seems useful for an accurate description of his theory. Having said that, it would not be easy to use his theory in order to characterize precisely the relationship between literature and life, or to ascribe the generic worldview to either one of these categories. From the perspective of literary conventions, the generic worldview represents the contribution of a society which guarantees the 237

coherence of the genre; from the perspective of the society, it seems to provide a literary justification for the bonds created within this society. Situated between the spheres of life and literature, the generic worldview appears akin to another ancient and well-known category—the mimesis. However, while the notion of mimesis is based on the common-sense assumption that intersubjective reality finds reflection in art, the concept of the generic worldview attempts to capture one of the mechanisms behind this assumption, the mechanism through which the epic seems to mirror the historical reality as long as its coherence is respected by the nation. Since in his studies on the epic, Propp did not attempt to establish which features of the generic worldview determine the relation between the structure of a society and the structure of a literary genre, in order to address this question, let us turn to Mikhail Bakhtin. It is in his works that an element is found which seems to lie at the very core of the generic worldview and which can also be identified in the litany. Bakhtin not only refers directly to the “epic world view,”11 but also explains why this particular “world view” is respected in equal measure in both real and fictional contexts, that is, by the society which produced the epic genre and by the heroes who appear in it. The factor responsible for this situation is what Bakhtin calls a chronotope, which can be equated to space-time, but to locate its essence requires a more detailed explanation. The Russian philosopher was very perceptive in his observation that the factor which roots the literary genre in social life is not a holistic perception of the world—with its structure, appearance, prevalent mechanisms, etc.—but a central rule through which the elements of the world are ordered into a system of mutual dependencies and hierarchies, namely a certain conception of space-time. It is worth noting that what Bakhtin meant was the conceptual idea of space-time rather than its counterpart in objective physical reality, for the chronotope is not governed by the rules which are described in physics textbooks, but instead creates the conditions for the existence of those phenomena which a given social community accepts as the rightful elements of the world. Therefore, the geography of the chronotope is not restricted to an external reality. It also includes an internal reality, thereby shaping what may be called the spiritual topography, as well as the elements of the supernatural world with its distinction between heaven and hell. The chronology of the chronotope extends, in turn, beyond earthly time as it also covers references to the pre- and post-cosmic world and

11 Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981): 15.

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takes into account eternity, which is related to our history in countless ways. The chronotope allows the existence of parallel worlds, ordered in a manner which violates the rules of contemporary physics. Also, the extensiveness of space and the flow of time within the chronotope do not need to respect the fundamental physical laws. The most important feature of the chronotope, however, is its capacity to penetrate the essence of human cognitive operations, be they the operations of an individual contemplating the natural world or alternatively listening to an epic story. The world around us and the world depicted in literature are treated as belonging to the same chronotope, which makes them mutually dependent on each other. The question that may be asked at this point is whether the same spacetime matrix is equally applicable to the perception of both realities, the actual and the fictional, and how it manifests its presence. Is it equally imperceptible or does it escape our observation in the same sophisticated way in both cases? Since Bakhtin does not answer this question, the opinion of an American critic, Fredric Jameson, on a similar topic should be considered. According to the author of The Political Unconscious, the genre of the romance novel reveals the world-ness of the world. While in the context of natural cognitive operations the world “cannot […] be itself the object of experience or perception, for it is rather that supreme category which permits all experience or perception,” the “romance as a literary form is that event in which world in the technical sense of the transcendental horizon of my experience becomes precisely visible as something like an innerworldly object in its own right, taking on the shape of world in the popular sense of nature, landscape, and so forth.”12 It seems that a similar argument could be made for the litany, even though in this case it would apply neither to the secular world, which is the domain of the romance, nor to the world of political history, which was of particular interest to Jameson, but rather to the world understood as the work of God. In litanies, the space-time of the earthly world is not only respected, but also revealed and manifested in a distinctive manner, as will be demonstrated in detail in the subsequent parts of this chapter. Before focusing on the litany, however, it seems necessary to explain the consequences that the concept of the chronotope had for genre studies. As has already been noted, of all the generic factors, it was the chronotope that was

12 Fredric Jameson, “Magical Narratives: Romance as Genre,” New Literary History 7 (1975), no. 1: 142. I wish to express my gratitude to Piotr Sobolczyk for drawing my attention to the affinity between Bakhtin’s and Jameson’s ideas on this issue.

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regarded by Bakhtin as the most important unifying device within a genre as well as within a society, one which determines the inner coherence of a certain literary convention and which cements social bonds, thereby laying the grounds for interactions between life and literature. It is thanks to the chronotope that these two spheres can overlap within a common worldview. A change in the chronotope breaks these dependencies, as well as destroys a given genre and a given society, yet without excluding the possibility of reviving both through the potential that can be activated while reading works of literature. By way of explanation, any contemporary reader who attempts to understand the ancient literary genres contributes to the restoration of their coherence through becoming familiar with the chronotope within which the genres used to operate. Even an extinct or long-forgotten genre allows us to be transported to the realm of its space-time and to adopt the worldview which used to be a unifying social force in the remote past. Yet because the chronotope is responsible for the rudiments of our cognitive processes, including the perception of such fundamental categories as space and time, the readers of an epic have the feeling of being moved to a different epoch, thereby bridging the gap between the past and the present. Thus, the coherence of the genre can only be restored when our own world becomes incorporated into the sphere of the genre’s chronotope, that is, when we not only perceive the epic world through our imagination, but also look at ourselves and our own world from the standpoint of the epic. This capacity is, according to Bakhtin, a characteristic feature of contemporary man, for ours is a civilization that values its libraries and is built upon a constant accumulation of knowledge, which allows us not only to read works from various periods, but also to experience different space-times. The ability to move between different chronotopes means that we are able to look at our life from two different perspectives simultaneously—the scientific and the religious—identifying equally strongly with both of them, even though they convey different worldviews that are not easily compatible. Thus, following Bakhtinian theory of the chronotope, before we analyze the litanic worldview, this worldview should initially be situated in a particular spacetime or—to be more precise—it should be determined which space-time is a prerequisite for the worldview. Certainly, it is going to be a space-time by means of which medieval reality was ordered and which constituted a natural and obvious reference point in the Middle Ages. Indeed, even contemporary readers of the litany, instead of observing the world through the physical-geographical categories mastered at school, join the medieval epistemic community in their perception of the world as part of the litanic space-time. Thus, owing to the litany, the Middle Ages is not a period that is past, but one whose scope stretches 240

forward to later periods and whose organization of the world is evoked every time we describe reality according to the rules prescribed by the litanic genre.

8.2  The Concentric Space-Time In the Middle Ages, the educated adopted the litanic space-time as the standard way of viewing the world. This was the result of imposing upon the cosmic reality—including the supernatural world—ancient geometrical knowledge, derived from pagan times. Geometry should not be understood in this instance as a purely theoretical science, which is focused on calculations, considering only static elements, that is, elements that are outside time and beyond changeability, as well as free from semantic meaning and deprived of personal characteristics. In fact, in Pythagorean and Neoplatonic thought, geometry co-existed with theology, and consequently, an exposition of the relations between geometric figures and their elements was always combined with exultation over the religious significance of such phenomena. The title assigned to one of Iamblichus’s treatises at the turn of the third and fourth centuries, namely The Theology of Arithmetic, could be considered to be emblematic of this pre-Christian tendency toward mysticism. A representative of the Syriac Neoplatonic school, Iamblichus—together with his predecessors (Nicomachus and Plotinus) and followers (Hierocles, Syrianus, and Proclus the Successor)—perceived mathematical operations in terms of paradoxes intended to accentuate in geometric figures a divine element of sorts, an element by means of which the figures penetrate the universe and their laws reach out even to the gods.13 The religious approach toward numbers was a marked feature of medieval philosophy, recurring once again in the eleventh century in the writings of Michael Psellos,14 and later in the works of Thierry of Chartres and Nicholas of Cusa.15 The model of space-time which was inscribed into the litany is rooted in the Pythagorean theory of the monad, but it is also discreetly referred to by Plato on two occasions. The first reference is to be found in Book VI of The Republic and concerns the comparison Socrates makes between the highest source of good and the Sun, thanks to which the invisible becomes visible.16 The second comes 13 Cf. Dominic J. O’Meara, Pythagoras Revived: Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990): 98, 130, 161–162, 204. 14 Ibid., 85, 130. 15 Cf. David Albertson, Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014): 93–271. 16 Cf. Plato, Res publica 508.

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from Parmenides, who presents his conception of “the one that is surely both one and many, a whole and parts, and limited and unlimited in multitude.”17 Certain Egyptian sources, especially the Chaldaean Oracles, which notes that “all things have for their Father the One Fire,”18 are also worth mentioning. All of these Pythagorean, Platonic and Alexandrian influences converge in the theory of the monad, which in the pre-Byzantine and early-Byzantine periods became one of the crucial paradigms for describing the relation between God and the world.

8.2.1  The Paradox of the Circle According to Iamblichus, “everything has been organized by the monad, because it contains everything potentially.”19 This statement presents the monad as the first being to possess two logically exclusive features: on the one hand, it is indivisible, complete in itself and self-sufficient; on the other, it bestows life upon all other beings, infusing their multiplicity and variety. “Every compound of plurality or every subdivision is given form by the monad,”20 Iamblichus writes, based on Nicomachus’s idea that “God coincides with the monad.” The idea of the monad was also later evoked in Christian theology, according to which God is a perfect One, yet at the same time the Creator of variety in the world. Iamblichus refers to the monad itself as “a pure light,”21 and to its creative effect on reality as ἡλιοειδής22 (sun-like). To demonstrate how essentially ungraspable the simplicity of the monad is to the human mind, another image was also used in ancient philosophy, namely that of the circled dot.23 Even though the wheel seems to be the invention of ancient man, an invention which was mastered by our civilization long ago, the Neoplatonic philosophers were able to easily demonstrate that a concept as familiar as the circle is based on contradictions 17 Plato, Parmenides 145a, trans. Mary Louise Gill and Paul Ryan (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1996): 150. 18 George Robert Stow Mead, The Chaldean Oracles (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1908), vol. 1: 42. 19 Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic: On the Mystical, Mathematical and Cosmological Symbolism of the First Ten Numbers, trans. Robin Waterfield (Grand Rapids: Kairos, 1988): 35. 20 Ibid., 36. 21 Ibid., 37. 22 Cf. Iamblichus, Theologumena Arithmeticae, ed. Friedrich Ast (Leipzig: Libraria Widmannia, 1817): 4. 23 Cf. Manly P. Hall, “The Nature of the Absolute,” in Lectures of Ancient Philosophy (London: Penguin Books, 2005).

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which the human mind can neither grasp nor overcome in the same way it cannot understand the concept of solar radiation, even though this phenomenon is experienced every day. If the ideas of Nicomachus, Plotinus, Iamblichus and Proclus24 were to be simplified in order to present an overall theory, it would be found in the following explanation of this geometric paradox. In the very center of the circle, there is a source from which its rays, all of equal length, diverge. In modern mathematical terms, the center is described as a point, but for our purposes the monad seems a more relevant term. This is because this point is not only single, but also indivisible, and as such it cannot be reduced to a more central point. The paradox is that this perfectly single spot gives rise to an infinite number of identical rays which spring simultaneously from the same single source—the monad. The monad, however, cannot be appropriated by any of the rays and neither can it be divided between them. How then can it be possible that all the rays share the same indivisible source? This issue is beyond the comprehension of the human mind as is Iamblichus’s thesis suggesting equality between the perfect one, the monad, and infinity.25 As has been noted above, in Christian theology, the ideal monad which is not subject to differentiation, but is the source of infinite variety, is God and the infinite variety refers to the world He created. This geometrical perception of the world was readily adopted by Christianity, with no great obstacles placed in its way probably because the New Testament abounds in descriptions of the same space-time, the only difference being that the knowledge about the relations between God and the world is conveyed through literary images rather than through abstract mathematical discourse. One such image appears in a parable found in John 15:1–11. The parable begins with an introductory statement: “     Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή,” which is customarily translated as “I am the true vine” (John 15:1a), on the assumption that the adjective “ἀληθινή” should be understood in its colloquial sense, which is “true.” This is undoubtedly the basic meaning of this sentence. If, however, in our translation of the word “ἀληθινή,” its role in Greek philosophy were to be taken into consideration, as reconstructed by Martin Heidegger,26 the first words 24 Cf. Plotinus, Enneadum II 2.1 and many other passages in the treatise; Iamblichus, Theologumena Arithmeticae…, 35–40; Proclus, Elementa theologica 1–5; Idem, Theologia Platonica IV 34. For the English translation cf. Idem, Theology of Plato, trans. Thomas Taylor (London: Valpy, 1816), vol. 1: 297–300. 25 Cf. Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic…, 36. 26 Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper and Row, 1972): 67–71.

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of the parable would be: “I am the vine [which is being] unconcealed.” Thus, these words might be viewed as a statement, in which Christ reveals to the listeners His true nature, which had so far been concealed. In the parable, Christ identifies Himself with the vine and His disciples with the branches. The energy which infuses the world with life and stimulates its growth is presented as being analogous to the sap which flows from the root to the branches and feeds the vine. This analogy is underscored by Christ’s words in verse 15:4b: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” As we learn from the subsequent verses (John 15:9–11), God’s life-giving love can only flow in the veins of those who follow God’s commandments, for it is only through obedience that man can be joined to the divine source as the branch is joined to the vine. This evangelical story is based on a paradox as profound as that which can be seen in the geometrical concept of the circle. Christ admonishes man, saying: “without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5), through which he emphasizes not so much His distinctness as both His anteriority and precedence with respect to His disciples. At the same time, in order to describe the person who is concealed behind the pronoun “me,” he does not use any other notion but the general noun “vine.” As a consequence, based on the information presented only in the parable, Christ appears as none other than the sum total of the branches mentioned previously. This interpretation is supported by the description of God’s actions toward those who have decided to leave Christ: “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away” (John 15:2a). “Branch in me” is treated here as an integral part of Christ himself, almost as if there was no division between Him and His disciples, with the only way to experience Christ as the vine being through the fruit borne by His disciples who are to be seen as the branches of His own body. The parable about the vine can be easily translated into the theological terminology used to describe the circle, with Christ corresponding to the central monad, the sap which he yields representing the rays, and the tree that is rich in fruit symbolizing the circumference. A number of other examples can be quoted from the New Testament, all of which reveal a similar image of God infusing particular beings with the essence of life and elevating them to the level of oneness with himself, yet simultaneously strengthening the relations between them. In the passage which describes Christ multiplying the loaves of bread, for instance, Christ is surrounded by a narrow circle, that is the apostles, behind which there is another circle of “five thousand men” (Mark 6:44). Christ divides the five loaves of bread and two fish among His apostles and then they divide them further amongst the others. The creative power of Christ, manifested in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, is not revealed in His own person, 244

but in the outer circle of those who receive the bread. To quote another example, in Ephesians 2:19–22 the church—composed of Jews and pagans—is compared to a building with two walls joined together by Christ, who is referred to by Paul as “the chief cornerstone.” Due to the power of Christ, which can be compared to physical energy, the walls of the church that are supported by Him on both sides can rise, but not fall. Again, the power encapsulated in “the chief cornerstone” is inferred from the size of the church building rather than revealed through a direct observation of Christ. The examples quoted above suffice to demonstrate that the paradox of the circle found a useful correspondence in the New Testament vision of God, and probably for this reason it soon became the matrix upon which the thinking about the world in the Christian culture was built. Let us, however, return for a moment to the parable about the vine, as recorded in John. If we try to understand its meaning through geometric categories, this does not bring us any closer to naming Christ more precisely than is achieved in the Gospel, but we are able to account for the veiled references that appear in the parable, references which will be visualized in the litanic genre. The world is contained in God—in the sense that it would not be able to exist outside creatio continua—but it may be perceived as distinct owing to the spacetime, which allows us to differentiate the circumference from the central point, the creation from the Creator, and the manifestations of God’s actions from God himself. Everyday human cognition applies to the sphere of the circumference, which is why we find no difficulties in perceiving objects that are situated in space and time. What is more, we may instantly form an opinion regarding their sum and determine their relations with respect to our own vantage point. Our perception, however, is very different from the perception of God, who sees the universe at His bosom, in a manner similar to the way that Christ sees the individual branches. It is not easy to move to God’s side and assimilate His knowledge, according to which the world does not exist in isolation from its Creator. Likewise, it is not easy—be it only in our imagination—to discard the perspective of the circumference and identify ourselves with the position of the central monad. The fact that in the parable no separate name was used for the particular part of the vine that would belong exclusively to Christ, and which would emphasize His ontological distinctness with respect to the individual branches, implies that the central monad cannot be envisioned by any means or described in any terms. In fact, the existence of a relevant term would entail God’s belonging to a space-time and would thus place Him on the same level as the beings He created. It is true that God is connected to space-time, for His central role is underlined by all the rays 245

whose other ends delimit the circumference. He is not, however, an element of the space-time and as such cannot be reached by passing through the consecutive points in space and time that are situated on the arc of the circumference. Having said that, how is it possible to align our human thinking with God’s knowledge? According to mathematical theology, we should recognize how our space-time is anchored in God, altering our thinking to such an extent that it verges on paradox, not unlike the paradox inscribed into the geometry of the circle. The effect of this cognitive change was succinctly described by Maximus the Confessor: The centre of a circle is regarded as the indivisible source of all the radii extending from it; similarly, by means of a certain simple and indivisible act of spiritual knowledge, the person found worthy to dwell in God will perceive pre-existing in God all the inner essences of created things.27

Maximus was a Christian theologian of the seventh century. The change of direction that he proposed, however, was described earlier by non-Christian writers, finding its most definite form in the works of Proclus the Successor. The thoughts of this fifth-century philosopher about the graspability of the central monad were accurately reconstructed by Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann.28 Our description below is in large measure based on the researcher’s findings. Proclus supported the conviction of his Neoplatonic predecessors and teachers that the human mind is unable to understand directly the nature of the monad, since it cannot even grasp the well-known concept of an infinite number of rays belonging to one indivisible point in the circle.29 The stance of the Athenian philosopher, however, differed in one respect from that of his masters, for he succeeded in overcoming this impasse in thinking by replacing the concept of oneness with the concept of simplicity. His view was that simplicity was the best possible manifestation of the oneness of the monad that could be realized by the minds of mortal men. Having failed to understand the essence of the monad, man now draws conclusions from the fact that all beings that exist, including himself, are derived from the monad. While they differ among themselves due to

27 Maximos the Confessor, “Two Hundred Texts on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God,” in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, trans. Gerald E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber & Faber, 2010), vol. 2: 191. 28 Cf. Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Philosophia Perennis: Historical Outlines of Western Spirituality in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004): 64. 29 Cf. Proclus, Theology of Plato…, 320–322.

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their individual features, the way they come to life is analogous. At the basis of their existence is an element of repetition, which manifests itself in the fact that each being owes its existence to the monad. The oneness of the monad, perceived in terms of simplicity, is revealed in the pattern of the repetition, which is why Proclus uses the oxymoron “one-many” to explain the idea of the monad as seen by mortal men. Taking into consideration the arguments presented above, it becomes clear why Proclus’s stance was willingly adopted by the Christian culture. Each of the branches belonging to the vine draws energy from the same source, Christ. Even though each is distinguished by the different fruit it bears, in terms of deriving its life energy, it is similar to all the other branches. The main concern of John the Evangelist, which he expresses in his admonition, is that moving away from God may bring the same results as those experienced by a branch that is broken off the vine. The lesson that the parable teaches is that in order to establish a bond with Christ, we need to follow His commandments. The same text, approached from the perspective of Neoplatonic philosophy, conveys a very precise instruction, namely it informs us how to adjust our vision and focus it on Christ. It seems that Christ, who infuses the branches with life, is not to be seen directly. His central point cannot be visualized, there is no name in the text that could belong only to Him and there is no space which He alone could inhabit: “The Son of man hath not where to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58). Instead, he can be recognized “by the fruit” (cf. Matthew 7:16) borne by His disciples or—to follow Proclus’s idea—he can be inferred from the repetitive nature of fruit-bearing. Thus, an individual who wants to establish a bond with God is faced with an exercise of sorts, an exercise in the art of looking at the world in such a way that would guarantee the perception of what is important, namely the fact that in the world—as Paul said—“there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:4). Clearly this mental exercise is accomplished by assigning the relevant names to the processes that take place in this world, names which should underline the pattern of repetition in each of God’s creations, such as beings, events, experiences and feelings. The most appropriate way of looking at phenomena situated in space and time is by acknowledging that through their repetitive nature the whole of the space-time spirals toward God.

8.2.2  Artistic Conceptualizations of the Concentric Space-Time An ingenious way of visualizing this idea was invented within Byzantine architecture, which made creative use of mosaics placed in the domes, that is, on the inside of the copula. In the Basilica of St Mark in Venice, for instance, the 247

Pentecost copula presents images of the twelve apostles. Each of them is sitting on a throne in an upright position between two other apostles. The twelve thrones are placed at the base of the dome and the circular structure of the copula prevents any possibility of identifying which of the apostles begins or ends the series. What is most interesting, however, is not the fact that we can move our eyes horizontally over the images ad infinitum, but another consequence of this spherical representation. The figures of the twelve apostles, sitting at the same level, parallel to one another, neither lean to one side or the other, nor appear to shrink or undergo any other distortions or deformations. However, their heads all face in the same direction, in this way drawing attention to the symbol of the Holy Ghost, which is situated at the highest point that forms the center of the dome. The profoundness of this paradox is created by the individual rays which emanate vertically downward from the top of the dome, with each falling on the head of a different apostle. A similar depiction of Pentecost is to be found in the altar dome of the medieval Hosios Loukas Monastery in present-day Greece. However, the technique of using the geometric properties of the copula to encourage reflection on the paradoxical relation between the space-time and God was also used in architecture from an earlier period. In fact, long before the Basilica of St Mark was erected in Venice, it was evident in the fifth-century Baptistery of Neon in Ravenna. It continued to be used throughout the Byzantine period, until the fall of Constantinople, leaving behind much evidence of its existence, such as the central dome of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, as well as in Constantinople and its surroundings, the two twin copulas in the narthex of the Church of the Holy Savior in Chora and the side chapel of the Church of the All-Blessed Mother of God. In all the locations mentioned, the use of the paradox of the circle in the dome mosaic was possible, thanks to the schematic representation. If a genuinely realistic convention was applied to the same architectural structures—a convention presupposing differences in the appearance and position of the figures depicted—the resulting picture would certainly be incompatible with the spacetime that corresponds to sensual perception. The mosaics found in the churches mentioned above do not confuse or upset the viewer because their representation of the space-time is far from realistic. Their creators knew perfectly well that human figures might be incorporated into the pattern of hierarchical ordering simply because they were schematic; that is, each figure contained an element of repetition that anchored it in God. This shows that the concentric space-time was essentially a theocentric construct and so the structure of the universe it entailed also had an element of repetition inscribed into it. 248

Let us now complicate this matter by recalling a mysterious Christian theologian from the beginning of the sixth century, who went under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite, and his two treatises: Celestial Hierarchy and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. In his considerations on the harmony permeating heaven and earth, the author did not restrict himself to an examination of the fundamental relations between the monadic center and the infinite circumference. The vision of Paul, who—according to 2 Corinthians 12:2—was “caught up to the third heaven,” inspired Pseudo-Dionysius to perceive heaven as surrounding God in a series of circles situated at different distances from Him. Simultaneously, the ladder of heavenly beings—as presented in the Celestial Hierarchy—finds its continuation in the ladder of earthly beings, the highest level of which is discussed in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. The first treatise examines the hierarchical arrangement of the circles occupied by the heavenly choirs. The author attempts to present a broad cross-section of beings, starting with the highest-ranking archangels, who are enumerated by name in the Bible, and closing with those beings who are very rarely mentioned. For the members of the latter category Pseudo-Dionysius borrows mysterious names from Colossians 1:16, such as “Thrones,” “Dominions,” “Principalities” and “Powers.” Another important source of inspiration for Dionysius is Isaiah’s vision of God surrounded by the angels, among whom “one cried unto another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts’” (Isaiah 6:3). The vision supports the thesis “that the first ranks pass on to the second what they know of God.”30 The rays of grace extending from the divine center do not reach each of the circles directly, but are transmitted through intermediaries in a manner similar to the way that provinces are governed by state administrations. As is apparent from Pseudo-Dionysius’s treatises, the divine grace is dispersed in a processual way, not unlike an order given by a sovereign in a royal chamber that is distributed orally to the farthest corners of the kingdom. At this point it is relevant to mention that the Pseudo-Dionysian hierarchic space-time found immediate reflection in art. To a certain extent, this happened by virtue of Byzantine architecture, the vault mosaics mentioned above in particular. The fact that the dome was usually erected upon a high cylindrical base which contained windows, with the walls between the windows also ideally suited for the creation of mosaics, meant that the hemispherical space dominated over the cylindrical, in a symbolic sense too. While the hemispherical space was

30 Pseudo-Dionysius, “Celestial Hierarchy,” X 273B, in Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulst Press, 1987): 174.

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exclusively reserved for members of the highest heavenly orders, for example, archangels, apostles and patriarchs, the cylindrical space situated below was the domain of the saints, who belonged to a lower heavenly rank. Yet the architectural element which proved most suited to the representation of the hierarchical aspect of the concentric space-time was not the Byzantine dome, but the Gothic rose window. It is no coincidence that the cosmic hierarchy is reflected in the most famous rose windows of the great medieval French churches. An artist who was able to make skillful use of the elaborate structure of a rose window, with its leaves branching out from the center, could be seen as representing visually the divine energy as it emerges from the central oculus and infuses all of creation. Even though the term “rose window” originated from the flower, this architectural feature may also be associated with the structure of the vine, whose trunk is divided into a few main branches, which in turn split into smaller shoots. This illustrates the theological conviction that it is not only God that has the privilege of influencing the actions of multiple subordinate beings, but that this prerogative also belongs to a number of the beings He created, beings whose high position in the hierarchy provides them with the means of influencing lower-level beings and infusing them with the life-giving energy derived from God. Sadly, the majority of the stained glass windows from the medieval French churches have suffered a serious degree of destruction over the centuries; more­ over, during renovation works some of the panels were replaced with others, which makes it much more difficult—sometimes even impossible—to reconstruct the original cosmological vision. Therefore, rather than trying to determine to what extent a particular window corresponds to the original version, let us focus on a general model of the space-time, as can be seen in the south transept rose window from the Basilica of St Denis in the Parisian suburbs. The central oculus contains the image of God the Creator, who is surrounded by certain orders of beings: in the circle closest to God there are twelve panels in which allegories of the six days of Creation are intertwined with the figures of six adoring angels; in the second circle there are the twelve signs of the zodiac representing the heavenly order; and in the third circle there are twenty-four panels depicting man’s work on earth. It seems clear that as we move from the center of the circle and toward its outer circumference, we not only descend from heaven to earth, but also leave behind the oneness of God and become immersed in greater and greater diversity, which is inscribed into the circle and thus infinite. In other Gothic churches, alternative ways to depict the cosmic hierarchy may be seen. The central oculus, for instance, instead of containing the image of God 250

the Creator, could depict the figure of Christ the Judge or Mary enthroned with Christ on her knee. In one rose window the privilege of being situated closest to God belonged to the apostles; in another, to the prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament; and in yet in another, to the heavenly choirs or even allegorical figures, such as those who inhabited Ezekiel’s vision (the lion, the ox, the eagle and a human figure). Also, the principle of mathematical division, which was applied to rose window designs, was subject to variation and took different forms. While the pattern used in St Denis was 1+12+12+24, in other churches other variants are seen. In the Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris, two rose windows, which are located opposite each other at either end of the transept, reveal two contrasting patterns: the pattern 1+16+32+32 in the North rose window is contrasted with the pattern 1+4+12+12+24+24 in the South rose window. There were also examples with no further sub-divisions in the composition, such as the 1+12+12+12 pattern in the South rose window of Chartres Cathedral. The structural differences in the design of the French rose windows seem to indicate that medieval artists did not attempt to petrify a single canonical ordering of beings, but rather to represent in a visual form the concentric principle itself, as well as the hierarchical space-time. From our perspective, the most interesting examples are the two rose windows—upper and lower—situated in the façade of Reims Cathedral, which are a captivating testimony to the link between medieval and modern times. The upper rose window in Reims Cathedral dates back to the thirteenth century. It represents the Assumption of the Virgin and is based on the pattern 1+12+24+24, the last circles taking the form of quatrefoil windows, which leads to a further division of the composition. The central oculus was dedicated to Mary’s Dormition, the first circle to the twelve apostles, the second to the twenty-four angels, and the third to the twenty-four prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament. One of the differences between the upper and lower rose windows is that the former contains remnants of the original medieval glass, whereas the lower—which was built into the portal—was completely destroyed over the centuries and was repainted anew in 1937. Jacques Simon, the contemporary artist who was commissioned to create the stained glass window, decided to dedicate it to the Litany of Loreto, thus demonstrating that a concentric composition is also applicable to a litanic prayer. In the design by Simon, the central oculus depicts Mary holding the image of young Christ. This divine center is surrounded by two circles, consisting of eight and sixteen components respectively, which contain the Loretan calls. Addressing different aspects of Mary’s personality and evoking her various Old Testament 251

prefigurations, the calls may be compared to beings who radiate in their multitude from the divine source of the universe.31 Such an artistic design does not seem to have originated with Simon, even though it may be referred to as an invention, for by combining the litany with the form of the rose window, the artist resurrected an idea which was deeply ingrained in European consciousness from the beginning of the Middle Ages. Medieval men, in their aspirations to be reunited with Christ, could pursue one of the following courses of action. They could, for instance, practice their spiritual exercises through a contemplation of the paradoxical form of the dome mosaics in Byzantine temples. From the thirteenth century onward, they could also draw inspiration from observing the complicated Gothic rose windows. A third and equally reasonable possibility was provided by the litanic genre itself. Even though the genre had a linear structure, which was based on reciting lists of saints, or Mary’s attributes, or events from the history of salvation, the main point of the enumeration was to emphasize the analogy between the phenomena listed, an analogy which drew attention to their common source in God. In late Antiquity, there were no poetic conventions better suited to such contemplative exercises than the three genes discussed in the previous part of this book. Even though each of these genes had its own history and inner logic which prevented their full cooperation—the cheerful message conveyed by the chairetismic gene, for instance, was incompatible with the doleful tone of the ektenial gene—in the early Middle Ages, their inner characteristics receded into the background, for it became clear that each gene was equally well suited as a means of establishing a unity with God, as each underlined the multiple and unceasing relations between creation and the Creator. By means of the ektenial gene, the world was oriented toward God through a rhythmical and processional presentation to the Savior of those elements of reality destroyed by wars, natural disasters, and epidemics. The polyonymic gene in turn focused on conveying the benediction radiating from the divine source before systematically moving onto the subsequent beings and events. The chairetismic gene was a joyful expression of gratitude for God’s healing light that glows in the world. In this way, each gene revealed a different stage in the story of the 31 The lower rose window of Reims Cathedral is examined in greater detail in the following article: Witold Sadowski, “Wiersz litanijny w przekładzie na obraz” [“Litanic Verse Translated Into Art”], in Ikonoklazm i ikonofilia: Między historią a współczesnością [Iconoclasm and Iconophilia: Between History and Modernity], eds. Agata Stankowska and Marcin Telicki (Poznań: The Poznań Society for the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences, 2016): 61–72.

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vine, beginning with the moment the withering branches require the attention of the divine gardener (the ektenial gene), through the abundance of the life-giving treatment administered by God (the polyonymic gene), until the branches yield fruit as an expression of gratitude to the caring gardener (the chairetismic gene). Thus, from the point at which the three genes began representing the same concentric space-time, they could be perceived as expressions of a single worldview. Despite divergent origins and the differences between them, the genes were all incorporated within the same formal framework. This was when a new genre came into being—the litany.

8.3  The Semantics of the Litanic Components It seems an apt moment to leave the problem of the philosophical assumptions concerning the coherence between the genes and to move to an examination of particular litanies in an attempt to answer the following question: how were the genes of value to an exercise in contemplation that is best summed up in Proclus’s notion of “one-many”? By analogy to the ease with which the oneness of God was revealed, perhaps the manner of establishing an interaction with this oneness should also be straightforward.

8.3.1  The Basic Two-Component Scheme The least complicated manifestation of the concentric space-time is to be seen in section A of the Litany of the Saints, namely on the left-hand side of the calls addressed to the saints—that is, in the area that was subject to the polyonymic gene. By way of illustration, the quotation below has been deprived of the right-hand side of the prayer, including the response “ora pro nobis,” which was inspired by the ektenial gene: Sancte Petre, Sancte Paule, Sancte Andrea, Sancte Iohannes, Sancte Philippe, Sancte Bartholomee, Sancte Mathe, Sancte Thoma, Sancte Iacobe, Sancte Tathee, Sancte Symon, Sancte Iacobe, Sancte Mathia,

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The passage comes from a tenth-century Breton psalter, a fragment of which was quoted in Part II of this book.32 Each saint is addressed by means of two words and these two words seem to share between them the functions of “oneness” and “manyness,” which together add up to “one-many.” As can easily be inferred, the single source of the space-time is indicated in its entirety by the adjective sanctus which is repeated in each line. In its primary meaning, sanctus denotes an attribute of God, and only secondarily an attribute of man. The individual beings inhabiting the space-time are indicated by the changing names of the saints. Hence the first component of the call, due to the verbatim repetition, represents the center of the circle, whereas the second—due to the systematic alteration of the names—corresponds to the circumference. Both components combine to create the binary opposition of “oneness” vs “manyness,” which constitutes one of the most fundamental, or even prototypical, techniques used in the litanies. This is not to say, however, that the first component exhausts the function of “oneness,” or that the function of “manyness” is manifested solely in the second component. In fact, the consecutive repetitions of the word sanctus are phonetic rather than semantic duplications. Each time the word is repeated, it is a different sanctus, not only because the adjective refers to a different individual, but primarily because in the case of each individual sanctity is manifested differently. It follows, therefore, that in a surprisingly simple manner a term which used to be associated with sanctity as a general category becomes associated with only a fraction of its meaning and refers to the kind of sanctity that is achieved by a single man. The more saints are enumerated in the litany, the more clearly we see how the single and infinite center of the circle is transformed into a rich and varied spectrum of different phenomena which make up the circumference. The change within the first component is accompanied by a process effected within the second component, a process to which it is inversely proportional. This is because the names of the saints enumerated in the litany do not refer to fully autonomous individuals whose identities result entirely from their singularity. In fact, the enumeration of the names presupposes an analogy between them, which is based on their belonging to a common group. The more saints the enumeration includes, the more the content of the second component—which varies completely from line to line—now becomes subject to the rule of uniformity. As the enumeration continues, those reciting the prayer feel almost as if the circumference has sunk into the indivisible point located at the very center of

32 Frederick-Edward Warren, “Un monument inédit de la liturgie celtique,” Revue Celtique 9 (1888): 89.

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the circle. What is of vital importance is not that God and the world exist on two completely separate planes of reference, but that the faithful may draw closer to God’s wisdom and may experience the world through His eyes, thus seeing the universe at His bosom in a manner similar to the way that Christ perceives the individual branches of the vine. In an attempt to reduce the two-component scheme to a simple model, the following four principles should be taken into account: i. The scheme is made of two components; ii. The first component, the elements of which are repeated verbatim in each line, highlights the divine source of the space-time, a source which may be perceived symbolically as the center of the circle; iii. The second component, due to its constant alteration, underscores the range of variability among human beings and phenomena in the space-time— beings and phenomena which may be perceived symbolically as the circumference of the circle; iv. The frequent recurrence of the two-component scheme serves to reveal the different principles within each component: the principle of variation within the first repetitive component and the principle of consistency within the second changeable component. What follows is that—on the one hand— the scheme imitates the process of the space-time being derived from God, and—on the other—it determines the trajectory of thought which leads from the circumference of the circle to its center, that is, from an observation of the world to a contemplation of its Creator. The basic form of this structural model found its expression in the Litany of the Saints, and its binary patterning has recurred throughout history, appearing in both the church and the poetic variants of the genre to the present day. The twocomponent scheme provides the easiest delimitation of the litanic space-time, yet at the same time allows a reasonably wide range of interpretations with reference to the two components. In the example quoted above, the divine center was interpreted as the source of holiness and its manifestations were identified through particular individuals. The history of literature, however, also contains examples in which the roles of the two components seem to be viewed slightly differently, with the first referring to God’s name and the second enumerating His various images—images that are accessible to man. A case in point is a song, a fragment of which is quoted below. It dates from the mid-seventeenth century and is part of the cycle Cantiques spirituels de l’amour divin, composed by a French Jesuit, Jean-Joseph Surin: 255

Dieu saint en ses perfections, Dieu saint en ses productions, Dieu saint en toute sa conduite, Dieu saint en son gouvernement, Dieu saint aux choses qu’il vous dicte, Dieu saint en son droit jugement.33 [God, holy in all your perfection, / God, holy in all your creation, / God, holy in all your conduct, / God, holy in your providence, / God, holy in everything ordered by you / God, holy in your true judgement.]

God’s name is evoked through the epithetic expression “Dieu saint,” whereas the remainder of each line presents one aspect of human knowledge about God. A yet more interesting example of the difference between the components is to be found in a poem composed in the same century by a Silesian author known under the pseudonym Angelus: Jesu, meine Freud und Lust, Jesu, meine Speis und Kost, Jesu, meine Süßigkeit, Jesu, Trost in allem Leid, Jesu, meiner Seelen Sonne, Jesu, meines Geistes Wonne.34 [Jesus, my happiness and joy, / Jesus, my food and meal, / Jesus, my sweetness, / Jesus, consolation in all suffering, / Jesus, my soul’s sun, / Jesus, my spirit’s delight.]

While in Angelus’s poem the first component is a one-word expression, the second extends into sophisticated antonomasias. The difference between the components is not only related to the dichotomy of the constant versus the changeable, but also to the opposition of the simple and the complicated. This shows that in European literature litanic verses were woven out of two poetics simultaneously: the poetics of conciseness and the poetics of sophistication. Far from being treated as two alternatives, these poetics were combined within the same works, revealing the ontological difference between the perfectly indivisible monad and the abundant world of its creation. However, the methods that the poets had at their disposal did not end here. They were not restricted to the semantic variation between the components or the possibility of extending their length, nor

33 Jean-Joseph Surin, Cantique 154, in Cantiques spirituels de l’amour divin (Paris: Nicolas Le Clerc, 1781): 361. 34 Angelus Silesius, “Sie ruft ihm mit vielen süßen Namen,” in Heilige Seelenlust oder geistliche Hirtenlieder, ed. Karl-Maria Guth (Berlin: Contumax, 2016): 20.

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were they restricted to differentiating the components on the grounds of their sophistication. The methods also included a tendency to introduce a greater number of components and—conversely—to reduce their number.

8.3.2  Three- and Four-Component Schemes Enlarging the scheme to three or even four components corresponded successfully with the allegory of the vine and the construction of the Gothic rose window. Yet, not all the litanies incorporated the possibility permitted through this correspondence. The Litany of the Saints, for instance, evokes the ladder of being, not through the internal segmentation of each call, but instead through the division of the whole text into several consecutive stages. As demonstrated in the Breton version of the Litany of the Saints, one part of which was previously quoted, the first four calls addressed directly to God are followed by another four calls, this time addressed to the next most important inhabitants of heaven: Mary, as well as the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael; they are in turn followed by eleven calls to the remaining heavenly beings, each to a different patriarch or prophet of the Old Testament; subsequently there are thirteen calls to the apostles —with the thirteenth call addressed to all the apostles collectively— before exactly one hundred calls to the martyrs, etc. In a text to be recited, this system of division seemed best suited to closely mirror the hierarchical relations in heaven. It was also the most convincing way of visualizing heaven in paintings that used wooden or canvas boards, especially after the concept of perspective was introduced into art, when it became a prerequisite to adjust the vision of the supernatural world to the natural way of perception. The system of constructing reality according to its consecutive stages is to be seen, for example, in a group of Renaissance paintings, depicting two interconnected themes, namely the Assumption of the Virgin and the Coronation of the Virgin.35 The theological manifesto concerning the elevation of Mary after the end of her earthly life furnished artists with a perfect pretext for revealing a part of heaven. Having left her mortal life behind, Mary is raised to the top of the ladder of being, passing through all the circles located between the earth and God, circles which are meticulously positioned by the artists along the vertical axis of their painting. Without doubt, one of the artists who was inspired by the ideas of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite was Francesco Botticini, as can be seen in his 35 The compositional technique which is being referred to here was also applied to other themes in art, as seen in Fra Angelico’s Last Judgment, dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century (presently housed in the Museum of San Marco, Florence).

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painting created in the second half of the fifteenth century (now housed in the National Gallery in London). The top of the painting belongs to Christ and Mary, with a circle of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones precisely located at Christ’s feet; further down is a circle of Dominions, Virtues, and Powers, after which comes a circle of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,36 and at the very bottom, the earth and the mortal world. The saints, who have been raised to the altars and are worshipped in the church, do not comprise a single circle of their own—nor did they in Pseudo-Dionysius’s works—but are scattered between different circles, where they are positioned among the heavenly spirits. The theme of the Assumption was rendered in a different manner by Domenico Ghirlandaio in a fresco dating from the end of the fifteenth century which decorates the central chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The top of the fresco depicts Christ crowning Mary, the level nearest to Him is occupied by the prophets of the Old Testament, and below are the saints from the Christian era. If Botticini correlated the circles of heaven with the hierarchy of the angels and Ghirlandaio with the human hierarchy, these two interpretations were combined in Sandro Botticelli’s painting (housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence), in which directly below Christ and Mary is a circle of dancing angels, whereas on the earthly plane below are the human figures: John the Evangelist, Augustine, Jerome and Eligius. Irrespective of the compositional details, in each of the artistic examples mentioned above, the inhabitants of heaven—who belong to a common circle—form a group which is assigned a particular place within the painting, a place which is determined by the hierarchical up-down arrangement. This represents yet another visualization of the system of constructing reality according to consecutive stages that was used in the Litany of the Saints. As a result, all the inhabitants of particular circles could be meticulously recorded, yet an uneasy task was simultaneously assigned to the art historians, that is, the task of identifying the hundreds of faces depicted with their real-life counterparts enumerated in the litany. The literary technique to be described below aims to achieve different results than those presented above. The focus is transferred from emphasizing the wide spectrum of saints who inhabit various heavenly circles to revealing the very structural framework of the hierarchical space-time, as was the case in the Gothic rose windows discussed in subchapter 8.2.2. This purpose could

36 Cf. Jennifer Sliwka, “Angelic Hierarchies,” in Visions of Paradise: Botticini’s Palmieri Alterpiece (London: National Gallery, 2015): 98–101.

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not be achieved by applying a system of consecutive stages. A much bettersuited alternative was to increase the number of components within a single call. An example which illustrates this technique is a song traditionally ascribed to Columba, an Irish monk from the sixth century, the oldest records of which come from a half-century later: Deus, pater credentium, Deus, vita viventium, Deus deorum omnium, Deus, virtus virtutium.37

The prayer contains three instead of two components. The first component, consisting of the noun “Deus,” mirrors the central position of God. This single word gives rise to the whole world, the presentation of which slowly unfolds. The second component enumerates the various images of God which are accessible to man, as is also the case in the later, seventeenth-century poetry of Surin and Silesius (quoted in the previous subchapter). The divinity of God radiates a sense of fatherhood (line 1), life (line 2), valor (line 4), and even the idea of the divinity ascribed to gods (line 3). The second component is, however, followed by a third, which—by means of collective nouns—names the numerous recipients of the divine radiation: the believers (line 1), the living (line 2), the valorous (line 4), and those wrongfully regarded as gods (line 3). Despite its fixed structure, this three-component scheme was found to allow more freedom with regard to the register used and the choice of words that were qualified to fulfill the roles in each of the components. Among the most interesting examples is the poem quoted below, which was composed by a Scottish author, William Drummond, in the first half of the seventeenth century. The second component in this case is filled with the names of virtues and values, which are undermined in the third component. What is most intriguing, however, is the first component. The role of the anaphora, which underscores the unity of all the phenomena enumerated in the second and third components, belongs— quite surprisingly—to an article: A good that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April flowers, A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, A honor that more fickle is than wind,

37 “Oratio sancti Columbae,” in AHMA 51: 284.

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A glory at opinion’s frown that lowers, A treasury which bankrupt time devours,38

The anaphoric use of the article will be examined after the next poem has been introduced. However, first let us draw attention to the fact that both of the works quoted above, even though they are structured around three components, still preserve a binary division into what is constant (the first component) and what is changeable (the second and third components), which means that the same dichotomy discussed earlier with reference to the Litany of the Saints can still be observed. Nevertheless, by contrast, a multi-component scheme allowed the principle of gradation to also be employed within the changeable section. This possibility was used by the author of a twelfth-century song, which Gilles Gérard Meersseman includes in his anthology of medieval texts inspired by the Akathist Hymn. The poem is composed of eight stanzas, the first of which is quoted below: Ave, Christi mater digna, pia, mitis ac benigna. Ave, Christi sponsa cara, in virtutum luce clara. Ave, Christi parens alma, in supernis patens palma. Ave, Christi mater dicta super omnes benedicta. Ave, Christi splendens stella, mundo fulgens lux novella. Ave, Christi cara cella, pro me Christum interpella.39

The remaining stanzas of the song are analogously divided into six couplets written in octosyllabic verse. Bearing in mind our previous examination of space-time, this poem may seem surprising, for the text neither contains a cosmological vision, nor does it present various manifestations of a single God. Instead, it is devoted to the Virgin Mary and her contribution to the Mystery of the Incarnation. Readers accustomed to the idea that the first component of the call generally highlights the indivisible source of the universe may find it somewhat unusual that the couplets in this poem open with the anaphoric verb “Ave,” a verb 38 William Drummond “A glory at opinion’s frown that lowers…,” in Works of the British Poets from Chaucer to Morris with Biographical Sketches, ed. Rossiter Johnson (New York: Appleton, 1876), vol. 1: 99. 39 “Ave, Christi mater digna…,” stanza 1, in HAA 1: 188. Stanza 7 of this poem was quoted in Part II of the book.

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which is typically used as a greeting in Marian devotion. It is worth adding that the verb not only governs the first stanza, but begins each couplet of the poem, recurring altogether forty-eight times.40 The fact that the first component neither contains words such as Deus or Jesus, nor refers to any of God’s attributes, such as sanctus, can be theologically justified, for Mary’s presence at the center of the space-time seems to be a logical consequence of the dogma of her Divine Motherhood. Another, equally important justification is directly connected with the semantics of the components. The litanic call is structured in such a way that the first component—which notes the divine source of the universe—does so not by means of the word selected to play this role, but rather because the semantic content of the component is determined by the genre. It is because of the semantic information that is recorded in the litanic genre that in the verbatim repeatability we recognize the simplicity of the central source of the space-time, while at the same time perceiving the systematic changeability as an indefinite procession of phenomena which point toward this center. It is for exactly this reason that the Scottish poem quoted above drew attention to the divine origin of the virtues and values simply by employing an article. By contrast, deeds contrary to the divine order could only appear in the third component, that is on the bottom level of the hierarchy. In the Latin poem, the first component, which takes the form of the verb “Ave,” is immediately followed by the noun “Christi.” It only appears in this position in the first stanza; in the consecutive stanzas it is replaced with the words “virgo” (stanza two), “clemens” (stanza three), “sponsa” (stanza four), etc. The noun “Christi” is repeated only in the passage quoted above and therefore we treat it as the second component, which is independent of “Ave,” for it is certainly not part of the anaphora that recurs throughout the poem. The fact that the noun “Christi” takes the role of the second component is another means of proving that the semantic content of a certain word does not have to correspond with the semantic content of the whole component. Even though by definition the noun “Christi” highlights one of the Divine Persons, it does not in any of the couplets refer to a single source of the universe, for in the structure of the litanic call it was placed in the second, rather than the first position. Therefore, it serves to emphasize various aspects of Mary’s relations with God rather than to describe Christ himself. The subordinate function of this word is further indicated in the genitive case it takes, which calls for another, semantically connected noun. As can be seen in the quotation above, the second noun 40 Including one word concealed in the expression “A! Veneni.”

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is the twice repeated “mater,” as well as the following words: “sponsa,” “parens,” “stella,” and “cella.” However, the couplets of the stanza do not end at this point, for the words enumerated above are followed by further elements. This shows that the word “Christi,” together with another noun, opens itself up to an infinite number of one- or multiple-word modifiers which extend the Marian title. Two of the modifiers appear before the second noun and, as such, they form the basis of the epithetic expressions “splendens stella” and “cara cella.” All the remaining modifiers appear in postposition. We will now attempt to draw conclusions from the observations made so far. Each couplet of the first stanza may be treated as an example of a four-component scheme with varying degrees of repeatability. The fact that “Ave” consistently opens each of the couplets throughout the poem underscores the fundamental importance of the Annunciation as a crucial event in cosmic history. The successive components correspond to the various stages by which man becomes initiated into the Mystery of the Incarnation. As we move along the line, the information about the Mother of God becomes more and more detailed, and the form of the given component more varied: i. The first component takes only one form, that is, the greeting “Ave.” ii. The second component varies from stanza to stanza. In all the six couplets of the first stanza, it takes the form of the noun “Christi.” iii. The third component is not entirely deprived of repetitive elements, such as the word “mater” (used twice in couplets one and four), but its main function is to draw attention to the variability of its internal structure, a structure which takes the form of one word (in order of appearance: “mater,” “sponsa,” “parens” and again “mater”) or two words (“splendens stella” and “cara cella”). iv. The lowest level of repeatability and the highest level of particularization is exhibited by the fourth component. In the fourth component, the poet uses as many as three alternative techniques, which determine the number of modifiers and the degree of their extendedness. These techniques are described below: i. In the first couplet, the fourth component is made of four modifiers (“digna,” “pia,” “mitis,” and “benigna”). As each consecutive word increases the number of Mary’s attributes, the appearance of each new adjective represents a step in the direction of variety.

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ii. The second and third couplets each contain two modifiers, the second of which comprises a number of words that fill the entire second line in both couplets. iii. The fourth and fifth couplets each contain one very extended modifier in their final components; in the fourth couplet the modifier appears toward the end of the first line and stretches over the entire second line. Indeed, the use of enjambment in the fourth couplet demonstrates with great clarity the fact that the fourth component results from those preceding it. The stanza concludes with the sixth couplet which contains a plea in its final component. The division of the stanza into its components may be seen in the table below: 1

2

3

Ave,

Christi

Ave,

Christi

4 c mitis,

mater

a digna,

b pia,

sponsa

dara,

in virtutum luce clara. in supernis patens palma.

Ave,

Christi

parens

alma,

Ave,

Christi

mater

dicta super omnes benedicta.

Ave,

Christi

splendens stella,

mundo fulgens lux novella.

Ave,

Christi

cara cella,

pro me Christum interpella.

d ac benigna.

The table clearly shows that the greatest level of repeatability is exhibited by the left-hand side of the couplets, whereas the greatest level of variability is seen on the right-hand side. Only when we transpose the same multi-component scheme into a circular chart, however, do we begin to see how much it resembles the structure of a Gothic rose window, with its central point surrounded by circles of greater and greater variability. We also see how much the individual stanzas vary among themselves. Even though the main principle of componential division is preserved and manifested in the anaphoric “Ave” which is common to all the stanzas, the pattern adopted in the first stanza is not automatically repeated in the subsequent stanzas, for each stanza is governed by its own internal logic. The far-reaching autonomy of the stanzas shows that the principles behind the litany are based neither on automatism nor determinism. This is a central premise, for in the litany the variety which stems from the idea of manyness is equally important as the repeatability of the oneness.

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The space-time matrix in the poem “Ave, Christi mater digna…”

8.3.3  Tendencies to Introduce One-Component Schemes Apart from the three- and four-component schemes, which are extensions to the main scheme, there are also works which show the same tendency but in reverse, that is, a tendency to reduce the number of components from two to only one. It needs to be stressed, however, that the litanic genre does not allow one-component schemes and the mere enumeration of words can by no means be regarded as an example of the genre, as illustrated in the initial lines of the first satire by Théodore de Bèze:

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Pantaleon, et Epiric, Zophon, Mithec, et Tindaric, Egesippe, et Heraclides, Epenet, Zymonactides, Caton, Varron, et Columelle,41

in the opening words of a sonnet by Flaminio de Birague: Grottes, Cavernes, Prez, Tertres, Forests, Rivages, Antres, Taillis, Deserts, Plages, Rochers, Coupeaux, Vallons, Fleuves, Torrens, Boccages et Ruisseaux,42

or in both quatrains of a sonnet by Giovanni Boccaccio: E Cinzio e Caucaso, Ida e Sigeo, Libano, Sena, Carmelo e Ermone, Athos, Olimpo, Pindar, Citerone, Aracinto, Menalo, Ismo e Rifeo, Etna, Pachin, Peloro e Lilibeo, Vesevo, Gaur, Massich’e Caulone, Apennin, l’Alpi, Balbo e Borione, Atlante, Abila, Calpe e Pireneo.43

These poems cannot be treated as litanies because reducing all the litanic components to a single component disturbs the litanic space-time, a necessary prerequisite for which is the binary opposition between invariable simplicity and infinite changeability. If the litanic genre is to be preserved in the poem, the tendency to reduction cannot reach its most radical form, that is, a purely onecomponent scheme. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the compositional logic behind the Litany of Loreto. In a Parisian manuscript dating from the end of the twelfth century, the apostrophes to Mary begin in the following way: Sancta Maria, Sancta dei genitrix, Sancta virgo virginum, Mater Christi,

41 Théodore de Bèze, “Satyre première. De la cuisine en general et du bastiment d’icelle,” in Satyres chrestiennes de la cuisine papale, ed. Charles-Antoine Chamay (Genève: Droz, 2005): 9. 42 Flaminio de Birague, Sonnet 1, in Les Premières œuvres poétiques, eds. Roland Guillot and Michel Clément (Genève: Droz, 2004), vol. 3: 1. 43 Giovanni Boccaccio, Rime, Part One, 113, in Tutte le opere, ed. Vittore Branca (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1992): vol. V 1: 61–62.

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Mater castissima, Mater piissima.44

The enumeration is built around a two-component scheme, with the second component made of one or more words which vary from line to line. In the first component, in turn, one word is repeated a few or even a considerable number of times in the same form before another expression is introduced, which also recurs with the same frequency. The role of the first component is initially taken by the word “Sancta,” which is repeated three times, before being replaced by the noun “Mater,” which recurs twelve times, and this in turn is followed by words or phrases in the subsequent parts of the text such as “Magistra” (four times), “Virgo” (eight times), “Vas” (four times), “Turris” (twice), “Spiritus stancti” (four times), and “Regina” (fourteen times). Apparently, but only apparently, this structure resembles the two-component scheme used in the Litany of the Saints. As has already been noted, the first component should underline the central position of God and consequently, should be repeated in the same form throughout the text. By contrast, in the Litany of Loreto, the word that opens the line tends to be replaced with a different word, which leads to the simple conclusion that the words “Sancta,” “Mater,” “Magistra,” “Virgo,” etc. belong not to the first component, but to the second, with the first component being omitted: 45

1 —

2 Mater

3 creatoris,

—

Mater

salvatoris,

—

Magistra

humilitatis,

—

Magistra

tocius sanctitatis,

—

Magistra

obediencie,

—

Magistra

penitencie,

—

Virgo

suavis,

—

Virgo

fidelis,44

This is not the last of the reductionist tendencies that can be observed in the prayer. The three-component scheme, which is made up of a first unmentioned element, a second, which recurs a few or a considerable number of times, and 44 HAA 2: 222–223. 45 HAA 2: 223.

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a third, which is subject to constant alteration, covers a relatively large area of text—altogether fifty-one calls—but it does not cover the entire prayer. The Parisian rendition, for instance, contains twenty-two additional apostrophes to Mary, which are not subject to the repetition that is characteristic of the second component. The content of these calls changes from line to line, almost as if the second element was unmentioned too: Tronus Salomonis, Hostium redemptionis, Gemma castitatis, Flos virginitatis, Forma sanctitatis, Salus infirmorum,46

Contrary to what might be supposed, the fact that the content of these calls changes with each subsequent line should not lead to the conclusion that in the passage quoted above the litany is structured on a one-component basis, with only the third component being fully exhibited. This is because the litanic genre contains certain safeguarding mechanisms, which protect the genre against having its basic ideological assumptions questioned and these mechanisms were employed in the passage quoted above. It is worth recalling that in the earlier quotations from the Litany of Loreto, the third component often took the form of a single word. The quotation above excludes this possibility. The apostrophes are composed of two words, for it is by means of a division into words that the trace of the two-component scheme is left on these apparently one-component calls. By a trace we mean the use of parallelism, which is not always consistent, but appears to be so in the quotation above, in which in all six lines the same pattern is repeated: a noun is in the initial position (“Tronus,” “Hostium,” “Gemma,” etc.), followed by a noun in the genitive case (“Salomonis,” “redemptionis,” “castitatis,” etc.). Since a similar pattern was used in certain anaphoric calls in an earlier part of the prayer (e.g., “Mater creatoris,” “Virgo Fidelis”), the passage quoted creates the impression that the same two-component scheme is applied to both anaphoric and non-anaphoric series. Accordingly, the passage produces a feeling that each of the initial nouns (“Tronus,” “Hostium,” “Gemma,” etc.) conceals an anaphora, around which a separate section of text might possibly develop, a section which would contain a division into the fixed and the changeable elements that was characteristic of the two-component scheme. Even though this possibility is not realized, the anaphora is so strongly implied in the passage above 46 HAA 2: 224.

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that our imagination moves in the direction of the concentric and hierarchical space-time. Irrespective of the fact that the Litany of Loreto is a canonical prayer, it does not represent a typical litany in terms of generic markers. This indicates that the prayer was most probably composed at a time when the genre was already wellestablished and so was allowed more freedom with regard to its space-time. In this way, the Litany of Loreto became a model of repeatability, which was far from a mechanical copying of its componential scheme. Therefore, it follows that the same genre could be realized in works which were completely devoid of anaphora, and built—entirely or almost entirely—of two-word lines: Różo wdzięczności, Raju radości, Źrzódło litości, Tronie mądrości, Próbo słuszności, Z twojej litości, Kwiecie piękności, Matko miłości, Wzorze czystości, Panno skromności, Statku czystości, Odproś nam złości.47. [Rose of gratitude, / Paradise of joy, / Fountain of mercy, / Throne of wisdom, / Trial of righteousness, / In your mercy, Flower of beauty, / Mother of love, / Model of purity, / Virgin of modesty, / Vessel of chastity, / Reverse the evil within us.]48

The quotation above is a complete poem by a seventeenth-century Polish author, Jan Libicki. The five-syllable lines numbered one to five and seven to eleven have a two-component scheme, but the poem does not advertise this kind of information; rather, it is conveyed through the generic tradition. The bare minimum of the features necessary for its generic existence as a litany are displayed in a poem by Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement, dating from the second half of the sixteenth century:

47 Jan Libicki, “Votum do Najświętszej Panny Tuchowskiej. Modlitwa” [“A Votive Offering to Our Lady of Tuchów: A Prayer”], in Przedziwna Matka Stworzyciela Swego. Antologia dawnej poezji maryjnej [Mysterious Mother of her Creator: An Anthology of Old Polish Marian Poetry], ed. Roman Mazurkiewicz (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Księży Marianów MIC, 2008): 239. 48 Translation by Dominika Ruszkiewicz.

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Antres obscurs, torrents impetueux, Arbrisseaux verds, fontaines argenteuses, Taillis rasez, et forests umbrageuses, Chesnes branchus, rochers audacieux, Oyseaux aellez, boccages gracieux, Monts eslevez, campagnes spacieuses, Ruisseaux jazards, dont les eaux sablonneuses Peignent l’esmail d’un pré delicieux, Puisque banny des beaux yeux de Telie, Il verse en pleurs sa languissante vie, Antres, torrents, arbrisseaux et fontaines, Taillis, forests chesnes, rochers, oiseaux, Boccages, monts, campagnes et ruisseaux, Racontez luy ses solitaires peines.49

The poem seems to be of particular interest because of the relations between its lines. Lines eleven to thirteen, which will be referred to as the B lines, recapitulate the content of the seven initial lines, which will be referred to as the A lines. In the B group, the words are enumerated one by one, resembling in this respect the works of Théodore de Bèze, Flaminio de Birague, and Giovanni Boccaccio, which—to us—do not fulfill the formal requirements of the litanic genre. The same could be said of the B lines, if they had not been preceded by the A lines. The fact that the noun and the epithet are regularly placed in exact parallelism on the left and right of the caesura means that lines one to six, and indeed the beginning of line seven, have a structure identical to the passage from the Litany of Loreto previously quoted. Thus combined, they are a litany in a manner similar to Libicki’s lines. What happens next, however, is that the nouns from the A lines are transferred to the B lines, that is, the section of the poem which—as has been noted above—was almost excluded from the litanic genre in our analysis. The function that these nouns play in the B lines is that of quotations from the A lines, quotations which are peculiar, for the nouns are not accompanied by epithets. Yet—since the epithets are remembered by the reader—the quotations provide references, albeit very slight, to the two-component scheme characteristic of the litany, and in this way the litanic space-time is also evoked in the B lines. Now we come to the crux of the matter. In exactly the same poem in which the litanic features are reduced to such a bare minimum that they may, in fact, 49 Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement, Les Œuvres poetiques, ed. Roland Guillot (Genève: Droz 1994): 107.

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be overlooked, a strategy is used—and used at its best—which should be treated as an archetypal feature of litanies, especially the poetic litanies. This strategy resembles, in a way, the attitude toward space-time that is characteristic of the novel. As is well known, there are novels which begin with an extensive description of the setting. More typically, however, the novelist sets the events within a reality which is so close to the reader that it does not require any separate introduction. Even fantasy—similarly to adventure fiction which is set in faraway countries—tries to establish an unwritten agreement with the reader concerning the assumptions behind the space-time. The litanies are no exception to this rule, as there are litanies whose goal is to familiarize the reader thoroughly with the concentric vision of the world. Such litanies preserve both a clear division into components and the semantic integrity of each of them. This function is undoubtedly exemplified by the Marian prayer discussed in subchapter 8.3.2. Likewise, the popularity of the Litany of the Saints acknowledges the need to reassure the readers in their understanding that particular inhabitants of heaven are assigned various positions depending on their status. However, in the case of many other litanies, including important church litanies, such as the Litany of Loreto, the concentric and hierarchical space-time is assumed to be so deeply rooted in the readers’ consciousness that it does not require any systematic textual reconstruction. It is enough to evoke its outline alone.

8.3.4  Conclusions and Consequences The examination of various compositional techniques has led to certain general conclusions which apply to the litanic genre in its entirety. The componential scheme leads to three significant consequences which concern three issues as different as: the artistic techniques used most often in the poetic litanies, the criteria for differentiating the litanies from mere enumerative and non-litanic structures, and certain theological assumptions inscribed in the litanic spacetime. These three consequences will be analyzed below.

8.3.4.1  The “Circle Sector Technique” and the “Cross-Section Technique” As has been argued above, the litanic space-time is treated as a fixed fact which does not need to be described or explained in great detail in order to be convincing. The componential scheme may, therefore, be applied inconsistently, and the poets are under no obligation to recreate an entire map of the universe in their litanic poems. In fact, it is acceptable within the genre to present a fragmentary description of the litanic space-time. This, however, may be effected by various

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means, two of which hold particular significance. They will be referred to as the “circle sector technique” and the “cross-section technique.” The “circle sector technique” consists in displaying a single sector of a larger whole; in other words, it simply represents a fragment of the universe. In this, it evokes Pseudo-Dionysius’s theological views, according to which the rays of life, which are derived from God, do not reach the circumference directly, but are conveyed through intermediaries. Our description of the Gothic rose windows has shown that a heavenly being located in a sufficiently high position presides over multiple bodies of a lower order. Thus, the litany can encompass the wealth of the divine grace in its entirety as it is diffused throughout the cosmos, but it may also draw attention to a selected sector of the universal experience, for example, focusing on the contemplation of a single saint, through whose mediation the divine grace fills the world. In this way, a single saintly intermediary between man and God, whose intercession provides for man a whole series of graces, becomes the image of God himself, an image which is graspable to the human mind even though the archetype of this image—that is, God—cannot be grasped as the source of infinity. Litanies addressed to individual saints became characteristic of the Catholic culture and began to grow in popularity in the seventeenth century. The same technique, however, allows the poet to move down the ladder of being and to build the enumerative structure around the virtues and values of earthly men, including those well known to them, who become the objects of the poet’s laudatory addresses. In the example below, the poet eulogizes the charms of a beautiful lady: Her breath is sweet perfume, or holy flame; Her lips more red than any coral stone; Her neck more white than aged swans that moan; Her breast transparent is, like crystal rock; Her fingers long, fit for Apollo’s lute; Her slipper such as Momus dare not mock; Her virtues all so great as make me mute.50

This poem, composed by an English author, Thomas Watson, in the second half of the sixteenth century, shows a similar division into three components as was seen in the work of the Scottish poet, William Drummond, which was discussed in subchapter 8.3.2. The nouns used in the second component (“breath,” “lips,”

50 Thomas Watson, Hekatompathia or Passionate Century of Love, 7, in Peter McIntosh, “Every word doth almost tell my name”: The Authorship of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Jefferson: McFarland 2013): 137.

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“neck,” etc.) allow Watson to dwell on the lady’s charms, which are described in detail in the third component. The fact that the pronoun “Her” is placed in the line-initial position does not mean, however, that it should be treated as equivalent to God’s name, with the lady being presented as a divine creature. It means, instead, that the poet decided to employ the “circle sector technique,” focusing on a certain sector of the space-time, which becomes infused with the lady’s glowing light, a light which has its ultimate root in God. While the “circle sector technique” takes into account a certain sector of the space-time, the “cross-section technique” focuses on only one of its aspects. It follows, therefore, that the former technique is responsible for the accumulation of litanic concerns and addressees, whereas the latter leads to the opening of the litanic genre to all the three genes, as discussed in the previous part of this book. From the perspective of the concentric and hierarchical space-time, which necessitates a certain cosmological vision of the world, the most useful gene was undoubtedly the polyonymic gene. The same methods which were used to reconstruct the pantheon in Ancient Egypt were well suited to drawing a map of the world, a world which in all its complexity is derived from a single divine source. As was argued in the previous part of this book, it was the polyonymic gene that gave rise to the new litanic genre. This should not, however, be seen as a restrictive measure, bringing the litany down to the level of a report on the current ontological knowledge, for the concentric and hierarchical space-time was not only a matter of ontology and its arrangement did not only apply to the world of beings. In fact, the space-time extended over phenomena of all kinds that were derived from God, such as feelings, spiritual experiences, attitudes, behaviors and even actions, including both joyful and mournful events, which were conveyed through the chairetismic and ektenial genes, respectively. The mutual exclusiveness of these feelings, as well as the fundamental gap between the two existentialist genes and the essentialist polyonymic gene, did not prevent their contribution to a common worldview, a worldview in which absolutely all the elements, even those that are mutually exclusive or cannot be examined on the same plane of reference, owe their existence to the divine rays. Litanic repetitiveness is employed even within contradictory elements, which seems as paradoxical a feature as the geometry of the circle. This is not to say, however, that the poet who takes up the litanic genre becomes automatically entangled in a knot of contradictions. It is true that there are prayers, such as the Litany of Loreto, which combine all the three genes, but it is also notable that the writers of many other prayers employ the “cross-section technique,” which 272

allows them to focus on one aspect of reality alone and draw upon only one or two of the traditions associated with particular genes. This selective approach toward the space-time resulted in a change in the balance of influence among the genes. The more often the litanic genes were treated as expressions of the various aspects of the world, the more the polyonymic gene lost its primacy and became reduced to the role of being only one of the three possible genes used in the litanic genre. The “circle sector technique” and the “cross-section technique” could also be used simultaneously, which explains why during the fifteen hundred years in which the litany was present in Europe, the genre produced poems that were very different in terms of content as well as tone. Apart from the catalogs of saints that were extremely inclusive, as exemplified by the Litany of the Saints, there are also works which are devoted to the praise of a single person, such as the poem by Thomas Watson. By the same token, one poem could enumerate significant events from the history of salvation, whereas another could be based on an individual’s private life. Some poets, such as Robert Herrick in His Letanie to the Holy Spirit, addressed their prayers to God; others, such as Henry Vaughan in the passage quoted below, immersed themselves in the natural world: The Dust, of which I am a part; The Stones, much softer than my heart; The drops of rain, the sighs of wind, The Stars to which I am stark blind; The Dew thy herbs drink up by night, The beams they warm them at i’ th’ light.51

This variety of themes and attitudes seems to result from a combination of the two techniques, the “circle sector technique” and the “cross-section technique.” Even though the techniques are focused on single sectors or specific aspects of the space-time, respectively, it is by means of these sectors and aspects that the litany can govern so many phenomena of the world.

8.3.4.2  Non-Litanic Enumerations The wide spectrum of litanic themes and the differing approaches does not mean that the term litany can be applied to any kind of enumeration which appears in a certain work. As was demonstrated at the beginning of subchapter 8.3.3, the generic criteria are not fulfilled by a text composed entirely of one-word 51 Henry Vaughan, “Repentance,” in Elizabeth Holmes, Henry Vaughan and the Hermetic Philosophy (New York: Haskell House, 1966): 9.

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elements. Another convention which appears to be essentially incompatible with the litanic philosophy is a figure called the epiploce: Złoty pierścień ułowiono. Przez ten pierścień woda bieży, pod tą wodą trawka leży, po tej trawie chodzą pawie, a te pawie panna pasie.52 [A golden ring has just been angled. / And through this ring the water flows, / This water flows where short grass grows, / Upon this grass some peacocks go / These peacocks are by maiden pastured.]

In this Polish folk poem, the theme undertaken in the initial line does not conclude with the end of the line, for the word “ring,” which is repeated in the second line ensures its continuation; likewise, the noun “water,” which is used in the second line, reappears in the third; the motif of “grass,” which first appears in the third line, is developed in the fourth, and the motif of the “peacocks,” introduced in the fourth line, is carried on in the fifth. Even though all the concatenating words are nouns, there seems to be no analogy between them that would point to a single source of the space-time. It is precisely for this reason that an epiploce cannot be classified as an example of litanic verse. Another convention which does not belong to the litanic genre is the paired enumeration of beings. This convention, too, is governed by its own space-time, which is not concentric, for its depiction of the world is on principle divided into two opposites and, thus, all that exists does so by means of analogy to or contrast with other beings. The two opposites may appear in alternating order, as is the case with love and jealousy in Ludovico Ariosto’s Madrigal 25: Sí come a primavera è dato il verno, cosí compagna è gelosia d’amore, lui in paradiso e lei nata in inferno; lui di dolci desir accende il core, lei d’amaro sospetto poi l’aggiaccia, e chi vive per l’un per l’altro more. Lui con speranza mostra lieta faccia, lei con desperazion trista ti affronta, lui cerca di piacer, lei che dispiaccia.53

52 Polish folk poem in Słownik terminów literackich [Dictionary of Literary Terms], ed. Janusz Sławiński (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1998): 257. 53 Ludovico Ariosto, Madrigal 25, in Opere, ed. Mario Santoro (Torino: Unione TipograficoEditrice Torinese, 1989): 318–319.

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[As spring is given after winter, / so jealousy accompanies love, / love in paradise, and jealousy was born in hell; / one through sweet desire enkindles the heart, / another soon freezes it with bitter suspicion, / so that he who lives by one, dies by another. / One with hope shows its happy face, / another with desperate sadness turns to you, / one tries to please, another displease.]

or youth and age in one of the poems from The Passionate Pilgrim: Crabbèd age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasance, Age is full of care; Youth like summer morn, Age like winter weather; Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare; Youth is full of sport, Age’s breath is short; Youth is nimble, Age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, Age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and Age is tame.54

The presentation of the second element may also follow an extensive description of the first, as is the case in the twelfth poem from Évariste de Parny’s cycle entitled Les Déguisements de Vénus (The Disguises of Venus): Un baiser produit son réveil; Un baiser étouffe ses plaintes; Un baiser adoucit ses craintes; Un autre cause un long soupir; Un autre allume le désir; Un autre achève le plaisir, Et lentement la fait mourir.55 [It is the kiss that causes her awakening; / It is the kiss that prevents her complaints; / It is the kiss that softens her fears; / Something else causes a long sigh; / Something else stirs up a desire; / Something else ends a pleasure / And slowly makes her die.]

The technique of cataloging the world by means of such pairs probably dates back to the pre-history period, a fact which is indicated by the words selected for repetition within this convention. Personal pronouns, such as lui (he) vs. lei (she) from Ariosto’s poem, or a similar opposition of io (I) vs. tu (thou) from Giambattista Marino’s sonnet “Ad un cadavere” are not what we primarily have in mind. To begin with, examples should include words such as the following pair una (one) vs. autra (the other), which first appeared in Provençal poetry (amongst

54 William Shakespeare, The Complete Sonnets and Poems, ed. Colin Burrow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002): 353. 55 Évariste de Parny, Élégies et poésies diverses (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1862): 277.

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others, in the poem “Las amairitz, qui encolpar las vòl” by Pèire Cardenal), and was subsequently carried over as un vs. autre into numerous French poems (by Clément Marot, Pierre de Ronsard, Olivier de Magny,56 and others). Attention is drawn to this specific pair for, according to Jan Gonda, a distinguished Dutch professor of Indo-European studies, “balanced structures and symmetrical word groups”57 constitute a characteristic trait of Indo-European thinking about the world, with a dichotomous image of the surrounding reality inscribed in the grammatical system of these languages. The expression on the one hand… and on the other, for instance, excludes in advance the possibility of a third or fourth hand. Likewise, structures such as either… or, both… and, not only… but also, and many others, assume that the external reality is an extension of our twosided body, with natural phenomena and everyday affairs being imagined in binary, dichotomous pairs. This kind of interpretation reduces our decisions to a twofold possibility, not unlike that faced by a traveler at a junction, who has to decide which of the two paths to take. It may be the case that a dichotomous way of looking at the world is natural to man, for the Bible also presents examples of binary oppositions, including, for example, that between the sheep and the goats, as depicted in the Day of Judgement in Matthew 25:32–33. The opposition of the pronoun un vs. autre was used, amongst others, by a French poet who lived at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Lazare de Selve, in his poetic commentaries on the Bible, in order to emphasize the binary dichotomy between the rich man and Lazar (in the poem “Sur l’Évangile du mauvais riche”), the sellers and buyers driven out of the temple (“Sur l’Évangile du vendeurs et acheteurs”), as well as between Jesus and the Good Thief (“Sur le dialogue de Jesus-Christ et du Bon Larron”).58 Yet despite the numerous references to the un vs. autre dichotomy in the Bible and in later Christian poetry, this pair of words is in no way related to the litany. This is because the litany is not based on a concept of space-time in which two kingdoms—for example, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan—stand face-to-face with their armed forces. On the contrary, the litanic space-time is 56 We mean the poems with the following titles and incipits: Clément Marot’s “Sonnet de la différence du Roy et de l’empereur,” Pierre de Ronsard’s “Amour et Mars sont presque d’une sorte,” Olivier de Magny’s “L’un ventera l’or frisé de ces tresses.” 57 Cf. Jan Gonda, “Balanced Structures and Symmetrical Word Groups,” in Stylistic Repetition in the Veda (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1959): 52–86. 58 Cf. Lazare de Selve, Les Œuvres spirituelles sur les Évangiles des jours de Caresme et sur les festes de l’année, ed. Lance K. Donaldson-Evans (Genève: Droz, 1983): 54, 65, 97.

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concentric in nature, with room for only a single kingdom and a viewpoint from a single perspective that is focused on God. In this respect, the litany follows the words of Paul from 2 Corinthians 1:18–19: “But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea.” Thus, the litany depicts goodness, but excludes its binary opposite. It is true that litanic prayers describe suffering, danger or destruction, which are often the focus of ektenial supplications. However, the mere fact that they become part of the litanic componential scheme proves that the consequences of evil are not seen as autonomous, but are treated as a starting point for the work which needs to be done in order to bring man closer to God.

8.3.4.3  Theological Consequences The third conclusion to be drawn from the analysis of the litanic space-time concerns its theological consequences. Since the litanic space-time has been infused with the idea of its divine origins, no litany can exist without either a direct or oblique reference to God. Readers familiar with modern poetry may easily question our assumption and provide examples of poems promoting, for example, satanic worship. Therefore, let us reiterate the fact that the generic form of the litany possesses its own semantic content, which is independent of the meaning of individual words, but is based on the use of the litanic structure. When the primacy of God is questioned in the text of a litany, this might result in a conflict between the word and the poem’s rhythmical structure or—to be more precise—between the semantics of the word and the semantics of the rhythm,59 and yet even in this situation, the generic space-time—which is always rooted in God—will not be questioned. God’s presence is not only implied in the litany, but is always given primacy of place, even when His name does not appear in the poem. Regardless of whether the enumerated items include Mary’s virtues, the events in a saint’s life, a woman’s graces or the beauty of the natural world, God will always be treated as the source of the space-time in which all the enumerated phenomena take place. The sine qua non condition for His silent presence—and for the existence of a litany—is, however, to preserve the tension between what is repeatable and what is changeable, between the central dot and the circumference.

59 For more details cf. Witold Sadowski, “Le texte en dialogue avec son genre: Les litanies de Laforgue,” Poétique 179 (2016): 89–107.

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Contrary to what we might be led to assume, the fact that God is an irremovable subject does not mean that the litanic worldview is synonymous with the Christian faith. Even though the Christian message about the relation between God and the world is fully adopted in the litany and the biblical images of the vine, the multiplication of the loaves, the chief cornerstone, etc. are reflected in its versification structure, the generic form does not seem to encompass Christian theology in its entirety. Instead, the litany is marked by a selective use of Christian theology as is best illustrated by its helplessness in expressing the concept of the Holy Trinity, for the geometric structure of the circle allows us to grasp the general relationship between God and the world, but does not provide the means to penetrate God’s internal life. The one redeeming fact is that among literary genres there are no conventions which are able to provide an insight into the nature of the Holy Trinity. Having said that, the monocentric worldview characteristic of the litany, not surprisingly, may have aroused suspicion within the church during the period when the dogma of the Holy Trinity was questioned. In fact, the genre of the Christian litany came into existence when a significant portion of Europe was governed by Burgundians, Lombards, Goths, Ostrogoths and Visigoths, that is, peoples who embraced the Arian faith, a faith which rejected the dogma of the Holy Trinity. This may explain the rationale behind the medieval practice of starting the Litany of the Saints with a clear confession of faith in the Three Divine Persons: Pater de celis, Deus, miserere nobis, Fili, Redemptor mundi, Deus, miserere nobis, Spiritus sancte, Deus, miserere nobis.60

It is notable how the passage quoted above refers to the dogma of the Holy Trinity. This introductory prayer helps to underline the difference between the internal features of the genre, a genre which is infused with a belief in a single source of the space-time, and the external contribution of words—in this case, words reflecting the Nicene Creed. It can clearly be seen that even the most precise and unequivocal verbal expression does not provide the litany with the means to grasp the mystery of the Holy Trinity. As demonstrated in the passage above, the litany is not able to overcome its limitations. The names of the Three Persons of God draw attention to the center of the circle in the same way as is subsequently achieved by the names of the enumerated saints, almost as if there was no significant ontological difference between these two groups. To explain the 60 Cf. English Monastic Litanies of the Saints After 1100, ed. Nigel J. Morgan (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 2012), vol. 1: 104.

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internal unity of “the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19)—the three persons whose relation is based on their divine essence rather than their dependence on the Creator—is beyond the capability of the litanic genre. The closest we can get to grasping this mystery is to be informed of the privileged position of the Divine Persons in the hierarchy of beings, which is what the writers of canonical litanies do by enumerating them in the opening lines of their prayers and reserving for them the responsorial formula “miserere nobis,” which differs from “ora pro nobis,” the formula directed to the saints in the following parts of the text.

8.4  The Communication System within the Litany In the next stage of our considerations of the litanic space-time, the focus will move to the participants in the communication system within the litany, that is, its author and the addressee. The cosmic vision of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areo­ pagite, which was examined earlier, has a number of ontological consequences, one of them being that the litanic worldview cannot be restricted to these two participants. Even in a situation in which the author and the addressee are the only individuals who appear in the poem under specific names, the poet’s apostrophe to the addressee is always furnished with additional semantic value. This value is based on the awareness that litanic communication also takes into account other participants in the cosmic dialogue, who will be referred to as the superaddressee, the authorized speaking voice and the intermediaries. All these participants will be characterized below.

8.4.1  The Superaddressee As can be concluded from subchapter 8.3, God does not always have to be cast in the role of the addressee in the litanic prayer, but He can definitely be referred to as the superaddressee, to use a term coined by Mikhail Bakhtin. By superaddressee we mean a person in whose presence the communication takes place, around whom it is centered and on whose judgment it relies. According to Bakhtin’s assumptions, the superaddressee is a silent witness to each utterance, for the speaking subject always counts on being understood by a higher power, whether that is society, posterity, history or God.61

61 Cf. Mikhail Bakhtin, “The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology, and the Human Sciences,” in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, trans. Vern W. McGee (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986): 126–127; Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson

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In comparison to other genres, the litany exhibits precise constraints concerning the superaddressee, one of them being the fact that this role may be assigned only to the Creator of the very same space-time in which the communication takes place. Such constraints are not our personal interpretation, an interpretation inspired by the Bakhtinian concept of the superaddressee, but are in fact reinforced by the semantic content inscribed in the generic space-time. The position of the superaddressee seems better suited than that of the addressee to fulfill the geometric principles of the circle, with its central point which determines the circumference, but which does not itself belong to it. It is for this reason that God is the superaddressee of the litany, even when He also becomes the ordinary addressee of the litanic apostrophes. We recognize Him as the addressee by the grammatical form “thou,” and as the superaddressee by the oneness—manyness principle, which is characteristic of the litanic structure.

8.4.2  The Authorized Speaking Voice However, it is not only God that is assigned a peculiar position within the genre. The author’s status also seems unique. Although the authors of litanic verses include distinguished European poets, the author within the litanic worldview is always located in the background. This happens because the poets who decide to embrace the litanic form forfeit some of their property rights regarding the poems, simultaneously acknowledging their willingness to represent someone who is situated in a higher position than they are. Their role is downgraded to the extent that they can only fulfill their own ambitions by acting as commentators on their own texts, a function which will be addressed in the final part of this book. The subject transferred to the foreground in the litanic worldview is not the author, but someone of a higher order, who will be referred to as the authorized speaking voice. The form indicating the presence of this specific voice in the communicative act is as paradoxical as the position of God, even though the paradox is of a very different kind. The question of who the authorized speaking voice actually is will be addressed based on a re-examination of the Litany of the Saints. So far, our attention has been focused on those aspects of the space-time that in lines A were expressed through the left-hand side of the call, usually sung or recited by the priest, and including only an address to a saint, without the response Ora pro nobis, which is most often recited by the choir. As has been explained in subchapter 8.3.1, the left-hand side of lines A is limited to two components, “The Superaddressee,” in Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990): 135–136.

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the first of which—the adjective Sancte—directs attention to the divine source of all blessing, whereas the second focuses on particular individuals, in whom the divine grace is manifested. Similarly to the other examples analyzed so far, in the Litany of the Saints, too, we witness a centrifugal movement of holiness that radiates incessantly from the center and extends over the catalog of saints. It is worth noting that this centrifugal movement, which moves our thoughts away from what is simple and repeatable to what is complicated and varied, is not continued in the response Ora pro nobis. This is because the three-word refrain does not represent the next step toward greater variety. On the contrary, the apostrophe leads us back to the same source which gives rise to all the enumerated beings: Sancte Petre, ora pro nobis. Sancte Paule, ora pro nobis. Sancte Andrea, ora pro nobis. Sancte Iohannes, ora pro nobis. Sancte Philippe, ora pro nobis. Sancte Bartholomee, ora pro nobis.62

The refrain is, as is well known, a primal and universal form. In the Litany of the Saints, however, it has its own philosophy. If we were to pinpoint the roots of this philosophy, we could venture that the change from a centrifugal to a centripetal movement is a logical consequence of Pseudo-Dionysius’s cosmology. This is because his vision of the universe not only presupposes a hierarchical arrangement of the inhabitants of heaven and earth, but also extends to the different directions in which their voices move. Following this interpretation, the difference between descending and ascending voices can be perceived through a comparison with the mechanical laws of nature. The descending voices may be seen as distributing the divine grace downward so that it spreads over the space-time in a manner similar to the way waves spread out over the surface of water after a stone is thrown into it. The descending grace finds a resonance in the ascending voices, which carry both thanksgiving and petitions from earthly men to the heavenly palace. Seen from this perspective, the dialogue between God and men does not involve the two sides systematically changing places, with men taking the central position within the space-time the moment they begin to speak and even gaining priority over God Himself. To continue the previous analogy, the answer men give to God could be compared to when a wave is reflected and would involve directing upward that energy which had previously come from above. Thus, if the descending 62 Warren, “Un monument inédit…,” 89.

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voices are not unlike the output of the initial wave in terms of their impact, the ascending voices seem analogous to the workings of a reflected wave. This leads us to the conclusion that an ontological difference becomes apparent between the voices that carry the content of the Revelation and those that form the reaction to the Revelation. Regardless of whether or not this kind of reasoning can be ascribed to PseudoDionysius, it certainly applies to the litany. Ora pro nobis is a response not only in the sense that it is recited by a different speaker, the choir rather than the priest, but also in the sense that it leads to a change in the direction of the force vectors operating within the space-time, which means that the centrifugal movement gives way to centripetal movement and the voice of the Revelation finds its resonance. It is no coincidence that in the Litany of the Saints those who give the response are determined not by means of a singular pronoun, but by a plural pronoun, for they need to be equipped with special powers if they take such a demanding task upon themselves. On the one hand, they are intensely ascetic in that they are deprived of all aspirations to create the cosmic order and their role is reduced to that of transmitters of what is given in the space-time. On the other hand, they are presented as doers of great deeds, who attempt to accomplish a task which mirrors the power of God and who in their prayers are able to hand the space-time back to God. It seems very clear that within the framework of Christian theology, the only community authorized to perform this function is the church, understood as “the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:27), a body which is incarnated in the same space-time which is to be given back to God. The popularity of the Litany of the Saints in the Middle Ages was a consequence of the assumption that in this unique text the theology of “the body of Christ” is translated into a form which is graspable to the human mind. Thus, the litany was in fact an undated and anonymous prayer whose place of origin was unknown, a prayer which was preserved in countless variants and which is expressed not through the words of an individual, but through the words of the church. It is beyond human power to transcend the space-time in order to turn the switch in the mechanism of the world from a centrifugal movement to a centripetal movement. An individual who recites the Litany of the Saints joins in the activities of the church, for it is exclusively within the church and through the words of the church that we can direct our prayer upward. The church alone is fully authorized to speak and it is also the sole intermediary with regard to the superaddressee, for only by following the vectors set in the space-time of the church can the prayer addressed to individual saints reach its destination, that is, God. 282

At the beginning of this chapter, we evoked Vladimir Propp’s work concerning the epic, paying particular attention to the thesis that it is to this genre that our civilization owes the concept of the nation. Now we can add that the litanic genre raised the awareness of another two equally complicated concepts among the Europeans, namely the concept of concentric and hierarchical space-time, and the concept of the church which does not form a national community, but which nevertheless aspires to the role of a City of God, stretching from earth to heaven, with its own subjectivity that exceeds the sum of its constitutive members. There is a poem by Charles of Orléans, a fifteenth-century author, in which the church reveals its paradoxical features. The poem is composed of five tenline stanzas and a five-line envoi. Its litanic features have been extensively examined by Magdalena Kowalska,63 who draws attention to an interesting reversal in the order of the litanic components—namely the supplications precede the invocations. What is even more interesting is another of the poem’s features, as discussed by Kowalska: in the first stanza those to whom requests are made in an intercessional prayer for peace on earth are Mary and all the saints. From the second stanza, however, the same prayer is extended to the inhabitants of the earth, so that the boundary is blurred between the heavenly beings, who pray for us, and the earthly beings, who are the objects of the prayer. This allows the latter group to perform two roles simultaneously: the role of those who ask for the prayer and those who are asked for it. In other words, the earthly beings are cast in the role of those who intercede for their brethren, yet simultaneously as the very same brethren who themselves require intercession. This is because the church prays for itself, in the sense that it is a community of pilgrims journeying to heaven, yet the church also prays through its own intercession, for it is only the church—seen as a complete entity—that has the privilege of transporting the petitions through the consecutive circles of the space-time to the throne of God. The ambiguous role of the “roys, ducs, comtes, barons pleins de noblesse,”64 and other social groups enumerated in the poem of Charles of Orléans, not only reinforces the paradoxes which manifest themselves when we try to be more precise about the role of the church, but also sheds light on the position of the author, whose place in the communication system of the poem is among earthly men. He does not refer to himself in any way and he is not the creator of the world, in whose imagination the depicted beings would take shape. Nor is he presented as

63 Cf. LV 3: 96–98. 64 Charles of Orléans, “Priez pour paix, le vray tresor de joye,” in Charles Bruneau, Charles d’Orléans et la poésie aristocratique (Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1973): 30.

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the indivisible source of all the words that are spoken in the poem. All such royal prerogatives are granted to God. Likewise, the circumference does not seem to provide room for the author. Indeed, in the verse by Charles of Orléans his name is not to be found anywhere in the enumerative structure, with even the role of the last enumerated being not belonging to him. The author’s contribution to the poem is signaled only in the apostrophe, which governs the enumerated elements, that is, the cosmic beings. Just as in the history of the world there are no events which do not originate from the divine source and which do not resemble a ray radiating from the center of the space-time, so in the litanies there is no other way in which the church can turn to God and in which all beings can return to the center than through the apostrophe which is heard in the voice reciting the poem.

8.4.3  The Semantic Content of the Apostrophe The significance of the apostrophe for the litanic worldview is manifestly demonstrated in a work of another French poet from the second half of the sixteenth century, Gabrielle de Coignard. The left-hand side of the line, which is a symbolic representation of God’s unity, does not contain His name, but the pronoun “Vous”: Vous estes mort pour moy, ô Sauveur de ma vie, Vous estes mort pour moy, ô desir de mon coeur, Vous estes mort pour moy, de la mort le vainqueur, Vous estes mort pour moy d’une amour infinie. Vous avez surmonté toute force ennemie, Vous avez triomphé, ô parfaicte valeur, Vous nous avez sauvez du gouffre de douleur, Vous avez accablé l’inique tyrannie.65

In Marian poetry, a similar role was played by the anaphoras on “Ave,” which were used in place of Mary’s name. The greeting “Ave,” which first appeared in the dialogue between God and Mary—a dialogue which in Luke 1:28 was effected through Gabriel—in European culture became the symbol of a dialogic relation between man and God, mediated through Mary. Thus, returning to the Marian prayer discussed in subchapter 8.3.2, our considerations regarding the communication system in the litany lead us to another answer to the question of why the verb “Ave” was used in the first component, that is, the component which emphasizes the central position of God within the space-time. It would be wrong to treat “Ave” as a

65 Gabrielle de Coignard, “70,” in Spiritual Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans. Melanie E. Gregg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004): 104–105.

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conventional way of greeting Mary, for “Ave” embodies the voice of God which descends from Him through the Archangel Gabriel and reaches man via Mary. When man adopts the greeting in this prayer, “Ave” finds its resonance and is returned to God—again via Mary—a transaction which is possible by virtue of the dialogic relation between the authorized speaking voice and the superaddressee, between the sphere of manyness and the sphere of oneness, and between the circumference of the circle and the central dot of the same circle. The apostrophe is not as necessary a component of the litanic space-time as the semantic componential scheme. The moment it is used, however, it assimilates the features characteristic of the first component. It follows, therefore, that it does not have to be, as is the case in Coignard’s poem, formally directed to God in order to become an expression of the principle that the manyness of the world in its entirety is oriented toward the Creator. As a consequence, the authors of the litanies can address their poems to various objects, such as his queen, as Philip Sidney does: Your state is great, your greatness is your shield, Your face hurts oft, but still it doth delight, Your mind is wise, your wisdom makes you mild.66

The addressees may also be mythological figures, such as those evoked by Thenot, a pastoral character from a sonnet by Olivier de Magny: A toy, dit-il, Silvan, une pleine escuëlle Je donray de fromaige et de bon macquerons, A toy grande Palés deux paires de chappons, A toy blonde Cerés cent espiz en javelle, A toy Faune gaillard des œufs cuits à la poile, Et roustiz et bouilliz deux cens de beaux marrons,67 [For you, Sylvan, he says, a full bowl / I will give of cheese and good pasta, / For you, great Pales, two pairs of capons, / For you, blond Ceres, a hundred ears of grain, / For you, lively Faun, eggs fried in a pan, / And roasted, and cooked, two hundred beautiful chestnuts].68

Litanic verse may also be addressed to books, as is the case in an eighteenthcentury poem by a Russian author, Stephan Javorsky.69 As litanic verse is read, 66 Philip Sidney, “Most Gracious Sovereign,” in Selected Prose and Poetry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983): 8. 67 Olivier de Magny, Sonnet 144, in Les Souspirs, ed. David Wilkin (Genève: Droz, 1978): 138. 68 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. 69 Cf. Jacek Głażewski, “A Separate World. Russian Poetry Between the Native and the Universal,” LV 1: 271.

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regardless of who the formal addressee of the poem is and whether it is animate or inanimate, our attention is not only focused on the addressee, for the genre causes our focus to travel much further. Apostrophes appear so often in the litanies because the genre reveals the fervent longing of man to be transported beyond the domain of incidental relations with the ever-changing addressees that life brings, and to be elevated to the level of a dialogic relation, in which we face the superaddressee, and join our voice with the authorized speaker. The history of European civilization is filled with a dream to participate in the highest level of dialogue between the church and God, as evidenced by the vast production of litanic poems, poems which enliven this dialogue, either in an overt or covert manner, through the use of a great number of possible themes.

8.4.4 Mediation Our examination of the communication system in the litany would not be complete without a few words on the prepositions and conjunctions which are typical of the genre, as they also reveal specific properties of the litanic space-time. As has already been noted, in the Litany of the Saints, the kind of monosyllable used in the anaphora—either ab, per or ut—determines which section of the prayer it is: B1, B2 or C. It is necessary to mention that the preposition in also appears occasionally. Furthermore, there are texts in which the conjunction ut opens a subordinate clause that is preceded by a main clause beginning with the preposition pro. We are not going to discuss all the anaphoric monosyllables that appear in the litanies, but instead focus on the two prepositions which are most interesting from our perspective, namely the prepositions per and pro. They form a pair that gives verbal expression to the idea of mediation, which results from the hierarchical space-time characteristic of the litany. Initially, we will discuss the monosyllable per, around which section B2 of the Litany of the Saints is structured, as can be seen below: Per misterium sancte incarnationis tue, libera nos, Domine. Per passionem et crucem tuam, libera [nos, Domine]. Per gloriosam resurrectionem tuam, libera nos, Domine. Per admirabilem ascensionem tuam, libera [nos, Domine]. Per gratiam sancti Spiritus paracliti, libera [nos, Domine].70

70 Cf. English Monastic Litanies…, 106.

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In this passage, the preposition per serves to recall the most profound events in the story of the salvation, as recorded in the Bible. Since in the Litany of the Saints section B2 is situated between the petitions enumerated in sections B1 and C, it may be said that the events described in section B2 provide a guarantee that the petitions will reach God’s Majesty. Section B2 may also be set against section A, for it seems that in both cases some form of mediation plays a crucial role. While in section A the intermediaries between mankind and God are the saints residing in different circles of heaven, in section B2 the prayer is mediated per Christum, that is, per Christ’s work of salvation, but also per enumerating His deeds of redemption in the passage quoted above. In this way, the preposition per highlights the fact that in a hierarchical space-time, communication cannot be effected directly. This conclusion is valid with respect to both the relation between its participants and the different stages of moving closer to an understanding of the meaning. On the one hand, the litany is not only an utterance which is transmitted from sender to receiver, but it is also transmitted through intermediary bodies. On the other hand, in the litany the signifying aspect of the utterance does not immediately reveal the signified. To illustrate this point, between what happened in front of the apostles’ eyes in the visible space of the circumference and the actual meaning of these events, which is known to God alone, there are intermediary stages, represented by sentences with an anaphora on per. As they are recited, we are elevated semantically, that is, brought closer to the meaning, but in rhythmical terms we are made aware of the distance we have to travel in order to grasp the ultimate sense. The anaphora on per, which uncovers the way in which language functions in the relation between man and God, was detached from the Litany of the Saints and became an independent convention as early as the Middle Ages. The AngloSaxon Book of Cerne, for instance, contains the prayer “Alma confessio,” which divides a personal story into single events that extend over fourteen lines and are joined by a common anaphora on “Peccavi per” (“I have sinned by”).71 In a different manuscript, dating from the tenth century, the same prayer—attributed to Patrick, Apostle of Ireland—contains as many as forty-eight calls.72 In subsequent centuries, the convention experienced further growth in popularity. In the late Middle Ages, in a French poem by Eustache Deschamps, a question 71 Cf. “Alma confessio,” in The Prayer Book of Aedeluald the Bishop, Commonly Called ‘The Book Of Cerne, ed. Arthur B. Kuypers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902): 97. 72 “Confessio Sancti Patricii Episcopi,” in The Irish Liber Hymnorum, eds. John Henry Bernard and Robert Atkinson (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1898), vol. 2: 214–215.

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that is asked “Par qui fusmes nous secourus?” (“By whom were we helped?”) is answered in the following way: Par la char Dieu qu’on achata, Par la lance dont fut ferus, Par le sang que Dieux degouta, Par la char dont Dieux s’esconsa Ou corps de la vierge Marie, Par la char que Dieux ot percie, Par cellui qui en croix pandit, Par le sang que Dieux espandit, Par la mort dont Dieux vint a vie.73 [By the flesh of God which we crushed, / By the spear with which he was pierced, / By the blood which God poured out, / By the flesh thanks to which God hid himself / In the body of the Virgin Mary, / By the flesh in which God was broken, / By him who was spread on the cross, / By the blood which God spilled, / By the death due to which God came a life.]

From the same period, the structure with the preposition per began to be used with reference to persons other than Christ. It was first applied to Mary, as can be seen in a poem from a twelfth-century manuscript quoted by Meersseman: Singularis tua laus, Maria, dinoscitur, Per quam magnis homo donis perfruitur. Per te mundus tenebris exuitur, Per te mundi princeps foris mittitur, Per te mortis potestas destruitur, Per te iugum sathane conteritur, Per te ovis perdita reducitur,74 [Your unusual glory is discernible, Mary, / By whom man enjoys great gifts. / By you the world is freed from darkness, / By you the prince of the world is sent away, / By you the death’s power is overthrown, / By you Satan’s yoke is broken, / By you a lost sheep is found back],

Over the course of time, the convention per also came to be used in love poetry, probably on many occasions for a humorous purpose. This seems to be the case in the Renaissance poetry of Guy de Tours:

73 Eustache Deschamps, “Balade,” in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Auguste-Henry-Édouard Queux de Saint-Hilaire (Paris: Libraire de Firmin Didot, 1878), vol. 1: 272. 74 HAA 1: 186.

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Par vos beaux yeux où la délicatesse Rit comme en ceux de la belle Venus, Par vos cheveux brunettement menus, Par l’embonpoint de vostre gentillesse, Par vos propos si remplis de sagesse, Par vos beaux doigts legerement charnus, Dont mille cœurs sont prins et detenus, Par vostre port tout remply d’allegresse, Par vostre joue à la rose pareille, Par vostre bouche où la mignarde abeille Forme en tout temps son nectar savoureux, Par nos Amours, ma Dame, je vous jure Qu’à vostre honneur je ne fis oncq injure! Qui le feroit seroit bien malheureux.75 [By your beautiful eyes where a delicacy / rejoice like in those of beautiful Venus, / By your hair that is brunettely slim, / By abundance of your kindness, // By your speech so filled with wisdom, / By your beautiful fingers slightly fleshy, / for which thousand hearts are taken and imprisoned, // By your behavior all filled with elation, // By your cheek like a rose, / By your mouth where a cute bee / constantly forms its delicious nectar, // By our passions, my Lady, I swear you / That I never insulted your honor! / Whoever do it he will be deeply unhappy.]

The fact that the per type of anaphora was introduced to love poetry paved the way for further experiments, even the most unexpected. In a seventeenthcentury verse “La Débauche” (“Debauchery”) by Marc-Antoine Girard de SaintAmant, for instance, the anaphora per is used forty times and each time it is directed to Bacchus.76 As is underlined by the poem’s central theme, in this case also the convention seems to be given a humorous tinge. This shows that even those poems which did not contain direct references to the Christian religion, but blatantly evoked pagan mythologies, preserved the Christian space-time intact, a space-time which emphasized the mediatory aspect of communication and often also its multi-personal character. While the preposition per belongs to an utterance which is directed not only to, but also through a person, the preposition pro allows the possibility of speaking to and on behalf of a person. This extremely unusual way of expressing supplication, 75 Guy de Tours, Sonnet 24, in Premières oeuvres & Souspirs amoureux, ed. Prosper Blanchemain (Paris: Léon Willem, 1878): 15–16. 76 Cf. Marc-Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant, “La Débauche,” in Libertins du XVIIe siècle, ed. Jacques Prévot (Paris: Gallimard, 2004), vol. 2: 1380–1381.

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which is not to be found in the majority of the literary genres, certainly deserves our attention. The pro type of preposition was used, amongst others, by a French poet, Jean de La Ceppède, in Sonnet 12, in which the anaphora “pour” (“for”) is used to commend to God “bad children,” “bad lords” and “bad soldiers”: Pour les mauvais enfans, voir saisir le bon Pere: Pour les mauvais valets, le bon Maistre attacher: Voir le bon Capitaine en très-grand vitupere, Pour les mauvais soldats, sous les fers tresbucher.77 [For bad children, to look at our Father, / For bad servants, to adhere the good Master, / To look at the good Captain in your great guilt, / For bad soldiers, to fall down under your irons.]

“Enfans,” “valets” and “soldats” are neither the senders nor the recipients of the petition, nor even the intermediaries. Likewise, they do not belong to the sonnet’s underlying theme. Instead, they seem to play the role of a unique subject, who neither gives nor receives messages, but who remains a bizarre and unexplained phenomenon as long as we disregard the hierarchical space-time, in which the higher-order beings assume communicative responsibility for their lower-order counterparts. This is because in the litany we never simply speak on our own behalf, but rather our voices join in the cosmic dialogue that takes place between the authorized speaking voice and the superaddressee. In this way, we become part of a larger whole, but at the same time our voices act as conduits for the voices of the lower beings for whom we are responsible, who are subject to our voices, and who—from this perspective—are part of us. This shows how the prepositions per and pro contribute to the communication system within the litany, a system whose main assumption is that the most profound dialogue takes place between the authorized speaking voice and the superaddressee. This is inscribed in the generic structure of the litany. In this sense, it is neither introduced nor managed by the author, but merely exists within the poem. The dialogue between the authorized speaking voice and the superaddressee provides the context for the more or less individualized utterance of the poet, which can also take the form of a dialogic address, but this would create a different kind of dialogue This dialogue is not inscribed in the generic structure, but manifests itself in the pattern of apostrophic calls enumerated in the text. Similarly to a poem which seeks its place within the genre, the author’s call to the addressee also seeks its own place within the universal 77 Jean de La Ceppède, Sonnet 12, in Les Theoremes sur le sacré mystère de nostre redemption, ed. Yvette Quenot (Paris: Nizet, 1988), vol. 1: 91.

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dialogue between the authorized speaking voice and the superaddressee. This search is expressed through the litanic prepositions per and pro, which—from two opposite positions—indicate the communicative hierarchy among the inhabitants of the space-time. While the preposition per transmits our petition to those who are above us, the preposition pro makes us alert to the responsibility we have for those who are below.

8.5  The Issue of Time The concluding section of this chapter will be devoted to an examination of the role of time in the litanic worldview. This issue will be discussed separately because in European philosophy time was always a more demanding phenomenon than space. An observant reader may have noted that the analogy between the litany and the Gothic rose windows directed our attention to space rather than time. Thus, it was possible to recreate the structure of the universe as it is proclaimed in the litanies without considering whether this structure permits historical changes and distortions. In fact, it could be suggested that in the analyzed genre, it was implied that time is apparently of no importance. Returning to the Bakhtinian theory of the chronotope, which has guided our thoughts in this chapter, let us ask the following question: does the litanic spacetime represent the same space-time which Bakhtin associated with the Divine Comedy?78 There is no denying that among the various kinds of space-times examined by the Russian philosopher, Dante’s poem seems, at least at first glance, to be the closest to the worldview we have been considering. It was in the Italian masterpiece that Bakhtin perceived the vision of a world that has its life and movement tensely strung along a vertical axis: nine circles of Hell beneath the earth, seven circles of Purgatory above them and above that ten circles of Paradise. Below, a crude materiality of people and things; above, only the Light and the Voice. The temporal logic of this vertical world consists in the sheer simultaneity of all that occurs (or “the coexistence of everything in eternity”). Everything that on earth is divided by time, here, in this verticality, coalesces into eternity, into pure simultaneous coexistence. Such divisions as time introduces—“earlier” and “later”—have no substance here; they must be ignored in order to understand this vertical world; everything must be perceived as being within a single time, that is, in the synchrony of a single moment; one must see this entire world as simultaneous.79

78 I wish to express my gratitude to Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz, whose question had an impact on the final shape of this paragraph. 79 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination…, 157.

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Before we answer the question of whether these words can be applied to the litany, let us concentrate on Bakhtin’s method of argumentation in the passage. A characteristic feature of the analytic method used by Bakhtin is the description of the Divine Comedy from an outsider’s perspective. The researcher reconstructs Dante’s space-time from the vantage point of an individual equipped with very different knowledge about the universe than that presented in the poem. Bakhtin examines the Dantean vision of the world against the background of his own generation’s knowledge, that is, knowledge based on the cause-and-effect relationships between events, events which transform the cosmic matter in a sequential and irreversible manner. Since Bakhtin does not find any signs of this modern historical approach in the Italian poem, he concludes that Dante sees temporal categories along a vertical axis in space. His conclusion would have been, however, different if the definitional criteria of time Bakhtin adopted in his analysis were rooted in medieval philosophy rather than in that of Hegel. As the Divine Comedy is not the object of our investigation, it is necessary to consider how this issue applies to the litany. In the litanic genre, the same principles which—from an outsider’s perspective—seemed to disregard time, from an insider’s perspective appear to underline how differently it is perceived. To simplify matters, we can say that in the litany time is understood differently than it is understood today. This difference in perception applies not only to time, but also to the space of the litanic world, which—likewise—does not correspond to an empirical experience of the world. The divine center of the litanic space is not situated in a place that can be marked by a milestone and charted, but it is an indivisible point from which infinity is derived. Accordingly, but quite paradoxically, the circles closest to God cannot in any way be accessed through the earthly experience of traveling, but only through being united with Him. Exactly the same paradoxical features are characteristic of the litanic time. Bakhtin may be right in seeing in it “the synchrony of a single moment,” provided that he is referring to the perfect indivisibility of the central monad. The synchrony in question is to be understood as a source of the temporal extent and it is through this kind of synchrony that eternity manifests itself in repeatability. Time in the litany is not subject to space and is not to be seen through space. Indeed, both time and space are governed by the same paradoxes of the circle. Perhaps for this very reason the litanic genre adopted a well-known motif, inspired by Ecclesiastes 3:1–8. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” as the biblical author says, evoking the symbolic number of the twenty-eight kinds of time. This passage was paraphrased by a thirteenth-century Italian poet, Enzo, King of Sardinia, in a sonnet which 292

is analyzed in Part IV of this book (subchapter 14.1). In Italy, at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the same motif became the object of artistic rivalry, as evidenced by the numerous poems with an anaphora on “col tempo” (“over time”). The challenge in this rivalry was to situate the enumeration inspired by Ecclesiastes within the framework of one of two petrified structures, either the sonnet—as in Enzo’s case—or the ottava rima. Poetic fashions are usually initiated by outstanding poets. In this case, however, the first participant in the artistic competition was a relatively unknown author, Serafino of L’Aquila, who is usually introduced in criticism as the promoter of Petrarchism. However, in the history of litanic verse, he was viewed as the role model for other poets, for it was a certain verse attributed to him, which is quoted below, that influenced Panfilo Sasso80 and Giovanni Antonio de Petrucci,81 so that they too composed their sonnets with an anaphora on “col tempo”: Col tempo passa gli anni, i mesi e l’ ore, Col tempo le riccheze, imperio e regno, Col tempo fama, onor, forteza e ingegno Col tempo gioventù con beltà more; Col tempo manca ciascun’ erba e fiore, Col tempo ogni arbor torna un secco legno, Col tempo passa guerra, ingiuria e sdegno, Col tempo fugge e parte ogni dolore; Col tempo el tempo chiar s’inturba e imbruna, Col tempo ogni piacer finisce e stanca, Col tempo el mar tranquillo ha gran fortuna; Col tempo in acqua vien la neve bianca, Col tempo perde suo splendor la luna, Ma in me già mai amor con tempo manca.82 [Over time years, months, hours pass, / Over time richness, empire, kingdom, / Over time fame, honor, fortitude, wit, / Over time youth and its beauty dies; // Over time each herb and flower disappears, / Over time every tree turns into dry wood, / Over time a war, an insult, an anger passes, / Over time every pain flees and departs; // Over time

80 Cf. Panfilo Sasso, Sonnet 19, in Poésie italienne de la Renaissance, ed. Guglielmo Gorni (Genève: Droz, 1999), vol. 2: 20–21. 81 Cf. Giovanni Antonio de Petrucci, Sonnet 74 “Ad Masi Acquosa lo conte de Policastro dice salute,” in Sonetti, ed. Emiliano Picchiorri (Roma: Salerno, 2013): 94–95. 82 Serafino of L’Aquila, Sonetto 19, in Le rime, ed. Mario Menghini (Bologna: Romagnoli–Dall’Acqua, 1894), vol. 1: 175. The poem is examined in detail in Sadowski, A Generic Worldview…, 370–373.

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even time hides itself and darkens, / Over time every pleasure ends and instead bores, / Over time a calm sea is good fortune; // Over time water becomes white snow, / Over time the moon loses its splendor, / Yet in me my love never fails over time.]

Serafino of L’Aquila also included similar enumerations in one of the ottave rime from the cycle Strambotti.83 Subsequently, the form was used in a short, eightline poem by Filenio Gallo84 and in two further ottave rime from the cycle Strambotii by Pietro Aretino.85 In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy, the convention must have been extremely popular, for it also found its way into art. As was observed by Massimo Malinverni,86 in the Old Woman depicted by Giorgione, the titular woman holds in her hand a piece of paper with the inscription “col tempo.” Such poems are a valuable source of information, in that they verbalize a process which is effected more generally at the rhythmical level of litanic poetry. In all “col tempo” poems, the experience of time is subject to a re-evaluation not unlike that discussed in 8.3.1. with reference to the idea of sanctity in the Litany of the Saints. On the one hand, each line refers to a different tempo, because on each occasion the poets’ experience concerns only a short moment in time, in which their thoughts center around a single issue. For instance, at one moment Serafino muses on the transience of time, at another on the loss of wealth, in the next on the transitoriness of fame, and at yet another he contemplates the process of aging, etc. As each of these concerns occupies a single end-stopped line and is not carried to the next, the poet highlights not only the transience of earthly existence, but also the spatial limitations of the verse. In this way, the poem, by allowing the author to measure out his thoughts and by lending rhythm to them, is not unlike the ticking clock which measures the passing of time. On the other hand, the only constant element within our changeable existence is time, which deals with each phenomenon with an equally cruel indifference, transporting all without hesitation from the present to the past. However, by making us aware of this, a different aspect of time comes into focus, not time as experienced in the historical changes that take place in the circumference, but that forming the monadic center, a center which organizes these changes according to the prescribed rhythm. Again, we feel as if the circumference has sunk 83 Cf. Serafino of Aquila, Strambotti, ed. Antonio Rossi (Parma: Uganda 2002): 21. 84 Cf. Filenio Gallo, “Col tempo si consuma ogni gran sasso,” in Rime, ed. Maria Antonietta Grignani (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1973): 401. 85 Cf. Pietro Aretino, Cortigiana. Opera nova. Pronostico. Il testamento dell’elefante. Farza, ed. Angelo Romano (Milano: Bur 2010): 44. 86 Cf. A commentary on Panfilo Sasso, Sonnet 19, in Sonetti (1–250), ed. Massimo Malinverni (Pavia: Croci, 1996): 26.

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into the indivisible point located at the very center of the circle. Thus, eternity understood as an infinite sequence of events and eternity perceived as timelessness become two sides of the same coin. Therefore, in the litanic chronotope time does not become subordinated to space, but reveals the same geometrical paradoxes as space. Even though the litany—perceived as a genre composed of three genes—came into existence fifteen hundred years ago, it is based on the concept of a space-time whose understanding requires a substantial intellectual effort from the reader, not unlike that required to understand Einstein’s theory. It is only through reciting litanic verse that we become aware that time and space do not represent two separate orders of reality, but belong to the common geometry of the circle, in whose central point all possible differences disappear so that even the distinction between time and space becomes blurred.

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9 Antonomasia The concentric space-time, as described in Chapter 8, does not exhaust the potential inherent in the litanic worldview. In the strict sense of the word, it merely represents a cosmological network, in which particular beings are assigned particular positions. To be even more precise, we may say that the positions are allocated not so much to the specific objects as to their names. Moreover, since the space-time is hierarchical in nature, those names are subject to a certain ordering. The names which refer to the plant and animal kingdoms have a right of entry, as do those which depict inanimate objects, but precedence is given to the names of individuals, names that are headed by the name of God and other heavenly beings, before being followed by the names of humans. The fact that the names mentioned all belong to a common space-time centered around God makes the litanic genre particularly focused on celebrating the name. It is mainly for this reason that the litany may not be fully comprehended or appreciated by the modern reader who associates the process of naming objects and individuals with administrative rather than religious actions. Indeed, the problem of naming God has not been addressed in the latest official documents issued by the main Christian churches. This is underlined by the fact that none of the recent popes devoted their encyclicals to this theme. It may also explain why a list of the most elusive of the Ten Commandments opens with either the second or the third Commandment (depending on the confession), which reads: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Nowadays, it may be wondered why insulting God’s name is regarded as one of the ten gravest offenses, ranked alongside murder. However, the mere fact that the seriousness of this offense is questioned shows to what extent God’s name has been devalued in Europe over the centuries. This is not to say that we no longer feel the need to refer to God’s name, but an awareness of its holiness and uniqueness with respect to other words and the typical proper names used in state administration has been lost. The polyonymic gene is a tool through which the litany becomes centered around the actual fact of naming. Even though the genre allows various enumerative techniques, such as the enumeration of common nouns, nouns with epithets, periphrases, etc., the central position of names in the litanic space-time makes antonomasia the privileged trope. Although used in colloquial speech, antonomasia reveals its full potential only in the litanic context. It is this naming technique that is responsible for the litanic series of different titles given to God, His Mother and the most significant saints. Each of these titles is much more 297

than a mere descriptive term. In fact, it functions as a name through which we may apostrophize a holy addressee.

9.1  Antonomasia in the Rhetorical Tradition As early as Antiquity, teachers of rhetoric drew attention to this trope, initially treating it as an autonomous phenomenon whose relation to other poetic devices was not yet clear. Tryphon, a Greek grammarian from the first century before Christ, defined antonomasia as replacing the name of an eminent person with συνωνύμων (synonymous) words or phrases.87 At a similar time, the unknown author of Rhetorica ad Herennium described antonomasia under the heading of pronominatio. He referred to it as a cognomine (nickname) and included it within a group of ten tropes in which words are used cum venustate (with elegance), yet simultaneously in a rather different sense than that which is commonly accepted. In his treatise, the paragraph devoted to pronominatio is placed between onomatopoeia and metonymy.88 Likewise, antonomasia appears in a similar position in Quintilian’s work, in which it is described as a frequent replacement for an individual’s name per epitheton which then itself begins to function as a name, disconnected from the original name.89 Thus, inasmuch as Tryphon perceived antonomasia as a kind of synonymous expression, Quintilian saw it as an emancipated epithet. What seems significant is that the latter included both one-word epithets, for instance, the use of Pelides, that is, the son of Peleus, for Achilles, and multi-word phrases, such as “the destroyer of Carthage and Numantia” for Scipio, within his definition.90 Even such an early work as Rhetorica ad Herennium reveals a certain terminological confusion, which was only deepened in the centuries to come. Among the various phraseological embellishments discussed in the treatise, the following example is found: “The foresight of Scipio crushed the power of Carthage,” which the author views as an equivalent to the much shorter “Scipio crushed Carthage.”91 The longer sentence is given as an example of circumitio, that is,

87 Cf. Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, trans. Matthew T. Buss, Annemiek Jansen and David E. Orton (Leiden: Brill, 1998): 264. 88 Cf. Rhetorica ad Herennium IV 31–32. 89 Cf. Quintilian, Institutio Oratioria VIII 6, 29. 90 Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory or Education of an Orator, trans. John Selby Watson (London: Bell, 1875), vol. 2: 131. 91 Ad C. Herennium de Ratione Dicendi (Rhetorica ad Herennium), trans. Harry Caplan (London: William Heinemann, 1964): 337.

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a trope known in Greek as periphrasis, which consists in depicting or naming something in a roundabout way (circumlocution). It is remarkable that the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium does not seem to notice that, as a consequence, in some contexts the semantic fields of pronominatio and circumitio can partially overlap. Quintilian too seems to fail to observe this fact, but the latter’s example of periphrasis92 indicates that he saw in it a trope which should be realized by means of a complete sentence rather than a mere epithet, however extended it may be. Aware of the inconsistency surrounding the ways antonomasia was approached by rhetoricians—either as a synonymous expression, or as an emancipated epithet or as a trope vaguely corresponding to periphrasis—later codifiers attempted to define it more precisely by placing it within the semantic field of yet another trope, namely synecdoche. This theory of antonomasia appears in the lectures of Vossius,93 Dumarsais,94 and Fontanier,95 and it is not accidental that the semantic range of the term was at the same time extended. Analogously to synecdoche, which is characterized by two contradictory semantic operations, that is pars pro toto and totum pro parte, the definition of antonomasia by modern rhetoricians was based not only on the classical understanding of the trope, that is, the replacement of a name by a concept, but also on the reverse situation. As Dumarsais writes: “Antonomasia is a kind of synecdoche, which involves replacing a proper name by a common name or a common name by a proper name.”96 The second alternative was a logical consequence of placing antonomasia within the semantic field of synecdoche. Furthermore, to a greater extent than the first, it supported Dumarsais’s thesis, that is, par excellence et par antonomase,97 according to which antonomasia is used to distinguish the best representatives of a given category. In this way, antonomasia began to be treated as a stylistic marker of excellence. Indeed, we cannot deny that the rhetorical stipulations mentioned above stand to reason. Even though none of the theoreticians clearly articulated the thought, their examples spoke volumes, revealing that antonomasia does not offer a replacement for any other names but refers only to the names of exceptional beings, 92 Cf. Quintilian, Institutio Oratioria VIII 6, 59. 93 Cf. Lausberg, Handbook…, 265. 94 Cf. César Chesneau Dumarsais, Des tropes, ou des différents sens dans lesquels on peut prendre un même mot dans une même langue (Paris: Périsse et Compère, 1811): 79–86. 95 Cf. Marie-Claude Capt-Artaud, “L’Antonomase, figure du destin,” Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 48 (1994): 19. 96 Dumarsais, Des tropes…, 79. 97 Ibid., 60.

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such as gods, heroes, victors, saints, eminent writers, philosophers, and artists. The fact that the trope was classified as a kind of synecdoche, however, did not solve the question of its relation with respect to synonyms, epithets and periphrases. Indeed, the formula “victor over Darius,” which is used by Dumarsais as an example of periphrasis for Alexander the Great,98 does not differ significantly from the formula “the destroyer of Carthage and Numantia” that was applied to Scipio and classified by the same author as an example of antonomasia.99 Thus, it seems evident that the modern rhetoricians, instead of systematizing the use of tropes, have actually added to the confusion, as is clearly seen in the example of antonomasia, which used to operate within the semantic fields of synonym, epithet, and periphrasis, but was subsequently transposed onto the field of synecdoche. What is more, supplementing the ancient definition of antonomasia—that is, the replacement of a proper name by a common name—with contradictory content—that is, the replacement of a common name by a proper name—added additional weight to the latter, as can be seen in later rhetorical, linguistic, semiotic, and philosophical works. The use of a proper name in place of a common name was a semiotic modification which was symptomatic of the civilizational changes that were underway. In the light of modern science, which was becoming more and more aware of the evolutional character of civilization—as underlined in the treatises of Giambattista Vico, Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried Herder, Étienne de Condillac and others—proper and common names seemed to illustrate two different stages in the history of language. The first, the archaic stage, was to be characterized by a close adherence between word and object. At that time, even common names could act as proper names. The second, the modern stage, in turn, was to entail a gradual purification of scientific vocabulary from proper names. Thus, the process of devaluing a proper name and reducing it to the level of a common name was recognized as a mark of our times, which may explain why the majority of linguistic studies devoted to antonomasia focus on the second type of the phenomenon. This direction of research became, for example, dominant in the RussianEstonian school of semiotics, as recapitulated by Ülle Pärli and Eleonora Ruda­ kovskaja.100 According to the two main representatives of this school, Yury Lotman and Boris Uspensky, it is no longer possible for modern man to have 98 Ibid., 133. 99 Ibid., 81. 100 Cf. Ülle Pärli and Eleonora Rudakovskaja, “Juri Lotman on proper name,” Sign Systems Studies 30 (2002), no. 2: 578–584. The following paragraph presents the main theses which underlie the recapitulation contained in the article.

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full access to the archaic thinking which produced proper names. Therefore, the proper names which reach our consciousness do so in modified form. In fact, they situate themselves halfway between two eras, that governed by mythology and that governed by logic. The transitional stage they find themselves in may be referred to as the stage of poetic thinking. Transferred from archaic to modern language, proper names are not unlike symbols. As stated by Lotman and Uspensky, “in a number of cases mythological text, having been translated into the categories of non-mythological consciousness, is perceived as symbolic. A symbol of this type can be interpreted as reading a myth from the standpoint of later semiotic consciousness, i.e. reinterpreted as an iconic or quasi-iconic sign.”101 According to another representative of the school, Vladimir Toporov, the relic-like nature of proper names in modern languages becomes evident in, amongst other things, their fixed form through which they stand out from the utterances in which they are used.102 This is manifested in the process of translation, in which they are rendered literally from one language into another. In fact, proper names do not yield themselves easily either to translation techniques or to syntactic operations. This means that in inflective languages they do not always correspond to the expectations imposed by other lexical items in a sentence. While a common noun blends in with the context through adopting the required inflexion, a proper noun tends to remain in the nominative case. In other words, it acts like a foreign body confined within a frame. It is to the process of devaluing the proper name that Jacques Derrida devotes most of his observations in Glas, even though the philosopher begins the section on antonomasia with an evocation of the French Enlightenment rhetoric which included both versions of the trope: The rhetorical flower organizing this antitrope, this metonymy simulating autonymy, I baptize it anthonymy. One could also say anthonomasia. Antonomasia is a “Kind of synecdoche that consists in taking a common noun for a proper name, or a proper name for a common noun” (Littré).103

101 Юрий М. Лотман, Борис А. Успенский, “Миф — имя — культура” [“Myth— name—culture”], in Лотман, Избранные статьи [Collected Works] (Москва: Александра: 1992), vol. 1: 67–68. Citation after: Pärli and Rudakovskaja, “Juri Lotman on proper name…,” 584. 102 Cf. Владимир Н. Топоров, “Из области теоретической топономастики,” Вопросы языкознания 6 (1962) no. 5. Referred after Pärli and Rudakovskaja, “Juri Lotman on proper name…,” 582–583. 103 Jacques Derrida, Glas, trans. John P. Leavey, Jr and Richard Rand (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986): 181.

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It seems clear that Derrida draws upon the roots of rhetorical thinking about antonomasia, regarding it as a kind of synonym, or antonym, to be more precise. To call it a metonymy, thereby neglecting the difference between metonymy and synecdoche, that is, between a horizontal dependence and vertical belonging, requires a more specific explanation which will be provided below. At this point, it is worth highlighting that there is a direct correlation between Derrida’s observations and the way he employs antonomasia in his own philosophical texts. To quote a well-known example: It could be shown that all the names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated an invariable presence—eidos, archē, telos, energeia, ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject) alētheia, transcendentality, consciousness, God, man, and so forth.104

In the passage quoted above, antonomastic names—which dominate the second half of the sentence—are not used in isolation, but in a sequence which resembles beads on a string of enumeration. Derrida attempts to enforce their reinterpretation, showing metonymic relations which counteract their vertical pretenses. Surprisingly enough, this effect is achieved not through enumeration, but through antonymic juxtaposition (arché vs. telos, essence vs. existence, etc.) and through the context of the first half of the sentence that makes the reader view the vertical pretenses of antonomasia in a negative light. It seems quite clear that to add metonymic color to antonomasia is to deprive it of its synecdochal function. However, it allows Derrida to demonstrate through his writing the process of devaluing the word, a process which moves from the stage in which the name adheres closely to the concept to the stage in which it becomes incorporated into the intratextual network of meaning. It is this aspect of antonomasia that is discussed in Glas, using Jean Genet’s writing as an example. Derrida demonstrates how the writer incorporates his own name into the body of his novel, which is a homophone for the word genêt, a word signifying a plant with yellow flowers (Eng. broom).105 The many occasions on which the plant is mentioned in the work give the impression that “Genet has made himself into a flower,”106 and bring Derrida to the following conclusion:

104 Idem, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978): 279–280. 105 Cf. Derrida, Glas…, 182–183. 106 Ibid., 12.

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antonomasia. This alienation, already (déjà), even before I return to myself, promenades my proper name in the street, classes it in the “natural” world, freezes (glace) the appellation in an exterior thing, in its name or in its form. My signature trails behind. Dereliction, errance without end.107

Having said that, it should be noted that Derrida is also interested in the first kind of antonomasia. This becomes evident when he ponders on the significance of the names assigned by Genet to his characters, although the examples chosen are, however, somewhat tendentious. In fact, the names Genet chooses for his characters evoke a certain suspicion, for they may be immediately dissociated from their bearers in a manner similar to the way genêt becomes detached from Genet. As is well known, the writer was notorious for his blasphemous use of antonomasias extracted from religious discourse, including the litany. In the case of Genet’s debut novel Our Lady of the Flowers, the assignation of the titular name to one of the characters creates an expectation of a typically Baudelairean scandal through the radical change in the denotation of the name: the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary gives way to the person of a criminal. The juxtaposition of two antinomic individuals gives Derrida grounds for placing this antonomasia on the metonymic string of enumeration, very similar to that which was seen in the previous text: When Genet gives his characters proper names, kinds of singularities that are capitalized common nouns, what is he doing? What does he give us to read beneath the visible cicatrix of a decapitalization that is forever threatening to open up again? If he calls Mimosa, Querelle, Divine, Green-Eyes, […] and so on, does he violently uproot a social identity, a right to absolute proprietorship?108

Ultimately, the trajectory of thought which was supposed to lead from the level of a common noun to the level of a proper name is reversed and directed back toward the common nouns. In this way, the first kind of antonomasia is limited to the role of a transition point situated along the mental route, a route which is subject to the second kind of antonomasia. Derrida deals only superficially with the former, subordinating it to the logic of the latter. He fails to see the need to consider the ancient variant of antonomasia in categories other than those pertaining to the second kind, for it is this variant that seems to have dominated the modern understanding of the trope. Thus, in order to examine those anonomasias which appear in the litany, we have to overcome the modern tendency and direct our attention back to the first 107 Ibid., 183. 108 Ibid., 7–8.

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kind, thereby restoring its autonomous position in science. Due to the fact that the examined genre was permanently crystallized in the Middle Ages and—as has already been noted in the previous chapter of this book—has preserved the worldview characteristic of this period, it would be an anachronism if it was examined through the categories produced later. This is to say that the litanic genre contains a fixed worldview which moves us back in time to a distant past, and as a consequence, the direction that modern rhetoric takes us leads to a blind alley. As the generic worldview is preserved not only in traditional church litanies, but also in all the subsequent litanic poems, which draw upon the semantic content provided by the convention, a convention based primarily on ancient rhetorical devices, in both cases we should focus on the first kind of antonomasia. The second kind appears in this context merely as an artistic embellishment, which takes root in a poet’s mind rather than in the generic tradition.

9.2 Antonomasia in the Context of Other Tropes and Linguistic Phenomena To revert to an earlier way of thinking about this trope is to be freed from the categorizing tendency displayed by modern authors, authors ranging from Dumarsais to Lausberg. Antonomasia is not a kind of synecdoche or metonymy, and it need not be considered with reference to any wide-ranging notion. Antonomasia is simply antonomasia. Other tropes appear in its description not because antonomasia is subordinate to them, but because in the light of ancient rhetoric, all the stylistic figures, tropes and linguistic phenomena are interrelated and may be seen as part of an extensive repertoire of adjacent alternatives. It may not seem correct to base our argument on the authority of ancient Athenian philosophers, but in this case it is essential, for as early as the Aristotelian writings, a metaphor is mentioned in relation to simile. However, even if we accept Aristotle’s view that metaphor is a shortened simile, it does not follow that metaphor is a kind of simile or that their contents overlap. Indeed, the main words of a given phrase are not replaced by others, and neither is the relation between those words revised. What happens is that one trope is replaced with another, one semantic effect gives way to a rival effect. By the same token, it seems quite likely that various linguistic phenomena were evoked by ancient rhetoricians in their descriptions of antonomasia for the same reason. Due to their similarity to antonomasia, such linguistic phenomena may have been intended to enhance its uniqueness, which lay in elevating the status of a proper name before the reader’s eyes. In fact, in the case of antonomasia we are not dealing simply with a proper name as such, but following a whole trajectory of thought which begins with 304

a common name, either that of an individual or in a series, only to advance to the position of a proper name. This direction of thought is in line with the ancient understanding of antonomasia, yet in opposition to the perspective which dominated in the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school, and to which Derrida’s Glas was subjected. The process which takes place in this case does not involve downgrading the relics of mythological thinking to the level of a language governed by logic. In fact, on the contrary, it involves a partial destruction of the systemic relations in our language so that its components may be incorporated into the domain of proper names. Whether antonomasia allows an insight into this domain and brings us back to the tendency for mythological thinking it is difficult to determine in abstracto, that is, without taking into account the socio-cultural context. In the Middle Ages, it was perhaps more successful in orienting the reader toward the close adherence between word and object. Whichever is the case, the process of elevating a given phrase to the level of a proper name follows different paths, which lead to different destinations, depending on the different cultural contexts. The reason for this is that the first kind of antonomasia does not depend for its effectiveness solely on linguistic operations and cognitive mechanisms, but also on generic factors, the generic worldview in particular. Questions, such as: what is a proper name, how is it superior to common names, how does it distinguish itself from the context, or what kind of relations with reality does it demonstrate (or should that be declare or anticipate?), cannot be answered based on language (for all its precision) or on culture (for all its generality). In fact, such answers may only be provided by the generic context within which antonomasia appears, as antonomasia is not a universal phenomenon, yet all antonomasias are generically bound. It is exactly for this reason that this chapter will not be devoted to the first kind of antonomasia in all its possible variants, but only to the branch which developed within the litanic genre. A short quotation from the Litany of Loreto demonstrates that the genre does indeed provide key information: Holy Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God, Pray for us. Holy Virgin of virgins, Pray for us.

The passage cited above contains two examples of Mary’s name that are extended to antonomasia: “Mother of God” and “Virgin of virgins.” In order to capture the antonomastic trajectory of thought which leads from the common name to the proper name, the examples quoted above will be discussed against other possible Marian expressions that might have been employed but were not.

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It seems relevant to recall at this point that the repertoire of proper names upon which the litany draws goes against the general rule which holds that in Judaism and Christianity there is only one Name. As consciously noted by Augustine, when Christ commended the minister to perform baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity, he requested it should be done “not in several names, but in the one «name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit».”109 The privilege of a single name also applies to man, who was created in the image of God. Therefore, in biblical narratives, a change in the name of a given person necessarily entails a change in their essence, as there is no possibility of altering the name without altering the essence. These basic facts need to be recalled as litanic antonomasias, by contrast, do not have such far-reaching ontological consequences, and their role is not to create new names but rather to validate one and the same name. Thus, the grammarian Tryphon was correct in noting a certain similarity between antonomasia and synonym, for both phenomena may be defined as names used interchangeably to denote a single person or object. However, if this is so, is it possible to take this supposition a step further and say that antonomasia is merely a synonymous expression, or would this be an overgeneralization? To answer this question, we have to bear in mind that the editor of the Litany of Loreto may have chosen antonomastic names whose synonymous relation to one another would go unquestioned. For instance, the word “Mother” may be followed by “Birth-giver,” and “Virgin of virgins” by “Maiden of maidens.” The fact that a different selection was made suggests two distinctive features of antonomasia which differentiate it from synonymous expressions. First of all, in the case of antonomasia—unlike in synonyms—the interchangeability of names does not derive from the linguistic system, but is defined outside this system. In fact, in the example quoted above, the replaceability of names seems to result from contradicting certain language-based information. To be more precise, on the level of purely linguistic meaning, the expressions “Mother of God” and “Virgin of virgins” are not equivalent, for the concepts of “mother” and “virgin” are mutually exclusive. In order to acknowledge their equivalence, we have to resort to extralinguistic knowledge. The kind of knowledge we should use is dictated by the generic worldview, which in the case of the litany directs our thoughts toward the dogma of the Virgin Mother.

109 Augustine, “Sermon 215 At the Giving Back of the Creed,” 8 in Sermons, trans. Edmund Hill (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993), vol. III 6: 164.

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Second, the ambivalent relation between the concepts of “Mother of God” and “Virgin of virgins”—which are mutually exclusive on the primary, linguistic level, but are equally well suited to define Mary’s name on the secondary, antonomastic level—leads to a paradoxical situation. We may say that the expression “Mother of God” replaces Mary’s name, as does the expression “Virgin of virgins.” However, to say that they in fact occupy the same place would be completely inaccurate. Instead, this kind of antonomasia, which follows a specific trajectory of thought leading from common to proper nouns, reveals a belief that is typical of the litany and is derived from biblical passages (cf. Judges 13:18; Psalm 8:2; Isaiah 9:5), namely a belief that the name is essentially “wonderful,” that is, it is not merely excellent, majestic, mighty and salutary, but it is also beyond comprehension. Additionally, there is one more aspect that should be considered. The Litany of Loreto shows that it is not only God’s but also man’s name that is most wonderful and unique. This thought was beautifully expressed in Revelation 2:17, in which “to Him that overcometh” Christ presents “a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” Due to the mysterious nature of the name, whose essence is by definition ungraspable and also undefinable, antonomasia has to manifest its distinctness from the synonymous expressions with which it shows a certain affinity. By the same token, it has to overcome its similarity to periphrasis, a trope which consists in a metalinguistic operation connected with the use of an extended verbal sequence to define another concept. Periphrases are very common in science as well as in the type of literature which is associated with science, and, therefore, often appeared in realist and naturalist novels. Similarly to periphrases, litanic antonomasias also display certain features of scientific thinking in that they treat the concept of “Mary” as a repository of theological knowledge and attempt to master the theological nomenclature which conveys the concept. The litanic “Mother of God,” however, is much more than a merely scientific, or in this case theological, description of the ultimate, supernatural reality. When using this expression, we hope that, elevated to the level of proper names, it becomes a springboard by means of which we move beyond the level of common nouns—governed by the logic of substitution—and through which we free ourselves from the precepts of scientific, distanced thinking in order to soar toward Mary, even though we may only be able to comprehend her nature as far as her “wonderful” name permits. Thus, one of the ways of distinguishing antonomasia from periphrasis is the reader’s emotional response to the text. Periphrasis evokes feelings which pertain directly to the reading experience, such as interest or boredom, satisfaction or disappointment. Antonomasia, by contrast, evokes feelings which resemble those characteristic of real-world rather than fictional encounters. The feelings 307

which are recorded by our psychological barometer when reading a series of antonomasias may differ with different individuals, but in general they mirror the responses to the natural world or to other human beings when it is possible to feel, for example, admiration, enchantment, astonishment, illumination, bewilderment, familiarity, cordiality, intimacy, a sense of security, domestication, loss, or anxiety. Since we have examined the relation between antonomasia and two other phenomena, that is, synonym on the one hand and periphrasis on the other, it seems necessary to devote our attention to a third relation considered in the earliest rhetorical treatises, namely that between antonomasia and epithet. The question is what happens when a certain expression, which has so far acted as a descriptive element, loses its function and becomes detached from the noun it accompanied to become a separate entity, that is, an antonomasia, as defined by Quintilian. What semantic change does it involve? If we assume that in the Ave Maria there is a good illustration, that is, the words “Mother of God” perform the function of an epithet, then in the apostrophe which opens the second part of the prayer—“Holy Mary, Mother of God”— the expression “Mother of God” supplements the preceding phrase “Holy Mary.” What if the two elements of this apostrophe were detached from each other, as is the case in the Litany of Loreto? What effect would this produce? In other words, what happens when the two elements are separated by the collective response “Pray for us”? Ave Maria

Litany of Loretto

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Holy Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God, Pray for us.

As can be seen in this example, the relation between antonomasia and epithet is analogous to that between antonomasia and the two phenomena discussed above. What happens is that the words “Mother of God” are not deprived of their earlier, or alternative, epithetic function, yet simultaneously they clearly announce their new function, a fact which is accurately signaled in Rhetorica ad Herennium by the term cognomen, a term that refers to social relations in ancient Rome. At the time of “the late Republic and early Empire,”110 cognomen functioned as a man’s third name, following his pronomen and nomen. Initially, it was a privilege of the aristocracy, but it was later extended to other social groups. The

110 Benet Salway, “What’s in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700,” Journal of Roman Studies, 84 (1994): 124.

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original aristocratic trait of cognomen is to be seen in the two properties of antonomasia which have been mentioned above: first, in its exclusive character— not every being deserves to be granted an additional name—and second, in its elevated status. In Roman times, higher status did not automatically result from the content of the word which was classified as cognomen, but rather from its use as the third name. This becomes evident when we examine the lexicon of cognomina used during the Roman Empire. According to the brief classification presented by Stephen Wilson, apart from positive epithets which referred either to an individual’s virtues (prudence, piousness, and strictness) or their pleasant appearance (curly-haired and beautiful), Roman cognomina also included neutral vocabulary (painter and smith), as well as terms for imperfections and vices (bald-headed, big-nosed, and drunkard).111 All these words were to a degree detached from their original connotations and infused with greatness when they began to be treated as third names. If, then, following Rhetorica ad Herennium, antonomasia is to be accounted for by means of the Roman cognomen, there are two focal aspects to be considered. First, it should be noted that the function of the ancient cognomina evolved from epithetic to nominal. For instance, the name of Titus Manlius Torquatus, thrice consul in the fourth century before Christ, was related to a torque or necklace that he took from a Gaul during one of his campaigns. Added to the first two names, the term originally performed the function of an epithet used by Titus’s soldiers to describe their commander: “the man torquated.” It was only over time that the term came to be used as his nickname and then evolved into his cognomen: Titus Manlius “Torquated.”112 The evolution was a gradual process through which a common name was promoted to the level of a proper name. A similarly gradual transition applies to litanic epithets that became antonomasias. A good case in point is a catalog of the many attributes of wisdom found in the deuterocanonical Wisdom of Solomon (7:22–23), which was composed in Alexandria. The book quotes twenty-one attributes, which in numerological terms is a multiple of three times seven, but the number may be extended to twenty-four and interpreted as a multiple of two times twelve, for the phrase which refers to the last attribute—number twenty-one—is composed of three elements:

111 Cf. Stephen Wilson, The Means of Naming: A Social and Cultural History of Personal Naming in Western Europe (London: UCL Press, 1998): 9–10. 112 Cf. Ibid., 10–11.

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Ἔστιν γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ πνεῦμα νοερόν, ἅγιον, μονογενές, πολυμερές, λεπτόν, εὐκίνητον, τρανόν, ἀμόλυντον, σαφές, ἀπήμαντον, φιλάγαθον, ὀξύ, ἀκώλυτον, εὐεργετικόν, φιλάνθρωπον, βέβαιον, ἀσφαλές, ἀμέριμνον, παντοδύναμον, πανεπίσκοπον καὶ διὰ πάντων χωροῦν πνευμάτων νοερῶν καθαρῶν λεπτοτάτων. [For in her is a spirit [which is] / understanding, / holy, / one only, / manifold, / subtil, / lively, / clear, / undefiled, / plain, / not subject to hurt, / loving the thing that is good, / quick, / which cannot be letted, / ready to do good, / kind to man, / steadfast, / sure, / free from care, / having all power, / overseeing all things, / and going through all spirits [which are] / understanding—pure—and most subtil.]

The length of the enumeration is not without significance in this case, nor is the time it takes to read the passage. In fact, the closer to the beginning of the sentence, the more the reader remembers the opening phrase “For in her is a spirit,” which imposes an epithetic function onto the subsequent elements of the enumeration. The further from the beginning and the closer to the end of the text, the more blurred the initial phrase becomes in the mind of the reader. As a result, the epithets become more and more dissociated from their original functions, thus evolving in the direction of independent antonomasias. The second aspect of cognomina, which developed in Roman times and is relevant for our purposes, is their transmission from generation to generation. This does not refer exclusively to the members of aristocratic families—both natural and adopted—but also to the members of other families who intercepted the names. Therefore, during the Roman Empire the names which grew in popularity 310

were “wish-names like Felix, Faustus, Fortunatus and Victor.”113 Some of these retained the function of a nickname in the Christian era, for example, the name of a King of France, Philippe le Fortuné, yet others, such as Victor, became accepted as names in themselves. An analogous process of vocabulary transfer may be observed in litanies, in which antonomasias for God are extended to cover the Mother of God, whereas antonomasias typical of Marian poetry are employed in texts referring to other saints. In order to draw a general conclusion from the terminological considerations presented above, which concern the relations between antonomasia and neighboring phenomena—synonym, periphrasis, and epithet—it seems necessary to re-emphasize the process of name creation, a process which takes place either in a longer evolutionary cycle, such as cognomina, or before the reader’s eyes, as is the case with the litanic antonomasias used in poetry. Thus, the antonomastic name is never imposed once and for all by a higher order. Even a conventional theological name, when used as antonomasia, encourages a reflection on its relation to other tropes, a reflection which enables us to re-live the process of its dissociation from synonym, periphrasis and epithet, and in consequence directs our thoughts away from common names toward proper names.

9.3  Wonderful Names The question that arises at this point concerns the rationale behind the centuriesold need to use antonomasia, a most peculiar tool which does not accept the name as a stable entity, but is instead based on a movement undertaken countless times from the lowest strata of the linguistic system toward the level of a proper name. This movement is continuously directed at the same object, yet never reaches its goal. In order to answer this question, it is possible to refer to the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school or Jacques Derrida’s thoughts on the matter. One of the distinctive features under discussion is that the movement toward proper names involves a continuous effort to overcome a counter-movement. In other words, the first kind of antonomasia is in a perpetual state of struggle against the second kind, which acts in an underhand way to push a thought from the level of mythology to the level of logic. As has been highlighted before, we do not aspire to provide a universal answer, for our contention is that antonomasia is deeply embedded in a specific context. Indeed, it might never have appeared in the field of rhetoric

113 Ibid., 15.

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had it not been for a particular worldview, that is, the philosophy of name and the philosophy of the word in which it is grounded. Those who use litanic antonomasias are representatives of neither mythological nor logical thinking, but are more akin to travelers journeying between one reality and another, equipped with certain theological clues provided by the genre. This premise will be reconstructed below. It has already been noted that the names which are explored by the antonomastic tendency present themselves as wonderful. In fact, antonomasias are not only used instead of those names, but they also underscore their mysterious status and convey a certain message about them. The examination of the polyonymic gene, conducted in the second part of the book, offered an interesting observation, namely that in the Hymn of the Three Youths the name of God is curiously detached from the name of the Creator, and is placed at the top of the cosmological ladder. It is invoked in the section of the hymn that is subject to His direct blessing and situated immediately after the apostrophe to God, but nevertheless, it seems to be dissociated from Him and to a certain degree autonomous. It forms an independent link in the great chain of being, whose lower echelons include ordinary phenomena from the surrounding world, such as “sun and moon,” “stars of heaven,” “shower and dew,” etc. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine how the question of its ontological autonomy was perceived in biblical times, due to a lack of terminology, as this only came into being at a later period and formed the crux of the philosophical debate on universals in the Middle Ages. It is possible, however, to quote a number of ambivalent biblical passages in which God is situated far from His own name, yet simultaneously identifies Himself as the recipient of any wrongs which may be committed to His name. To illustrate this point, let us refer to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. Even though it tends to be regarded as a temple of God, according to certain biblical verses it was dedicated by God to His name rather than to Himself. To quote God’s words to David: “Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house; but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto my name” (1 Kings 8:19; 2 Chronicles 6:9). The same idea recurs in other historical books of the Bible: “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever” (2 Kings 21:7b; 2 Chronicles 33:7b). “I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there” (2 Chronicles 6:6a; cf. 1 Kings 11:36b). Yet at the same time, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple is treated as an attack on God Himself, rather than merely on His name: “And the God that hath caused His name to dwell there destroy all kings and people, that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem” (Ezra 6:12a). 312

Such quotations seem to bring us close to a certain nominal philosophy, which was referred to by the Tartu-Moscow school as mythological thinking. According to this philosophy, the name does not describe the person of God, but postulates a kind of ontological dependence on God. It opens up a line of affinity with Him that might be inaccessible to the contemporary reader, or—to be more precise—it might be accessible but only indirectly, by means of a symbol, that is, through poetic mediation, mediation which is by definition contrary to the very idea of affinity. However, the understanding which governs the biblical text is not as distant from ours as the somewhat misleading term “mythological” might imply. In order to demonstrate this, let us consider an example which illustrates perfectly the processes effected within antonomasia. The example in question, however surprising it may seem, is that of a pair of glasses. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that there is an analogy between the inhabitants of the Western world and their most personal possessions, such as their glasses, and the biblical passages linking God with His name. Glasses do not differ from many other objects, such as a pen, a screwdriver or a toothbrush, in that they too are produced in a factory, and the similarity does not end there: a particular pair is selected by a customer from the wide range available in a store and the broken pair is disposed of. Yet the glasses are not purely ordinary objects. As they are used to cover the face, they have acquired—at least in European cultures—the status of an almost sacred object. To destroy an individual’s glasses, either accidentally or not, is most offensive, for they are an integral part of our bodies and—to take the point a step further—of our identities. Therefore, some individuals cannot be imagined without the glasses they always wear. Let us quote another, perhaps less obvious example. One of the most popular Polish poems, written by Jan Twardowski, opens with the following aphorism: Śpieszmy się kochać ludzi tak szybko odchodzą zostaną po nich buty i telefon głuchy114 [Let us hurry to love people, they depart so quickly / The shoes remain empty and the phone rings on.]115

114 Jan Twardowski, “Śpieszmy się” [“Let us Hurry”], in Zaufałem drodze: Wiersze zebrane 1932–2006 [I have put trust in the way: Collected Poems 1932–2006], ed. Aleksandra Iwanowska (Warszawa: ASPRA-JR, 2007): 380. 115 Jan Twardowski, “Let Us Hurry to Love People, They Depart So Quickly,” trans. Maya Peretz in Anthology of Fine Line (2015), epub, available at the Jagiellonian Digital Library: https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl (accessed December 4, 2017).

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This example is less obvious than that discussed previously, for shoes are not as intimately connected with their owner as glasses. That they were connected— and very closely so—becomes evident only after a person’s death. It might be said that the most valuable legacies left to the family of the deceased are not their achievements (the books they wrote, the houses they built, and the firms they set up), but their most cherished possessions which belonged to their immediate surroundings and were, not infrequently, very close to their bodies. These may be objects which meld into their surroundings, such as glasses, shoes, a walking stick, a mirror on a desk, a shaving brush, a favorite hairpin, a pair of braces, a bag, or a hat, that is, items which did not lead lives of their own but were part of their owner’s life. After their owner’s death they live on and depending on the role they used to perform, they symbolize various aspects of the deceased whom they now keep alive. As long as their owner was alive, they formed his attributes; after his death they have to brace themselves for an autonomous existence, not unlike an epithet which becomes disconnected from the noun. Thanks to this, the possessions of the deceased prove to be rich in semantic content, for they contain information not unlike that extracted by antonomasia from a proper name. The deceased is in fact defined by a few possessions, rather than by a single object. These possessions may replace one another in their role as the family’s most cherished objects the way συνώνυμα do, even though each of them plays a unique role and is the main focus at a certain point in time. They represent neither metonymy nor synecdoche, but rather a movement from one trope to another, from a horizontal contiguity to a vertical adherence. Therefore, they are to be seen in the process of continuous departure, situated on the verge of the sensual and supersensual worlds, that is the realms of objects and of people. It is for the same reason that we tend to equip them with both human and spiritual features. We feel that the ownerless shoes would like to be worn again and the mirror would like to reflect the owner’s face once more. Such thoughts are inscribed in antonomasia not because of its orientation toward the funerary, but because the perspective of death makes us susceptible to religious thinking. It is relevant at this juncture to mention how the perspective on certain possessions changes after their owner’s demise, for the terms reserved in religious language for God may also be treated in the Mediterranean culture as the most cherished possessions left to us by God. This explains not only the affection surrounding the name of Jesus in Christian poetry, but also the tendency to look for divine prerogatives in His name. In religious history, God’s name was not infrequently treated as a central word which possessed the power to create and to heal. It is worth recalling the speculations of ancient authors who believed that the Word, which played such a vital role in the Creation, could not have any 314

referential value, simply due to the lack of a referent.116 At the moment of the Creation—it is said—the world did not yet exist, which means that the only referent the Word could have was God. According to Naomi Janowitz, rabbinic exegesis held that “[t]he divine name […] consists of sounds; in creating the world God spoke a series of sounds […]. That is, he did not say, ‘Let there be light,’” but said His own name.117 This became a point of departure for arguments in favor of the thesis which advocated God’s, or rather His name’s, continuous activity, for it is His name that upholds the world and that has the power to prevent harm to humans and to restore them to health. Within the philosophy of early Christianity, this idea was supported, amongst others, by Origen. In his words, “the name of Jesus can still remove distractions from the minds of men, and expel demons, and also take away diseases.”118 His idea was that the right to capitalize on the restorative power of God’s Name was validated by Jesus himself: Such power, indeed, does the name of Jesus possess over evil spirits, that there have been instances where it was effectual, when it was pronounced even by bad men, which Jesus Himself taught (would be the case), when He said: “Many shall say to Me in that day, In Thy name we have cast out devils, and done many wonderful works.”119

Origen firmly opposed Celsus’s allegations against the Christians who had been accused of practising magic.120 He believed that the Savior revealed His name of His own free will and since that time man has experienced its internal power. In this respect, God’s name may be compared to the Sun which is made “to rise over the good and the evil” (Matthew 5:45). Man does not deprive God of His power in the way Prometheus did when he stole fire from the gods, but instead is encouraged to become involved in the activity of God himself who infuses the world with life.

9.4 Multinamedness Our argument so far has been that in the light of the Christian worldview, which is at the same time the litanic worldview, there is something paradoxical about the antonomastic name. It is one, and yet it may be reached by multiple means. 116 Cf. Naomi Janowitz, The Poetics of Ascent: Theories of Language in a Rabbinic Ascent Text (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989): 90. 117 Ibid. Cf. Eadem, “Theories of Divine Names in Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius,” History of Religions 30 (1991) no. 4: 364. 118 Origen, Contra Celsum, in ANF 4: 428. 119 Ibid., 398. 120 Cf. Ibid.

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It governs a trajectory of thought which takes root in the linguistic system, but strives to transcend the linguistic boundaries by stepping outside the system and moving into a different reality. Due to its special property of combining oneness with multiplicity and systematization with unpredictability, it becomes not only the major means of expression within the polyonymic gene, but also the central factor determining the philosophy of multinamedness. In an excellent publication devoted to God’s names in European culture, Valentina Izmirlieva points to an essential difference between polyonymy as understood in the context of the old polytheistic cults and as reinterpreted by the Judeo-Christian culture: Compiling a list of the pantheon of gods and goddesses is a practice concerned more with the deities themselves than with their names; the clear-cut correspondence of one name for one god renders the concept of the divine name relatively unproblematic. The accumulation of numerous terms for a single divinity, on the other hand, is already an exercise in metalinguistic competence, an attempt to master the code of verbal communication, which suggests an awareness of the problematic nature of language itself. As a result, the concerns and the priorities of discourse change. The question “Which are our gods?” is replaced by “What are the names of our God that is single and one?” Or, if you prefer, the onomastic catalogue, which for millennia had been the standard for mapping out the sacrum and for articulating the principle of sacred order, was reinvented as an antonomastic list.121

In the chapter devoted to space-time, we related the litanic cosmology to the Neoplatonic theology of mathematics whose description of the relation between God and the world is based on the concept of the circle. In the early Christian period, the once dominant model of the litanic list, based on a ladder-like structure within which names and gods were connected in pairs, was replaced by a concentrically structured list within which all the names, similar to the rays of the Sun, point to a single source of divine light. The variety and multiplicity of the light reaching the Earth does not support the thesis that the source of light itself represents multiplicity. Likewise, the many antonomasias used in the Bible instead of God’s name—the Merciful, the Just, the Almighty, etc.—did not lead the Church Fathers to the conclusion that this inexhaustible terminology questions the unity and indivisibility of God. In the period under discussion, this seemingly ambivalent situation was accounted for by the contemporary knowledge of geometry or, to be more precise, it was the concept of the circle—with its paradoxical nature—that became a model of sorts, and this contained the theology of God’s name. 121 Valentina Izmirlieva, All the Names of the Lord: Lists, Mysticism, and Magic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009): 57–58.

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Even though the considerations above do not touch upon rhetoric, they may nevertheless provide a basis for reconstructing a specific theory of antonomasia. As a starting point for this theory, we may take the thesis that the names which point in the direction of Him who is ungraspable in fact do not cover His essence, but rather determine—to quote Gregory of Nyssa—“the variety of His gracious dealings with us.”122 “Though our Lord is one in substrate, and one substance, simple and not composite”—as his brother, Basil the Great wrote—“he calls himself by different names at different times, using designations that differ from one another for the different conceptualizations.”123 This statement clearly corresponds to Iamblichus’s concept that “God remains one and the same, and […] His changes of form and shifting aspects occur in the recipients.”124 These observations may be summed up by the hypothesis that, according to the authors quoted above, religious antonomasias seem to acquire their final shape in the process of projecting God’s ungraspable name onto different states of awareness. The Neoplatonic model of the Sun radiating light represents one of the most fundamental concepts underlying the Christian prayer, a concept in which the role of the dominant trope is occupied by antonomasia. This is not to say, however, that all the specific features of antonomasia which appear in the litanies may be accounted for through Neoplatonic theology. To proceed further with our analysis, it is necessary to return to the opinions expressed by Izmirlieva. As much as we agree with her theses concerning the radical shift in the attitude toward multinamedness which was effected by monotheism, we cannot fully accept the idea that the popularity of antonomastic enumeration in the Christian religion may be explained by the apophatic tradition. Before we make clear our stance on this issue, let us quote two of Izmirlieva’s observations. The researcher writes: The Christian followers of Hermogenes, by contrast, asserted that divine names, including those found in the Bible, do not share in the divine essence—they are merely conventional names that use human language for things divine. As such, they are also epistemologically impotent: we can learn the conventional rules for their application,

122 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius X 1 in NPNF II 5: 221. 123 Basil the Great, Against Eunomius I 7, 8–15, trans. Marc DelCogliano in DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian Theory of Names, PhD thesis, Emory University (Atlanta 2009): 170. Available at: https://legacy-etd.library.emory.edu (accessed December 22, 2017). 124 Iamblichus, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians 254, trans. Thomas Taylor. Quoted from: Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995): 176.

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but we cannot learn anything from them about the nature of their transcendent referent. The names of God, in other words, are essentially inadequate to God himself, who is beyond being and thus beyond language, which is of being.125

On the next page Izmirlieva continues: The early advocates of Christian apophasis tried to reconcile their linguistic relativism with the ritual requirements for explicit divine names by arguing, along with Plotinus and his followers, that God can be properly articulated in negative names, most of which are formed in Greek by alpha privative, as in a-rrheton (in-effable) or a-nōnomaton (unnamable). Yet this naming by negation is hardly a practical solution, for it creates more problems than it actually solves. Negative naming is no more than an “unfortunate necessity,” as Leszek Kolakowski put it, for it imposes on the divinity a reversed, anthropological perspective, taking as its measure human contingency and not the transcendent superexistence. […] Thus negative names address not God, but only his essential difference from man […].126

It is generally known that the apophatic tradition was well-entrenched in early Christian thought. It manifested itself as both a theoretical stance and as an aspect of the theological language, as illustrated in the works of the Church Fathers. Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, in a work which was quoted above, evokes Manoah, the father of the biblical Samson, saying: And so, too, the word that was spoken to Manoah shows the fact that the Divinity is not comprehensible by the significance of His name, because, when Manoah asks to know His name, that, when the promise has come actually to pass, he may by name glorify his benefactor, He says to him, “Why askest thou this? It also is wonderful!”; so that by this we learn that there is one name significant of the Divine Nature—the wonder, namely, that arises unspeakably in our hearts concerning It.127

However, when taking this and other similar passages into consideration, a subtle nuance of meaning should not be ignored: Gregory ascribes the wondrous ungraspability of God to His one concealed name. Izmirlieva, by contrast, speaks about a philosophical tradition which extends the same wondrousness onto God’s antonomastic names. The forms used to describe the supernatural reality, around which the theological language was built, were to manifest this uniqueness by their morphological structure alone. In this way, the uniqueness was to be observed on the level of single words which, even though they respected the general word-formation rules, still proved to be very peculiar in certain cases.

125 Izmirlieva, All the Names of the Lord…, 34. 126 Ibid., 35. 127 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius VIII 1 in NPNF II 5: 200.

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It may thus be said that up to a certain point the apophatic terminology did indeed dominate religious writing. Yet the Christian litany does not seem to have been the product of the period which was directly marked by these tendencies, but in fact of the period which immediately followed, during which the antinomic effect was transposed from the level of single words and expressions onto the level of enumerative ordering. This enabled particular antonomasias to express their content in a positive way, for an awareness that the name of God, as well as of individual saints, is most peculiar developed when they were enumerated, that is, when it became evident that the listed expressions are equivalent but not synonymous. A case in point is the Litany of Loreto, in which the antonomasia “Virgin of virgins” had positive connotations, and these did not impede its comprehension, but when it was set alongside other antonomasias, it became infused with its peculiar spirit. The tendencies to withdraw from the lexicon of prayer the once powerful apophatic elements were a direct consequence of the changes which were effected within the Neoplatonic tradition. The Christian writers, who were brought up in the pagan tradition and owed their education to the Greek philosophical schools, were, it must be assumed, glad to break the deadlock which put a strain on Neoplatonic thought in the first centuries after Christ. “The First God”— Henny Fiskå Hägg writes—was “in Middle Platonism […] thought to be so exalted above the cosmos of matter that he can have no direct relation to it at all.”128 The intellectual rapture over the transcendence of the Monad incited a desire for the highest ideal, an ideal which was beyond the reach of the human name. In fact, the nature of the name, which is based on the relation between the word and its referent, and the nature of the Monad, which is free from inner divisions, were mutually exclusive. According to Proclus, the names available to us at the highest intellectual elevation of which we are capable were merely those of the third order.129 In this situation, the dogma about the two natures of Christ must have been seen as a liberation from the trap of mutually exclusive statements. As rightly noted by Hägg, “the transcendent God has, through an act of grace, disclosed himself in the Son. Unlike the transcendent God, then, the Son is circumscribed and limited and His Unity-in-Multiplicity (as the One-Many) is nameable.”130

128 Henny Fiskå Hägg, Clement of Alexandria and the Beginnings of Christian Apophaticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006): 85. 129 Cf. Proclus, Theologia Platonica I 29. 130 Hägg, Clement of Alexandria…, 227.

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According to Gregory of Nyssa, in becoming man, Christ combined divine and human natures and thus removed the boundary between them. This led to a flow of perfection from God’s divine nature to the nature of humans, which made “the exalted and Divine names descend to the Man” and become accessible to those who share His human nature. As explained by Gregory, “the majesty implied in these names is transmitted from the Divine to the Human by the commixture of Its Nature with that Nature which is lowly.”131 The self-effacing Plotinan soul, which was attached to the lowest rungs of the ladder of being and considered its misery in abstract aporias, yet which strove to move up from the level of matter, must have welcomed the message about God, who of His own accord asks to be addressed in the most human and nominal way, a message which certainly led to a release of creative energy. To prove this point, we may refer to the almost complete, even ostentatious, absence of prefixes that correspond to the Greek alpha in the oldest Western litanies. The striking reluctance to use these must have had a declarative power and may be seen as a voice in the discussion on transcendence. God, despite His transcendence, is nameable, at least from the moment of His Incarnation. A long list of His antonomastic names is an expression of this fact. These new tendencies, when considering religious language, may be observed as early as the Akathist Hymn, even though they make only a partial and somewhat inconsistent appearance in the text. The litanic passages which may be distinguished in the hymn include twelve oikoi, each composed of six hemistichs, which together make 144 salutations, or even 145, if the refrain is included. Out of those 145 units, only eleven contain definite apophatic expressions; out of those eleven expressions only five contain the prefix alpha. These are as follows: “ἀποῤῥήτου” (“ineffable”), “ἀῤῥήτως” (“ineffably”), “ἀχωρήτου” (“uncontained”), “ἀδαπάνητε” (“inexhaustible”) and an expression which is difficult to render in translation, for it acquires an apophatic sense only thanks to a paronomasia, namely the refrain “Νύμφη ἀνύμφευτε” (“Bride unwedded”). The prefix hyper, which is typical of apophatic prayer, appears only once, in the word “ὑπερβαίνουσα” (“who oversoarest”); the prefix dys, which may also be termed apophatic, appears twice, in the words “δυσανάβατον” (“hard to climb”) and “δυσθεώρητον” (“hard to explore”); the prefix epi also appears twice, in the expressions “ἐπὶ τῶν Χερουβίμ” (“upon the Cherubim”) and “ἐπὶ τῶν Σεραφίμ” (“upon the Seraphim”); the hyperbolic “ἁγία ἁγίων μείζων” (“holiest of holy

131 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomium, VI 2, in NPNF II 5: 184.

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saints”), which acquires an apophatic dimension by means of lexical semantics rather than by morphology should also be mentioned. The recapitulation above might create the impression that the apophatic material is particularly abundant, and yet this is not so. In fact, the expressions quoted above become lost in the wealth of positive terms included in the Akathist Hymn. Furthermore, positive connotations are also achieved through the use of the prefix alpha in examples such as “ὁ ἀσάλευτος πύργος” (“immovable Tower”), “τὸ ἀπόρθητον τεῖχος” (“impregnable Bulwark”), etc. The prefix also relates to demonic forces, for example, “ἀοράτων ἐχθρῶν” (“invisible foes”), which leads to the conclusion that probably its multiple roles in the text simply reflected the lexical specificity of contemporary Greek. Three expressions from oikos nine are particularly noteworthy in this respect: “φιλοσόφους ἀσόφους δεικνύουσα” (“thou that showest philosophers fools”) “τεχνολόγους ἀλόγους ἐλέγχουσα” (“thou that provest logicians illogical”) “βυθοῦ ἀγνοίας ἐξέλκουσα” (“thou who drawest us from the depths of ignorance”)

The expressions seem to resemble a well-known apophatic convention of biblical rapture over God’s thought, which exceeds the limits of human understanding, but ultimately their meaning proves to be positive. When “the subtle disputants are confounded” and “the writers of myths are withered,” Mary breaks “the webs of the Athenians” and draws philosophers “from the depths of ignorance.” Since she enlightens “many with knowledge,” they eventually recognize how blind they had previously been. The apophatic pessimism, which puts a strain on several oikoi, is connected to recognizing one’s place in the cosmic hierarchy as well as one’s ignorance, and yet it is neither the ultimate, nor even the dominant, tone of the Akathist Hymn. In the text, the experience of darkness is merely a starting point for all the subsequent spiritual experiences. The recognition of Mary’s intermediary role in the history of salvation, as well as in effecting the unity between the human and the divine, is accompanied by joyful gratitude, which is a source of the exuberance typical of the hymn. The lesson concerning the reliance on the revealed antonomastic names for God and His saints, which is not fully realized in the Akathist Hymn, becomes a practice that is fully acquired by the time of the medieval litanies of the Western Church. In the following subchapter, we will concentrate on the European litanic verse in which a lexicon of positive expressions dominates to a considerable extent. The question to be addressed will concern the way medieval and modern poetry employed this lexicon, with a particular focus on the relation between anonomasia and the neighboring poetic devices. However, before proceeding to the final part of our discussion on antonomasia, let us briefly sum up the conclusions drawn so far. 321

Based on the treatises of the Church Fathers, it may be inferred that God’s name possesses a mysterious affinity with the Savior, an affinity that does not produce any internal divisions within Him. From the point of view of men, whose perspective is essentially limited, His name is revealed in numerous antonomasias. These allow men to enter into relations with the unchangeable name of God, with the guarantor of the relations between each individual antonomasia and His mysterious name being Jesus Himself, in whom the human and the divine are combined. Thus, even though the human mind may become confused in its considerations of the Savior’s unity and may not grasp the entire wealth of terms which point to this unity, the consequences of this confusion are alleviated by the Savior Himself and by His own will. The moment Christianity showed an awareness of this fact, the initial crisis was overcome, a crisis which arose when the natural human desire to name God was suppressed at the level of individual words. From then on, God’s name was also recognized as being most peculiar albeit on a syntactic rather than a lexical level. Similarly to the Akathist Hymn, in the litany, too, the key role was played by an enumeration of a series of antonomastic names, with the caveat that the rhythmical equivalence does not always correspond to synonymy. The privilege of the name which is ungraspable belongs not only to God, but also to man. Therefore, it is also man—especially a holy man whose original resemblance to God has been restored—that has to be referred to using different antonomastic names. Even if some of these terms become conventionalized and standardized, it does not follow that they automatically lose their tropic function. The names retain their antonomastic status as long as they have the potential to create a proper name from a common name before the reader’s eyes. Antonomasia does not represent a trope of a higher order, even though it can be compared to neighboring linguistic phenomena and tropes. Drawing upon knowledge from outside the linguistic system, it moves away from synonym; by stepping outside the metalinguistic framework, it becomes much more than pure periphrasis; and in gaining independence, it becomes freed from an epithetic role. Additionally, it points to the essence of an individual and thus it is opposed to metonymy, yet it is no closer to synecdoche, as can be seen from the example of the Litany of Loreto discussed in this chapter. In the prayer the single noun “the Virgin,” which is used to denote Mary, does indeed point to the person who—when compared with other virgins—fulfills its criteria par excellence, that is, the relation between Her and other women resembles that of pars pro toto. The formula “Mother of God,” by contrast, excludes all considerations of the most excellent element in a given category, for in the litanic worldview there cannot be any other “Mother of God” than Mary. Even though it is based on two common 322

nouns, the expression “Mother of God” does not depend for its effect on extrapolating the best there is in their semantic content. In fact, the expression connotes excellence because it elevates the nouns to the level of a proper name, and not because it realizes their content par excellence.

9.5  Antonomasias in Practice The litany provides optimal conditions for the development of antonomasia. In light of the philosophical tradition underlying this trope, the names of God and individuals acquire a hidden ontological value which roots itself in their deepest core. This core invites our attention and yet is beyond our reach, which explains the need to make use of its many alternative forms in our painstaking ascent toward knowledge. In order for the entire potential of antonomasia to be fulfilled, it has to appear in a series, with the way for this precise kind of accumulation being paved by the litanic genre. It is in the litany that the greatest possible number of antonomasias appear, thus strengthening the connection between the speaker and the addressee. It is also in the litany that a wide repertoire of syntactic structures allows us to renew the relation between the alternative names (on the horizontal axis) and the relation between each of these names and the central name, which is most strange and wonderful (on the vertical axis). Therefore, an analysis of the various applications of antonomasia in medieval and modern litanic verse has to start by understanding that the great wealth of formal structures which the trope generates cannot be covered in this chapter alone. This is because antonomasia in religious literature is used in so many different ways that research in this area deserves a separate monograph. In particular, there are antonomasias that are not typical of the litanic genre, but which nevertheless represent the central philosophical tenets mentioned above and are also encountered in poetic prayers. In the Middle Ages, for instance, of fairly frequent occurrence were texts which focused on enumerating the most important names of God. The prototype of such texts were the catalogs found in Jerome’s Letter XXV and Book VII of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies. That said, a more artistic use of the convention appears, amongst other texts, in two works contained in two different manuscripts, both dating from the tenth century (quotations I-a and I-b132): Omnipotens vis trina, Deus, pater optime rerum, Quo narrante satus sine tempore, semine, matre, Ortu, fine, loco vel membris, post coronatus,

132 The numerical references to the quotations are used in the table at the end of this chapter.

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Permittens cerni, multo quoque nomine dictus Spes, ratio, vita, salus, sapientia, mens, mons, Iudex, porta, gigas, rex (regum), gemma, sacerdos, Messias, Sabaoth, rabbi, sponsus, mediator, Virga, columba, manus, petra, filius, Emanuel, lux, Vinea, pastor, ovis, pax, radix, vitis, oliva, Fons, hoedus, panis, agnus, vitulus, leo, Iesus, Verbum, homo, rete, lapis, Dominus, Deus, omnia, Christus.133 Alma chorus Domini nunc pangat nomina summi: Messias, soter, emanuel, sabaoth, adonai Est unigenitus, via, vita, manus, homousion, Principium, primogenitus, sapientia, virtus, Alpha, caput finisque simul vocitatur et est ω, Fons et origo boni, paraclitus ac mediator, Agnus, ovis, vitulus, serpens, aries, leo, vermis, Os, verbum, splendor, sol, gloria, lux et imago, Panis, flos, vitis, mons, ianua, petra lapisque, Angelus et sponsus pastorque, propheta, sacerdos, Athanatos, kyrios, theos pantocrator, Iesus. Salvificet nos, sit cui saecla per omnia doxa.134

The fact that a single line of text furnishes as many as seven examples of antonomasias—as illustrated by the series of “hope, reason, life, salvation, wisdom, mind, rock” in line five of the former text and “mouth, word, splendor, sun, glory, light, and image” in line eight of the latter—is made possible by the use of short single words. Such densely packed registers are more akin to an expression of faith than to a prayer and as such perhaps they should not be considered in a book devoted to litanic verse. If, however, almost all of the enumerated expressions were accompanied by one or two epithets, their catalog would acquire an entirely new character, namely that of meditation rather than an exercise in mastering theological vocabulary (quotation II-1a): O fons misericordiae, Dulcis regina veniae, Origo pudicitiae, Pacis atque concordiae Reparatrix, virgo, flos virginum, O consolatrix cordium, Miseratrix humilium,

133 “De Nominibus Christi,” in AHMA 46: 61. 134 “De Nominibus Domini,” in AHMA 53: 152.

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Auxiliatrix fidelium, Audi voces precantis agminis.135 [Oh, merciful fountain, / sweet queen of favor, / and source of chastity. / By whom peace and concord / are restored, oh, virgin, flower of virginity, / consoler of hearts, / merciful to the poor, / assistant to the faithful, / hear entreating voices that are so many.]

A similar effect may be achieved if each of the words is preceded by an anaphora, especially if it is derived from the tradition of the litanic genes. A case in point is a passage from the sequence “De Beata Maria Virgine” (quotation II-2), frequently represented in various medieval manuscripts: Ave, dulcis, Ave, mitis, Ave, pia, Ave, laeta, Ave, lucidissima. Ave, porta, Ave, virga, Ave, rubus, Ave, vellus, Ave, felicissima.136 [Hail, sweet, / Hail, tender, / Hail, pious, / Hail, cheerful. / Hail, brightest, // Hail, gate, / Hail, twig, / Hail, bush, / Hail, wool, / Hail, most joyful.]

The juxtaposition of the first two examples with the subsequent two examples reveals that the text gains a litanic tone and dimension not merely by recourse to a long antonomastic enumeration, but by building the enumeration on at least two-word phrases. This is a direct consequence of the litanic worldview which was discussed in Chapter 8. A necessary prerequisite for expressing the fundamental opposition of oneness vs. manyness is the presence of structures made up of at least two components. It is precisely this relatively simple criterion that forms the basis of the entire wealth of alternative syntactic strategies used in litanic texts, strategies which will be outlined below. Apart from using chairetismic anaphora, which took the shape of a verbal apostrophe in the example above, another commonplace method of adding a litanic quality to enumeration is to introduce to the anaphora a noun which is treated as the central name, and which is accompanied by alternative names expressed through appositive antonomasias. The alternative names may take 135 “Ad Beatem Mariam Virginem,” in AHMA 46: 210. 136 “De Beata Maria Virgine,” in AHMA 54: 398.

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different forms: they may either represent short, one-word phrases or longer expressions resembling those in quotation II-1a. The latter option was employed by Angelus Silesius, a seventeenth-century Silesian poet, whose litany is built around the name of Jesus (II-3a): Jesu, meine Freud und Lust, Jesu, meine Speis und Kost, Jesu, meine Süßigkeit, Jesu, Trost in allem Leid, Jesu, meiner Seelen Sonne, Jesu, meines Geistes Wonne.137 [Jesus, my happiness and joy, / Jesus, my food and meal, / Jesus, my sweetness, / Jesus, consolation in all suffering, / Jesus, my soul’s sun, / Jesus, my spirit’s delight.]

Those who are not experts might interpret the phrases on the right as periphrases. In fact, however, they are names that are strictly coreferential with the name of the Son of God, which appears in anaphoric form on the left. Accordingly, it is not only the nominal phrase “Jesu” that may be apostrophized in prayer, but the remaining names may also be treated as direct calls to God. Interestingly enough, the names of saints are reconstructed in a similar manner in religious texts produced by both Eastern and Western Christianity. The earliest examples of medieval Bulgarian literature, for instance, contain a prayer composed by Clement of Ohrid that is referred to by Emilian Prałat in his article. The prayer commemorates the evangelical Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha (II-3b): Лазар — красива издънка от божията градина! Лазар — медоносна капка от божията мъдрост! Лазар — извор на духовна благодат! Лазар — неувяхващ цвят от райската градина! Лазар — високолетящ орел на висшата премъдрост! Лазар — с ъкровищница на божието гостоприемство, изпълнена с обич към бедните! Лазар — втори предтеча за тези, които седят в мрак и в смъртна сянка! Лазар — лют посрамител на адовата сила! Лазар — мил любимец на Христа! Лазар — пръв предобраз на възкресението на Христа на третия ден!

137 Angelus Silesius, Heilige Seelenlust oder geistliche Hirtenlieder I 6, ed. Georg Ellinger (Halle an der Saale: Max Niemeyer, 1901): 18. The poem was also quoted in Chapter 8.

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Лазар — светлозарен съобщник на ангелите! Лазар — строг изобличител на иудеите!138 [Lazarus—beautiful branch in God’s garden! / Lazarus—a drop of honey of Divine wisdom! / Lazarus—source of Divine grace! / Lazarus—unfading flower in the Garden of Eden! / Lazarus—high flying eagle of the highest wisdom! / Lazarus—a treasure trove of divine hospitality, filled with love for the poor! / Lazarus—another predecessor for those, who lie in darkness and the shadow of death! / Lazarus—tenacious tamer of diabolical power! / Lazarus—a lover of Christ! / Lazarus—the prototype for Christ’s resurrection on the third day! / Lazarus—shining companion of angels! / Lazarus—strictly rebuking the Jews.]139

As shown in the last two quotations, the combination of apostrophe and antonomasia is characterized by a very loose connection between its components. There are no syntactic restrictions which would prevent the migration of the antonomasias from one text to another or their transposition within a text. In litanic verse, however, the connections between the central name and its antonomasias are not necessarily loose. In fact, they may be tightened by means of various strategies. One of the most obvious methods is to form antonomastic phrases by combining the same noun with different epithets, as exemplified by another medieval Latin poem, with its use of the noun “king” (II-4a): Jesu Christe, rex gloriae, Rex regum, rex pacificus, Rex dominator dominus, Rex aeternus, rex immensus, Rex supernus, rex benignus, Rex coelestis, gloriosus, Rex in regno tuo clarus,140 [Jesus Christ, king of glory, / King of kings, king of peace, / King, the sovereign Lord, / King eternal, king unfathomable, / King superior, king beneficent, / King of Heaven, full of glory, / King respected in your kingdom.]

138 “Похвала за четиридневния Лазар” [“The Praise Epistle for the Four Days of Lazarus”] in Тържество на Словото: Златният Век на Българската Книжнина Летописи, жития, богословие, риторика, поезия [Celebration of the Word: Golden Age of Bulgarian literary Chronicles, Lives, Theology, Rhetoric, and Poetry], eds. Климентина Иванова and Светлина Николова (София: Агата-А, 1995), http:// macedonia.kroraina.com, (accessed October 19, 2017). 139 Translation by Emilian Prałat, “‘The Word that feeds hungry human souls, the Word that gives power to your mind and heart’: Bulgaria from Clement of Ohrid to the ‘September Literature’ Circle,” in LV 1: 243. 140 “De divinis Nominibus,” in AHMA 15: 15.

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Similarly, in a Marian canzone by Petrarch (number 366, inc. “Vergine bella, che di sol vestita…”), each of the ten main stanzas begins with the apostrophe “Vergine,” which in the first six stanzas and stanza ten is accompanied, respectively, by the following epithets: “bella,” “saggia,” “pura,” “santa,” “sola,” “chiara” and “humana” (“beautiful,” “wise,” “immaculate,” “holy,” “unaccompanied,” “luminous” and “human”). A slightly more complicated variant of the same combination, yet still within the same model, was created by Jeroni Martí, a sixteenth-century poet with connections to Valencia. In a poem which is discussed in greater detail by Marta Piłat-Zuzankiewicz, the central noun is the word gigant (a giant), whereas the central epithet is represented by the word fort (strong). This is singled out from a series of different epithets and repeated a number of times; with certain repetitions a second epithet is added which varies from line to line and often takes an extended form (II-4b): ¡O fort gigant de cor hi d’estatura, fort de valer hi fort en bones obres! ¡O fort gigant, cavaller de ventura, fort capità de força molt segura, on sens perill se retrahuen los pobres! ¡O fort gigant, armat de la temprança, ab fort escut de ffe per als encontres! ¡O fort gigant, ab fort hi valent lança de caritat, y ab l’elm fort d’esperança!141 [Oh, strong giant by your heart and height, / greatly strong and strong in good works! / Oh, strong giant, fortunate knight, / strong commander endowed with reliable force, / in which the poor find their refuge and are no longer frightened! / Oh, strong giant, armed with temperance, / and with a strong shield of faith towards those whom you meet! / Oh, strong giant, with a strong and brave lance / of charity and with a strong helmet of hope!]142

Even though these preliminary considerations are only supported by a few examples, they already lead to certain conclusions, which are as follows. It seems that over the centuries, both church and poetic litanies developed a repertoire of formal strategies related to the use of antonomasias. If it is accepted that this repertoire may be perceived as a quasi-grammatical system, it is without doubt an extensive system with a significant number of variants and derivations. Since 141 Antoni Ferrando, Els certàmens poètics valencians del segle XIV al XIX (València: Institució Alfons el Magnànim, 1983): 646. 142 I would like to express my gratitude to Marta Piłat-Zuzankiewicz for her assistance in translating this passage into English. Cf. LV 1: 161.

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this system appears to have an open character with new elements moving in and out, it is not intended to reconstruct every detail of it. Instead, it should be stressed that the evolution of the poetry over the centuries saw the continuous employment of new methods of using antonomasias in a text and of giving them a final stylistic polish. Therefore, instead of attempting to present a complete typology of these methods, the examples previously quoted will be used to extrapolate the specific regularity which is underlined in this chapter, namely that antonomasia does not distance itself from the neighboring tropes and other linguistic phenomena but is linked to them in many ways. It follows, therefore, that antonomasias emerge from a text rather than simply exist in it and they do so with a different degree of distinctness. While the antonomasias used in quotation II-2 came into being as a result of emancipating the Marian epithets, in quotations II-4a and II-4b the adjectives which form the antonomastic phrases do not give up their epithetic function. Also, the relation between the antonomasia and the predicative phrase is communicated with different degrees of explicitness. In contrast to the Catholic church litanies which do not employ copular verbs, poetic litanies do so quite frequently, if not ostentatiously, especially in the subject-copula-predicative structure (II-5a): Ich bin der Eine und bin Beide Ich bin der zeuger bin der schooss Ich bin der degen und die scheide Ich bin das opfer bin der stoss Ich bin die sicht und bin der seher Ich bin der bogen bin der bolz Ich bin der altar und der fleher Ich bin das feuer und das holz Ich bin der reiche bin der bare Ich bin das zeichen bin der sinn Ich bin der schatten bin der wahre Ich bin ein end und ein beginn.143 [I am one and I am both, / I am the semen and I am the womb, / I am the sheath and the sword, / I am the victim and I am the tormentor, / I am the seer and I am the sight, / I am the bow and I am the arrow, / I am the altar and the prayer, / I am the

143 Stefan George, “Ich bin der Eine und bin Beide…,” in Meine Lyrik (Norderstedt: Jazzybee, 2016): 318. The text is discussed in more detail by Ewa Wantuch, “‘You are the harp on which the player breaks in pieces’: German and Austrian Poetry between 1797 and 1914,” in LV 2: 174–175.

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fire and the wood, / I am the rich man and I am the poor, / I am the sign and I am the meaning, / I am the shadow and I am the truth, / I am an end and a beginning.]

Apart from the complete subject-copula-predicative structure, which is highlighted more clearly by the parallelism of the text—as exemplified in Stefan George’s poem—there are also more subtle means of employing antonomasias, such as eliminating the linking verb but preserving the subject and predicative pair. This method was used in the following passages, II-3a and II-3b, which were quoted above. Perhaps the most interesting effect produced by the lack of a copula can be observed in the Russian language, which in principle does not use verbs such as is or are in the present tense. Thus, the verb есть means exist rather than is or are. Both in everyday speech as well as in literary writing, predicatives are invariably used without a copula, but with an appropriate modulation to the melodic line of a sentence. This explains why such lines in Russian poetry—exemplified here by “Молитва” (“Prayer”), composed by a Russian symbolist poet, Konstantin Balmont, and discussed by Jacek Głażewski in his article144—should be treated as semantically complete, even though in place of the verb they contain a dash, the marker of a semantically significant break (II-3c): Ты – шелест нежного листка, Ты – ветер, шепчущий украдкой, Ты – свет, бросаемый лампадкой, Где брезжит сладкая тоска.145 [You [are] a rustling of a tender leaf, / You [are] wind which stealthily whispers, / You [are] a light thrown by a small lamp, / from which sweet yearning slowly spreads.]

This example demonstrates that the same convention of omitting the verb by ellipsis may be understood differently depending on the language. Additionally, on the basis of this quotation it may be hypothesized that in works which consist of the mere enumeration of antonomasias and exclude not only the verb but even the central name, the copula may still be present, if only by implication (II-1b): Tower of David, Ivory Tower, Vessel of Honour, House of Gold, Mystical Rose, Unfading Flower, Sure Refuge of the unconsoled, Pray for us.

144 Cf. Jacek Głażewski, “A Separate World. Russian Poetry Between the Native and the Universal,” in LV 1: 276. 145 Поэзия серебряного века [Poetry of the Silver Age], ed. Сергей А. Порецкий (Москва: Фирма СТД, 2011): 173.

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Mirror of Justice, Wisdom’s Seat, Celestial shade for earthly heat, The sinner’s last and best Retreat, Pray for us; pray for us.146

If the stanzas quoted above are treated as a paraphrase of the antonomasias found in the Litany of Loreto, they become furnished with specific semantic content, that is, we sense they express a direct address to Mary which in its full form reads: “You are a Tower of David,” “You are a Vessel of Honor,” etc. In certain poems, both the use and the omission of copula are not related in any way to the grammar, but to the poem’s metrical qualities, for example, to the number of syllables required by the meter, such as the octosyllable: Tu angelorum regina, Tu mortis es medicina, Tu es rosa sine spina, Tu nos voca de sentina.147 [You [are] the queen of angels, / You are a medicine against death, / You are a rose without a thorn, / Call us from the rabble.]

If one syllable is missing from the octosyllable line, it is supplemented by the verb es ([you] are). If, however, the line already contains eight syllables, the verb is omitted, as is the case in the initial line of the passage quoted above. This is made possible through parallel enumeration, in which one es may extend over a series of subordinate clauses. This presence or absence ambivalence also demonstrates most conclusively that litanic verse preserves the predicative sense regardless of the presence or absence of the verb. What makes this possible is that unlike other literary genres, such as novels, the litanic genre provides the conditions in which the existential semantics is imposed from above and does not need to be legitimized by the use of verbs.

9.6  Litanic Narration The fact that litanic antonomasia expresses predicative content means that litanic names are endowed with traits and functions that differ considerably from those assigned to the names of individuals in state administration, where

146 Alfred Austin, “Madonna’s Child,” in Carmina Mariana. An English Anthology in Verse in Honour of and in Relation to The Blessed Virgin Mary, ed. Orby Shipley (London: Burns and Oates, 1902): 41. 147 “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 224.

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they are treated as mere entries in computer databases. The names granted to God and His saints are more than pure nominal titles. Instead, they are reflections of the process by which we arrive at the essence of being or by which the essence of the addressees is revealed. In litanic verse, the essence of a person as revealed in their name mirrors their existence. In other words, existence precedes essence. This verbal dependence may go even further, in which case antonomasia is seen not only as an expression of someone’s existence, but also as representation of the person’s specific actions. In such advanced cases, the predicative structure (whether implicit or explicit) no longer suffices and even becomes useless. As a consequence, antonomasia has to emerge from the subordinate clause which contains a verb. Enumerations of extended clauses beginning with the qui-type pronoun are to be found in both religious and lay poetry. An example of the latter is Philip Sidney’s erotic poem from the collection Astrophel and Stella (II-6a): Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth Which now my breast o’ercharg’d to music lendeth? To you, to you, all song of praise is due; Only in you my song begins and endeth. Who hath the eyes which marry state with pleasure? Who keeps the key of Nature’s chiefest treasure? To you, to you, all song of praise is due; Only for you the heaven forgot all measure. Who hath the lips where wit in fairness raigneth? Who womankind at once both decks and staineth? To you, to you, all song of praise is due; Only by you Cupid his crown maintaineth. Who hath the feet whose step of sweetness planteth? Who else, for whom fame worthy trumpets wanteth? To you, to you, all song of praise is due; Only to you her scepter Venus granteth. Who hath the breast whose milk doth passions nourish? Whose grace is such that when it chides doth cherish? To you, to you, all song of praise is due; Only through you the tree of life doth flourish.148

148 Philip Sidney, “First song,” in Selected Prose and Poetry, ed. Robert Kimbrough (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983): 197–198.

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The poet does not depict the body of the beloved in a nominal way, that is, by running his eyes over her image as if he was observing a beautiful landscape, but instead in a narrative way—by establishing a discursive relation with her, a relation which is expressed through apostrophes to her “who hath” such and such “eyes,” “lips,” “feet,” and “breast.” The regular repetitions of the verb “hath” emphasize a certain idea to the reader, namely the fact that “having” an ideal body is an activity of sorts on the part of the lady, an activity which enables the poet to apostrophize her by means of names which contain verbs. The actual name of the addressee (Stella) is not evoked in this particular poem, yet she is assigned other titles which underscore her main activity, namely that of radiating virtues. As correctly noted by Margaret P. Hannay, some of the “words to Stella […] could as easily be applied to God.”149 In fact, an identical method of forming antonomasias with the use of the qui-type pronoun has always been characteristic of religious poetry. A case in point is a stanzaic poem in praise of God the Father composed by Reginald of Canterbury at the beginning of the twelfth century, a passage of which is quoted below (II-6b): Qui per Abel, frater quem Cain perdidit ater, Iam Christi rubeum signabas morte tropaeum, Per Christi mortem Christi defende cohortem. Qui per Enoch raptum, paradisi sedibus aptum, Praestruis in fine mundi medicare ruinae, Nunc etiam morbis pietas tua consulat orbis. Qui Noe vexisti super aequor et eripuisti, Saecula iusta parum cum mersit abyssus aquarum, Ne male mergamur, te quaesumus, eripiamur. Qui per Abram perimis spoliatos rebus opimis Quinque simul reges nisos evertere leges, Quantumcunque vales, nisus preme daemoniales. Qui Loth de Sodomis dux ad campestria promis Perdis et obscaenos Sodomitas stercore plenos, Exime cunctorum nos de puteo vitiorum.

149 Margaret P. Hannay, “Joining the Conversation: David, Astrophil, and the Countess of Pembroke,” in Textual Conversations in the Renaissance: Ethics, Authors, Technologies, eds. Zachary Lesser and Benedict Scott (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006): 116.

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Qui Iob vexatum totiens totiensque probatum Sanas divina bona multiplicans medicina, Aspice languentes, fer opem sanaque dolentes.150

If we were to replace the pronoun “qui” with the equivalent of the Latin tu (thou), the result would be a fairly traditional narrative summing up the central events of Genesis, yet the story is substantiated by being frozen in time. This effect is achieved thanks to the pronoun “qui,” which turns the words of the poem into an enumeration of descriptive antonomasias for God. It is because of this pronoun that we may evoke the Old Testament scenes in a direct apostrophe to God, almost as if we were addressing Him by name. Likewise, it is because of this pronoun that clauses such as “who curest Job with many good and divine medicines” not only evoke the biographies of prophets and patriarchs, but become equivalent to God’s names. In fact, the pronoun is the only element capable of turning these well-known biblical episodes into antonomasias. As the remaining portion of the text is governed by verbs, this creates the impression that in Reginald’s poem antonomasias are hanging on by a thread, and thus, might have gone unnoticed if only they had not been so consistently repeated. Therefore, in certain poems the area occupied by the pronoun qui is stretched, somewhat artificially, to cover certain longer phrases, such as “the one who,” with the aim of drawing greater attention to the anaphora. “Stances” by Alphonse de Lamartine is a good case in point (II-6c): La terre m’a crié: «Qui donc est le Seigneur?» Celui dont l’âme immense est partout répandue, Celui dont un seul pas mesure l’étendue, Celui dont le soleil emprunte sa splendeur; Celui qui du néant a tiré la matière, Celui qui sur le vide a fondé l’univers, Celui qui sans rivage a renfermé les mers, Celui qui d’un regard a lancé la lumière.151

The Earth asks the poet: “who is the Lord?” and is answered through a series of lines, each containing an anaphora on “the one who.” This kind of anaphora may in fact relate to all the basic variants of antonomasia previously listed. The qui form may be attached to a pronoun, as can be 150 Reginald of Canterbury, “Tristichon Malchi ad Deum patrem,” in AHMA 50: 371. 151 Alphonse de Lamartine, “Stances,” in Œuvres poétiques, ed. Marius-François Guyard (Paris: Gallimard, 1963): 167. In French poetry this kind of anaphora has a long tradition. Cf. for example Sonnet 5 from Joachim du Bellay’s Les Regrets.

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observed in Lamartine’s poem, but it may also precede other parts of speech, such as a noun, an adjective, or a participle, provided they are treated as the central name in the text. The central name may recur in each anaphora, as was shown in quotations II-3a and II-3b, but it frequently precedes the entire enumeration in the line which acts as the heading. In the poem by a trouvère, Helinand of Froidmont, who lived at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the central name is the word “death” (II-6d): Morz, qui en toz lieus as tes rentes, Qui de toz marchiez as les ventes, Qui les riches sés desnuer, Qui les levez en haut adentes, Qui les plus poissanz acraventes, Qui les honeurs sés remuer, Quil les plus forz fais tressuer Et le plus cointes esluer,152 [Death, you who collect your rents in every place, / who derive revenues from all the lands, / who degrade the rich, / who delude the high-born, / who destroy the most powerful / who remove honors, / who make the mightiest sweat, / and the wisest stumble.]153

At the same time, the use of the pronoun qui does not automatically entail the use of verbal clauses. As revealed in quotations II-3a and II-3b (and under certain conditions in II-3c), the verb may appear in ellipsis, and yet—as has been demonstrated—it will not necessarily be semantically excluded. In the poem by Hildebert of Lavardin, who lived at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the verbless antonomasias with an anaphora on “cuius” (whose) refer to Zion, called “an undisturbed David’s city” (II-6e): Sion, David urbs tranquilla, Cuius faber auctor lucis, Cuius portae lignum crucis, Cuius claves lingua Petri, Cuius cives semper laeti, Cuius muri lapis vivus, Cuius custos rex festivus.154

152 Helinand of Froidmont, Les Vers de la mort, ed. Fredrik Wulff and Emmanuel Walberg (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1905): 3. 153 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Helinand of Froidmont, The Verses on Death: Les Vers de la Mort, ed. and trans. Jenny Lind Porter (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1999): 54–55. 154 Hildebertus de Lavartino, “De sanctissima Trinitate,” in AHMA 50: 411.

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[Zion, David’s peaceful city, / Whose constructor [is] the creator of light, / Whose gate [is] from the wood of the cross, / Whose keys [are] the words from Peter’s tongue, / Whose citizens [are] always happy, / Whose walls [are] from living stone, / Whose guardian [is] the charming king.]

The passages quoted above seem sufficient to dispel any remaining doubt surrounding the theory that litanic antonomasias which are used in place of names bring to the text certain predicative baggage. The most probable source of this surprising yet long-standing approach is the biblical depiction of God, whose central and ungraspable name presupposes existence. The Old Testament God, first and foremost, exists and acts, His active existence being reflected in His most popular antonomastic names, “Creator” and “Shepherd.” The main biblical prototype of the names built around verbs that appear in European litanies was most probably Psalm 136, the structure of which was analyzed in the second part of the book (subchapter 7.3.2.2). In the psalm the refrain “for His mercy endureth for ever” was intertwined with an account of God’s creative and providential actions, which were conveyed by means of verbs, including participles. It should be recalled that this model attained its final shape in the Septuagint, in which the participial form was taken by all the verbs that constituted polyonymic antonomasias. In this way the participle became the second method of bridging the gap between the sphere of action and that of naming, the qui structure being the first. In the Greek rendition of Psalm 136, the boundary between these two spheres was blurred for the article was only preserved before selected participles. In the Latin litanies, in turn, the participial constructions tended to interfere with the tenses which were based on the predicative structure, that is, a structure which consisted in combining the auxiliary verb esse, in a proper personal form, with a participle155 (II-5b): Mors est ventura tibi pro meritisque datura, Mors est ventura tibi grande malum paritura, Mors est ventura postesque tuos subitura, Mors est ventura prece nec pretio fugitura, Mors est ventura, ne plus vivas, vetitura, Mors est ventura, quantum debes, monitura,156 [Death is about to come and give you what you deserve, / Death is about to come bearing a great evil for you, / Death is about to come and approach your door, / Death is

155 The so-called periphrastic tense. Cf. Dirk G.J. Panhuis, Latin Grammar (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006): 110. 156 “De Morte,” in AHMA 46: 352.

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about to come unavoided by any prayer or at any cost, / Death is about to come denying that you will live, / Death is about to come reminding you how much you owe].

In subsequent centuries, the participial constructions became the staple of the Christian religious tradition. One of the most popular Polish religious cycles called Gorzkie Żale (Bitter Lamentations), composed by a priest, Wawrzyniec Benik, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, contains three analogous songs entitled “Lament duszy nad cierpiącym Jezusem” (“The Lament of the Soul over the Suffering Jesus”), all of which utilize the same refrain, namely “JEZU mój kochany.” From a synchronic point of view, the phrase “kochany” is an adjective which may be translated into English as “dear”, with the whole title rendered as “My dear Jesus”, so that the effect of an apostrophe is achieved. Diachronically, however, the phrase “kochany” is a participle derived from the verb “kochać” (“to love”), and as such it bears a similarity to the English adjective “beloved.” The tension between its synchronic and diachronic functions makes the phrase ambiguous. Not only that, but its responsive character also adds to the ambiguity, for the phrase responds to couplets composed of two unequal parts. The first part of each couplet is made up only of the short name “Jezu” (“Jesus”), which is expressed through an unusual noun case, namely the vocative. It is worth mentioning that in Polish—as well as in several (but not all) other Slavic languages—the vocative case is reserved for direct addresses, that is, for calling a person by his or her name, and because it is not used on any other occasions, it plays a paradoxical role in relation to language. As with all the other cases, the vocative too should reflect inter-sentence relations, but it does not signal any semantic connection with other parts of the text. On the contrary, it extrapolates names from sentences and in this way fulfills the connotative function of language alone. Thus, from the perspective of the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school, the vocative case may be classified as a relic from mythological thinking. In the Polish text, the unusual status of the vocative was additionally reinforced by placing the apostrophe in an anaphoric position. The first part of the couplet—the one-word phrase “Jezu”—contrasts with the second longer component, that is a five- to nine-word phrase, which is split into two lines and closed with a passive participle (II-3d): JEZU, pod przysięgą od Piotra, Po trzykroć z bojaźni zaprzany,

Refrain: JEZU mój kochany!

JEZU, od okrutnych oprawców, Na sąd Piłata jak zbójca szarpany,

Ref.

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JEZU, od Heroda i dworzan, Królu chwały, zelżywie wyśmiany,

Ref.

JEZU, w białą szatę szydersko, Na większy pośmiech i hańbę ubrany,

Ref.

JEZU, u kamiennego słupa, Niemiłosiernie biczmi usmagany,

Ref.

JEZU, aż do mózgu przez czaszkę, Ciernia kolcami ukoronowany,157

Ref.

[Jesus! under the oath of Peter thrice for fear denounced. Refrain: My beloved Jesus! // Jesus! from cruel captors to Pilate’s trial like a rogue jostled and shoved. Ref. // Jesus! by Herod and His courtiers, King of Glory, ridiculed and sneered. Ref. // Jesus! mockingly clad in a white robe and for disgrace and ignomy dressed. Ref. // Jesus! bound to a pillar of stone, and mercilessly scourged. Ref. // Jesus! through the skull into His brain pierced by the spikes of thorn. Ref.].158

If the participles used in the lament were preceded by matching verbs—“byłeś” (“you were”) or “zostałeś” (“you became”)—the lyric reflection would develop into an epic narrative. Due to the lack of copulas, the long phrases are transformed into antonomasias, but at the same time they are not deprived of the narrative layer which is moved to the background and toned down rather than eliminated. Thus, without verbs the story is not so much narrated as it is reflected upon. To use a cinematic metaphor, we may say that the story consists of flashbacks through which the past is made visible as a sequence of frames called up from the memory individually, one at a time, and not as part of a large movable continuum. Events which are frozen like dance figures bring to the fore the nominal aspect of the story, which dominates the verbal aspect, while at the same time the latter is not completely excluded. In fact, these two aspects offer two different alternatives and enable the reader to approach the same text from different perspectives. From one perspective, each portion of the story endows Jesus with a new name, whereas from the other, we are still dealing with a form of narration, albeit one which is most unusual, for it only appears in litanies and may, therefore, be referred to as litanic narration. 157 Wawrzyniec Benik, Gorzkie Żale i krótkie nabożeństwo do Naświętszego Sakramentu: Reprodukcja i edycja pierowdruku z 1707 roku [Bitter Lamentations and a Short Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament: A Facsimile Edition of the First Print from the Year 1707], ed. Jacek Kowalski (Poznań: Dębogóra, 2014): 88. 158 Translation by Dominika Ruszkiewicz.

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The term litanic narration is of central importance for the purposes of this book, for it contradicts the commonly held opinion that the litany naturally precludes any possibility of a narrative account of past events. Therefore, let us suggest the following definition: litanic narration should be understood as a kind of narration, in which the story is presented either without the personal forms of verbs or alternatively, only with such forms in subordinated clauses, and in which the events in question are referred to without any precise delineation of the logical or causal relations between them. The lack of standard narrative techniques is compensated for by the litanic repetitions which have the effect of cementing the story together and creating the impression of an unbroken continuity of action. It may be the case that in cultural history litanic narration was the primary form of narration, a form which developed long before humans began to organize the plot into long chains of cause-and-effect relationships. Seen as such, litanic narration—together with the entire repertoire of litanic antonomasias— would belong to mythological thinking. This is because it offers a fundamentally different method for capturing the past than that implied in the Aristotelian concept of the plot. The chronological order of individual episodes, and the logical relations between them, are not as crucial for the purposes of litanic narration as the opportunity it provides for the reader to become immersed in individual events. The movement toward individual events, toward what is singularly unique within them, is essentially the same movement as that through which these events are substantialized or—to put it another way—through which existence is materialized in being and action turns into name. If there are two parallel streams in a single text—the stream of action and the stream of naming—we are reaching the point where one stream flows into another and the latter emerges in the former. Until now, we have been concerned with a transformation which invariably led in one direction, from action to name, and yet in some texts this process is halted and a different effect is achieved. This happens when the narration stops at the moment in which the transformation of sentences into antonomasias becomes a very distinct possibility, but one which is never realized. Consequently, the names do not come into being, even though they are on the verge of being created. To illustrate this, let us refer back to the story which Wawrzyniec Benik places within the frame of litanic narration in the song quoted above. The same story may in fact be told in a classical way, namely by employing the personal forms of verbs. Yet if it is still incorporated into a repetitive structure, that is, a structure based on parallelism and anaphora, the syntactic pattern will signal that each of the 339

episodes may easily be transformed into antonomasia, although the actual transformation is prevented by the use of verbs in their personal forms. A case in point is the following work published in Bavaria in 1577 (III-6): Iesus ad praetorium Pilato praesentatur, Iesus multo crimine ibidem accusatur. Iesus regi mittitur, qui congratulatur, Iesum rex interrogat, responsum nullum datur. Iesus multo scelere constanter accusatur, Iesus cum nil diceret, a cunctis aspernatur. Iesus tunc ironice albis est vestitus, Iesus Pilato redditus receptus est invitus.159 [Jesus is presented by Pilate near the praetorium, Jesus is there accused of many crimes. // Jesus is sent to the king who wishes to joy, Jesus when interrogated does not give any answer. // Jesus is constantly accused of many villainies, Jesus who said nothing all this rejects. // Jesus is ironically clothed in white, Jesus when returning to Pilate is reluctantly welcomed.]160

This poem lacks antonomasias in the strictest sense of the word. Instead, it tells a familiar story, and yet the presence of the antonomastic spirit can be sensed in the text. This is because apart from typical antonomasias, such as those which appear in quotations II-1a and II-1b, as well as less obvious antonomasias, such as those which constitute litanic narration and only suggest their antonomastic status, the history of litanic verse also extends to include additional phenomena which received their poetic shape under the influence of the antonomastic trope, that is, phenomena that were evidently affected by the trope, but which did not directly draw upon it. Generally speaking, the litanic genre internalized a particular way of thinking which leads away from common names toward proper names. It follows, therefore, that antonomasia in the strictest sense of the word does not 159 [Anonymous,] Horae de Passione Domini, “Ad Primam,” in AHMA 30: 75. 160 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz.

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necessarily have to appear in the text for this kind of thinking to be initiated or for a number of formal structures characteristic of the genre to be produced. Let us refer at this point to those conventions which are the most typical of the genre and which have the advantage of creating effects that varied from poet to poet. One such convention appeared in the Bavarian poem (III-6), in which the traditional plot narration is incorporated into a parallel structure. Another, much older convention consists of enumerating events in a way that is similar to the way a series of objects are enumerated, yet simultaneously precluding their being treated as equal to the names. A case in point are the calls with an anaphora on per, which make up one of the sections of the Litany of the Saints, referred to as B2 in the second part of the book (subchapter 7.4.2). Yet, another convention is based on reversing the traditional relation between noun and epithet or subject and predicate. In examples II-4a and II-4b, the anaphoric noun was treated as an invariable element. Consequently, each of its repetitive occurrences was given the character of a new antonomasia as a result of the changing epithets. In one of Pierre de Ronsard’s chansons, however, the noun and epithet change roles. The adjective “toute” appears as a fixed element in each line, whereas the nouns vary from line to line. Additionally, the nouns are almost always accompanied by at least one supplemental epithet (III-4): Toute fiel, toute ma sucrée, Toute ma jeune Cytherée, Toute ma joye, et ma langueur, Toute ma petite Angevine, Ma toute simple et toute fine, Toute mon ame et tout mon cœur.161 [All the bile, all my sweetness, / All my young Cytherea, / All my joy and my longing, / All my little Angevine, / Perfectly simple and perfectly kind, / All my soul and all my heart.]

In a litanic sonnet by Jean de La Ceppède—a poet about twenty-five years younger than Ronsard—the constant element is the adjective blanc. In this instance, it serves a predicative rather than an epithetic function (III-5a): Blanc est le vêtement du grand Père sans âge; Blancs sont les courtisans de sa blanche maison;

161 Pierre de Ronsard, “Chanson,” in Œuvres complètes, eds. Jean Céard, Daniel Ménager, and Michel Simonin (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), vol. 1: 187.

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Blanc est de son Esprit l’étincelant pennage, Blanche est de son Agneau la brillante toison.162 [White is the raiment of the ageless Sire, / White are the courtiers of his mansion white, / White is the plumage of his spirit’s fire, / White is the fleece of his Lamb with brilliant light.]163

Despite some formal differences, both of the French poems share a certain feature: nouns that are enumerated in consecutive lines refer to the same adjective. Therefore, they do not evoke any central name and should not be treated as antonomasias. However, because they are based on a reversal of the traditional noun–epithet and subject–predicate relation respectively, they create the impression of maintaining the same system of connections which joins the litanic antonomasias with the central name. A similar impression is created in one of Petrarch’s sonnets (III-5b): Benedetto sia ’l giorno e ’l mese, et l’anno, e la stagione e ’l tempo et l’ora e ’l punto e ’l bel paese e ’l loco ov’io fui giunto da’ duo begli occhi che legato m’ànno; et benedetto il primo dolce affanno ch’i’ ebbi ad esser con Amor congiunto, et l’arco e le saette ond’i’ fui punto, et le piaghe che ’nfin al cor mi vanno.164 [Blest be the day, and blest the month, the year, / The spring, the hour, the very moment blest, / The lovely scene, the spot, where first oppress’d / I sunk, of two bright eyes the prisoner: // And blest the first soft pang, to me most dear, / Which thrill’d my heart, when Love became its guest; / And blest the bow, the shafts which pierced my breast, / And even the wounds, which bosom’d thence I bear.]165

162 Jean de La Ceppède, Sonnet 54. Quoted from Henri Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2006), vol. 1: 304. A similar poem was written by Jean Alary. Cf. Russell Ganim, Renaissance Resonance: Lyric Modality in La Ceppède’s Théorèmes (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998): 42. 163 Jean de La Ceppède, “Sonnet,” trans. William Stirling, in Anthology of European Poetry, ed. Mervyn Savill (London: Allan Wingate, 1947), vol. 1 (From Machault to Malherbe: 13th to 17th century): 194–195. 164 Petrarch, Sonnet 61, in Canzoniere, ed. Gianfranco Contini and Daniele Ponchiroli (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1974): 83. 165 Petrarch, Sonnet 61, trans. Francis Wrangham, in The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch (London: George Bell, 1890): 61. For a modern translation cf. The Canzoniere or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, ed. and trans. Mark Musa

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The reader, provoked by this enumeration, may be keen to undertake a search for the subject through whom blessing and joy fill the surrounding reality and who makes the “day,” “month,” “year,” etc. their names. The assumptions behind the litanic convention form the basis of this compelling interpretative approach, and they are twofold. First, Petrarch’s main topic in the sonnet is love, yet a certain litanic way of thinking, that is, thinking in terms of the relation between God and the world, emerges from between the lines and contributes to an understanding of the poem. As will become clear in a subsequent part of this book, this layer of interpretation, which is based on a certain sacralization of lay preoccupations, applies not only to this particular poem. In fact, it becomes a fixed element in many other allegedly secular European verses. Second, the Italian poem reveals the predominant influence of antonomasia on the entire litanic convention. The litany may be completely deprived of antonomasia, and yet the world depicted will resist being downgraded to the level of nameless matter because of the invisible force of generic expectations. It seems clear that the litany, as if by definition, does not allow pure epithets and periphrases, and neither does it allow synonyms for their own sake or pure metonymic relations. Instead, it is infused with an antonomastic spirit, which is based on the assumption that the cosmos belongs to a concentric space-time. The individual spheres which revolve around God contain countless beings which He created and which He called by names, like the stars in Isaiah 40:26. Those beings which have been assigned names may be recognized in the biblical sense of this word. Therefore, the litany invites a certain familiarity with the created reality, a familiarity which moves beyond the level of scientific definitions and mimetic descriptions. This reality may be addressed and called by its names, and even though a certain text does not contain direct antonomastic addresses to particular persons, and their names are not invoked, the mere generic affiliation guarantees that the world depicted is not only well thought-out but also, in many respects, wise. It is a world composed not so much of beings, as names. To sum up this reconstruction of the litanic strategies used in poetry, the strategies can be tabulated (cf. Table 4), with the caveat that only the most typical conventions will be included. In accordance with our final conclusions, the list of their basic variants should not be limited to the antonomasias which appear in litanies, as examples of the neighboring phenomena, such as non-litanic antonomasias and those conventions which relate directly to litanic antonomasias without being antonomasias themselves, also need to be included.

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999): 138–139. The poem is also analyzed in Part IV (Chapter 11).

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close

II-4

II-5

explicit

noun or pronoun + copula

noun or pronoun

verbal apostrophe noun or pronoun

II-2 II-3

none

none

participles (the so-called periphrastic tense)

predicatives

epithets

predicatives

the repeated personal pronoun without an additional repeated epithet with an additional repeated epithet the personal pronoun repeated the name repeated

the name repeated

The variant repetition (A) in the quotation nouns, adjectives or participles none (the bulk should include oneword phrases) predicatives (the bulk should none include at least two-word phrases) predicatives Ave

Components (A) (B) variable repetitive

II-1

I

Type

implicit

implicit

Connection Copula between components (A) and (B) not relevant not relevant

Series of non-litanic antonomasias Series of loose litanic antonomasias

Group

Tab 4:  A simplified typology of classical variants of antonomasia in a series.

II-5b

II-5a

II-4b

II-4a

II-3a, II-3b, II-3d II-3c

II-2

II-1a, II-1b

I-a, I-b

References to the quotations

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not relevant

explicit

implicit

Connection Copula between components (A) and (B) not relevant

Allusions close to the series of litanic antonomasias

Group

allusion to II-4 allusion to II-5 allusion to II-6

nouns + predicatives nouns

cuius —

ille qui

The variant repetition (A) in the quotation qui

predicative + nouns — copula noun or the remainder of the sentences the name repeated pronoun

epithet

qui

II-6

subordinate clauses

Components (A) (B) variable repetitive

Type

III-5a, III-5b III-6

II-6e III-4

II-6a, II-6b, II-6d II-6c

References to the quotations

Part IV:  The Emergence and Development of the Poetic Litanies The history of the European litany, which stretches unbroken from Antiquity to Early Modernity and indeed continues beyond this, provides an apt pretext for considering a topic that has been neglected in modern literary studies. This is because the litany is almost a textbook example for studying the process of differentiation which—according to the theory proposed by Alexander Veselovsky at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—laid the foundations for the extension and diversification of the arts, which in poetry applied to the division into literary genres.1 As early as the Middle Ages, the litany was a syncretic phenomenon which could neither be reduced to a single discourse—of a poetic, religious or political nature—nor to a single cultural practice. It was a genre that has always been closely associated with the church, in particular with the conventions of vocal expression and processional performance. Since processions were characteristic of large towns,2 the litany was also associated with particular spheres of urban planning and architecture. Thus, as far as the interior and the exterior of church buildings were concerned, the litanic structure was mirrored in sculptures, stained glass windows, mosaics, frescoes and liturgical vessels, as well as in miniatures found in medieval manuscripts. This book is devoted to litanic verse, which represents only one of the many phenomena in this complex puzzle. However, the fact that litanic verse may be described independently from its overarching structure is not a matter of our subjective conjecture, but rather of a late medieval tendency to divide arts into divergent categories. Nowadays, the church litanies, litanic verse and the litany of 1 Aleksandr Veselovsky, “Istoricheskaia Poetika (A Historical Poetics), Chapter 1, Section 8,” trans. Ian M. Helfant, New Literary History 32 (2001), no. 2. 2 Cf. Michael McCormick, “The Liturgy of War in the Early Middle Ages: Crisis, Litanies, and the Carolingian Monarchy,” Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies 15 (1984).

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great composers constitute three separate phenomena in their own right. To use Paul Valéry’s notion, we may compare them to refugees exiled from their natural communities and transposed into three different institutions, namely religious practices, literature and music.3 Accordingly, the sets of norms which they establish are only respected within their own areas and are independent of the others. For instance, the extended delimitation signals which mark the opening and closure of prayer—the thrice-repeated Kyrie in the opening and the thricerepeated Agnus Dei in the closure—are a sine qua non of church litanies, but they no longer play a similar role in poetry. The separation process of the three main branches of the litany—the church, the poetic and the musical—did not result in their complete isolation from one another. It seems that Veselovsky was correct in his intuitive assumption that different arts show a respectful acknowledgment of their common roots. The church, the poetic and the musical litany aspire to complete autonomy which they never achieve, not unlike teenagers who wish to be fully independent while slavishly copying the behavior of their parents. This feature of the litany relates to one of the fundamental questions asked in literary theory, which is: to what extent can poetry be regarded as a self-contained phenomenon which defines its essence within its own limits, that is, the limits of the poetic language, rather than its relation to the outside world, and to what extent is its literariness grounded in deeply concealed borrowings from religious language and models of thinking about the world? The same question could also be asked from the opposite perspective: how far may the process of separating the religious language from the poetic and musical compositions extend before it turns against prayer itself? In other words, if we were to confine religious practices to within the temple walls and ban them from all other institutions of social life, such as literature or the philharmonic, would not that ultimately lead to the annihilation of those practices? It is not our intention in this book to discuss all the tensions and uncertainties between the centripetal and centrifugal forces within the litanic legacy, but rather to focus on those features that help differentiate the poetic litany from the ecclesiastical litany. A comparison between the two branches is possible because in both cases we are dealing with a linguistic form.

3 Cf. Paul Valéry, “Le problème des musées,” in Œuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), vol. 2: 1290–1293.

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10 Divisions in the Church, Divisions in Poetry The relations between poetic works and church writings can be approached from two perspectives: the perspective of literature and the perspective of religious life. As far as the latter is concerned, it is essential to mention two events in church history, events which led to its division into the different denominations. Indeed, it is not possible to say if the division of poetry into two separate branches, the artistic and the religious, would have taken place in exactly the same form if it had not been preceded by a division within the church itself, namely the Great Schism of 1054, and subsequently been influenced by later divisions occasioned by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The consequences of the Schism of 1054 were partially addressed in the second part of this book with reference to the ektenial, chairetismic and polyonymic genes which were inherited by both the Eastern and Western Churches, but used in different genres in each of them. In the Orthodox culture, the ektenial gene is peculiar to the genre of the ektene, whereas the two remaining genes are linked to the genre of the akathist. The merging of the three genes into a single litanic genre was effected only in the Western Church. If the Western type of litany reached the Eastern culture, this happened primarily through literary rather than church channels and as a result of humanist education. As far as the Reformation and Counter-Reformation period is concerned, we should take into account the whole of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, with particular attention being paid to the year 1601. It was in this year that Pope Clement’s apostolic constitution Sanctissimus, also known as Quoniam multi, was issued, as a result of which a ban was imposed on the public performances of litanies, with the exception of three officially approved prayers: the Litany of the Saints, the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus and the Litany of Loreto.4 This document sanctioned the long-term attempts of the church authorities to limit the increasing numbers of litanies. What is interesting is that the idea to put an end to the proliferating forms of devotion such as the litanies first came from the Protestants rather than the Catholics. Martin Luther, for instance, had always regarded the litany as a relic of pagan piety; he only softened his attitude in 1529, in the face of the threat of a Turkish invasion. It was only then that the Deutsche Litanei was published in Wittenberg, the only litanic text permitted for 4 Cf. Giorgio Caravale, Forbidden Prayer: Church Censorship and Devotional Literature in Renaissance Italy, trans. Peter Dawson (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011): 179.

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public use.5 Nevertheless, despite the formal approval of Luther, Deutsche Litanei did not gain a significant position within the Evangelical-Augsburg Church, which remained unwavering in its negative attitude toward the whole litanic genre. The Anglican Church was similarly inclined in its negative attitude,6 but the restrictions which were imposed upon the Litany of the Saints were gradual. As early as 1544, a publication appeared which was entitled Exhortation and Litany. It contained an abridged form of the Litany of the Saints, although not abridged to the extent employed in the Lutheran litany. In fact, each apostrophe, addressed individually to each of the persons of God and then collectively to the Holy Trinity, was followed by two remaining calls, which echoed the traditional enumeration of the saints: All holy Aungels and Archaungels and all holye orders of blessed spirites. Praye for vs. All holy Patriarkes, and Prophetes, Apostels, Martyrs, Confessors, & Virgins: and all the blessed company of heauen: Praye for vs.7

However, it was not long before the two remaining calls were removed, for The Book of Common Prayer which was published in 1549 as the standard and normative liturgical text omitted any mention of a catalog of the saints. In fact, the calls to the Holy Trinity were immediately followed by the list of Deprecations. Even though the decisions of the abovementioned churches stemmed from different doctrinal reasoning, their consequences for the litanic genre were similar in one respect. Since all the major denominations radically restricted the number of permissible litanies and imposed normative versions of their texts, composing new litanic prayers became an endeavor viewed with suspicion in Europe. Those who intended to pursue the genre without risking conflict with the church authorities had to refrain from working within the litanic canon. In fact, the works they composed were to be fundamentally different from both the officially approved prayers within their home denomination and the prayers permissible in neighboring denominations. This is the major factor that explains why the differences between the church litanies and poetic prayers were so profound after the Reformation.

5 Cf. Ewa Wantuch, “Pietist Litanies in German Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Poetry. The Case of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock,” in LV 2: 148–149. 6 Cf. Geoffrey J. Cuming, A History of Anglican Liturgy (London: Macmillan, 1984): 35–40. 7 Wolfgang G. Müller, “Liturgie und Lyrik: John Donnes »The Litanie«,” Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 17 (1986): 67.

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We may thus argue that during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation the division of the litanic genre into two discrete branches—branches which used the same convention based on the Christian worldview, but for two different purposes—was sealed for good. The religious branch served the needs that related to the observances of the church, whereas the poetic litany served artistic needs, which were often—but not necessarily—connected with prayer. As a consequence, the history of the poetic litany was determined by two separate tendencies. On the one hand, the poetic litany belonged to the same genre as the church litany, in that it reflected to a certain extent the differing qualities of the prayer which were characteristic of the different denominations. This explains why in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Lutherans’ negative attitude toward the litany resulted in a limited output of litanic verse in Scandinavian poetry, whereas the much more positive attitude of the Catholic Church contributed to the greater popularity of litanic verse in France. On the other hand, as has been stated above, one of the peculiarities of the poetic litany was its distinctness from the church litany, as understood by all the main Christian denominations. Therefore, regardless of their denominational affiliation, all the poets who identified themselves as Christians contributed to universalizing certain conventions which they adapted in their poetic litanies through endowing them with an inter-denominational character. In this dynamic European religious history, those two tendencies—the isolating and the universalizing—were not perfectly balanced, as each was dominant in a different period and a different area of Europe. It may be assumed that this must have led to both surprising and paradoxical situations. As has been noted above, one of the three litanies approved by the Pope in 1601 was the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, a prayer which was very popular in Catholic Europe. Its popularity may be attributed to the religious observances promoted by the Jesuates, and subsequently the prayer books published by the Jesuits. It is worth adding, however, that analogous litanies were preserved in the Lutheran culture even if they did not develop within the religious branch of the litany, as they did in the Catholic culture, but within the poetic. A case in point is a poem by a Danish poet, Bertel Pedersøn, dating from 1608, which opens with the incipit “Jesus i Hiert’ og Mund er sød” (“Jesus in the heart and in the mouth is sweet”) and contains thirty calls with an anaphora on “Jesus.”8 Another litany addressed to

8 Cf. Bertel Pedersøn, “Under dend Melodie: Jesu søde Hukommelse, etc.,” in Thomas Kingo, Samlede Skrifter, eds. Hans Brix, Paul Diderichsen, and Frederik Julius Billeskov Jansen (København: Reitzels Boghandel, 1975), vol. 4: 132–134.

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Jesus, which begins with “Helligste Jesu, reenheds kilde,” (“Holiest Jesus, source of purity”) was included in a hymnal by a Danish Pietist, Hans Adolph Brorson, dating from 1739.9 Interestingly enough, a verse litany addressed to the Name of Jesus and entitled “Sie rufen ihn mit vielen süssen Namen” (“He is called with many sweet names”) was published in 1667 by Angelus Silesius, a Catholic poet from Silesia.10 The fact that Silesius produced a song which resembled those from the Protestant hymnals may be attributed to his Lutheran upbringing. The same explanation, however, cannot be applied to a Croatian poem opening with the incipit “O Jesusse nebezki czvet” (“Oh, Jesus, the heavenly flower”), which was included in an eighteenth-century collection entitled Cithara octochorda.11 This underlines that the ecclesiastical branch of the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus was specific to Catholicism, whereas the poetic branch was the common property of both Catholics and Lutherans, and overcame the sharp distinction in official practices. The Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, however, was not the only prayer which was excluded from official observances by one or more denominations, yet which found its place in the poetic branch of the litany. Other such litanies include, for instance, the litany to the Holy Spirit, written by an Anglican poet, Robert Herrick;12 the litany to the angels in Sonnet 36 by a Catholic poet, Jean de La Ceppède;13 and a poem “Zacność i tytuły Pana naszego” (“The respect and titles of our Lord”), which is a litany to the name of Yahweh composed by Erazm Otwinowski,14 a writer connected with the Polish Brothers movement, a branch of the Calvinist Church. These and other similar litanies that existed outside the 9 Cf. Hans Adolph Brorson, “Paa alle Helgenes Dag,” in Samlede Skrifter, ed. Laurids Johannes Koch (København: Lohses, 1953), vol. 1: 195–198. The latter two poems are discussed in more depth in: Joanna Cymbrykiewicz, Aleksandra Wilkus, and Aldona Zańko, “Litany Undercover: Denmark and Norway from the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century,” in LV 2: 188–194. 10 Cf. Angelus Silesius, “Sie rufen ihn mit vielen süssen Namen,” in Heilige Seelenlust, ed. Georg Ellinger (Halle an der Saale: Niemeyer, 1901): 18–20. 11 Cf. “O Jesusse nebezki czvet,” in Cithara octochorda, seu Cantus sacri Latino-Croatici… (Zagrebiae: Antonii Reiner, 1757): 126. 12 Cf. Robert Herrick, “His Letanie to the Holy Spirit,” in The Complete Poetry, eds. Tom Cain and Ruth Connolly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), vol. 1: 332–333. 13 Cf. Jean de La Ceppède, “Sonnet 36,” in Les Théorèmes sur le sacré mystère de notre rédemption: Reproduction de l’édition de Toulouse de 1613–1622 (Genève: Droz, 1966): 83. 14 Cf. Erazm Otwinowski, “Zacność i tytuły Pana naszego,” in Pisma poetyckie [Poetic Works], ed. Piotr Wilczek (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo IBL, 1999): 168–171.

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official canon were composed in the period between the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century. Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that the religious and poetic branches were separated from each other as a result of the religious division in Western Europe. The forces of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation sanctioned the break in liturgical terms, but the line which proved to be divisive was drawn earlier. Even though it may seem that in the early modern period this differentiation was based only on doctrinal factors and had very little to do with poetics, the whole process could not have been effected without a sound basis in the form of an internally differentiated generic potential. Therefore, the search for the origins of the poetic branch of the litany should not begin with religious controversies, but rather with the structural features of the genre itself.

10.1  The Ektenial Gene in the Church and the Poetic Litanies Even though the genre of the church litany is composed of three genes—the ektenial, the polyonymic and the chairetismic genes—each of them pertains in different degrees to the different branches of Christianity. All the three genes appear, for instance, in many Catholic litanies, but not in the Deutsche Litanei and the English Litany, in which only the ektenial gene appears. This shows that from the sixteenth century onward, the ektenial gene was the privileged gene and the emblem of the church litany within Western Christianity. The accounts of performing litanies, recorded in various diaries and memoirs, reveal that the prototypical formula which was most frequently employed, even in Catholic countries, was neither a chairetismic nor a polyonymic formula, but an ektenial supplication miserere nobis. However, while in the religious branch of the litany the ektenial gene played the dominant role, in the poetic branch the reverse situation occurred: the corpus of litanic verse examined for the purposes of this book, and indeed that analyzed earlier, reveals very limited evidence of the ektenial gene. As the opposite to the abundant use of the gene in the church, this phenomenon may be referred to as a negative dominant or a “minus-device,” in the words of Yury Lotman.15 What is meant by a negative dominant is not merely the absence of a certain phenomenon in the output of a given poet. In fact, it is only to be expected that some literary forms are ignored by some authors. They may not be part of their artistic strategy, but there may also be more prosaic reasons. For instance, there 15 Cf. Yury Lotman, The Structure of the Artistic Text, trans. Ronald Vroon (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1977): 51.

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are writers who opt for a career in prose and have no expectations of being successful in drama, whereas there are others who are avid readers of crime stories, but could not themselves write such fiction. Litanic verse is different. The fact that the markers of the ektenial gene are omitted from most poetic works is a deliberate absence. In this way, the element which played the dominant role in the church litany became a negative device in poetic litanies. The concept of avoidance in poetry does not necessarily take the form of aposiopesis; it does not always entail the omission of words which were anticipated by the syntactic structure. It may also result from the absence or very rare use of a gene which was anticipated by the genre. The gap left by the ektenial gene is not a stylistic peculiarity of particular poetic works, but rather a common rule underpinning the majority of the litanic poems in modern literature and, as such, it constitutes a relatively uniform voice among the litanies in poetry. If we take into account the fact that in the Protestant litanies the rejection of the remaining two genes is a similarly meaningful act, namely it is an expression of a theological stance, it becomes clear that the church and the poetic litanies refer to a common source not only by means of the elements they contain, but also by those they omit. In the Protestant litanies the plus element is the ektenial gene, whereas the minus elements are the chairetismic and polyonymic genes. In the poetic litanies the reverse is true, with the ektenial gene tending to be the minus element and— depending on the region, historical period and the author’s preferences—either the polyonymic or both the polyonymic and the chairetismic genes being the plus elements.

10.2 The Chairetismic Gene in the Church and the Poetic Litanies The two genes—the polyonymic and the chairetismic—do not appear with equal frequency in poetry, a fact which is also closely related to the differences between the church and the poetic branches of the litany. From the Reformation period onward, the ektenial gene has been a marker of all the ecclesiastical litanies, regardless of the denomination, whereas the chairetismic gene is associated exclusively with Catholicism. This cannot be attributed solely to the fact that the Catholic Church became engaged in promoting the Litany of Loreto and the Rosary, both of which were inspired by the salutations of the Akathist Hymn. First and foremost, the connection between the chairetismic gene and the Catholic religious culture resulted from the fact that both in the sixteenth century and— despite the ban imposed by the Pope—throughout the seventeenth century, the prayer books which were restricted to monastic use alone abounded with 354

new litanies, litanies which were based on the Catholic veneration of the saints and addressed to the apostles, martyrs, as well as patron saints of countries and individuals. Since all these litanies were modeled on the Litany of Loreto, they adopted certain Marian formulas, thereby situating themselves along the genetic line which goes back to the Akathist Hymn. As a result of this process, on the one hand, prayers came into being which were eventually approved by the Apostolic See, namely the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, and the Litany of Saint Joseph, but on the other, this also led to an unrestrained output of religious works. Consequently, the chairetismic gene became associated with the Catholic litany, which in turn led to its frequency in poetry being limited when compared with the use of the polyonymic gene. Accordingly, the history of the chairetismic gene may be divided into two stages: its unrestrained expansion, which was characteristic of the Middle Ages, and, beginning in the sixteenth century, its diminishing presence, and thus its preference for unconventional renditions in poetry. In the Middle Ages, the chairetismic gene was for obvious reasons the staple of Latin Marian poetry. In his attempt to classify the varieties of medieval salutatory poetry, Gilles Gérard Meersseman used a considerable number of quasi-generic terms, some of which—such as Gruß-Oration (greeting prayer) or Grußpsalter (greeting psalter)—are repeated on numerous occasions in his book and are applied to a wide range of works, whereas others—such as O-Schema (O-pattern)—appear less frequently in the context of less significant phenomena. Some varieties have their equivalents or near-equivalents in vernacular languages, especially in French and subsequently in English. A relatively early example from French literature is a cycle of poems entitled Les salus Nostre Dame, composed by Gautier de Coincy. The core of the cycle is made up of five poems, which echo the Ave Maria, and the later “Chant de l’Ave.” The poems contain 152 quatrains altogether, opening with an anaphora on “Ave,” which is addressed to Mary. The final song, “Chant de l’Ave,” is of particular interest, for in the last stanza of the verse the poet reveals that there is no end to his prayers because his life also stretches into infinity, thanks to the Mother of God. The quatrains are separated by a contrasting refrain, which is made up of four lines and begins with an apostrophe to “Eve.” Thus, the refrain is addressed to the primeval mother, Eve, who—in contrast to Mary—brought death rather than life to mankind. The dialogic tension between the main text and the refrain, as well as between the anaphoras they contain—“Ave” and “Eve,” respectively—is what

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distinguishes “Chant de l’Ave” from other vernacular poems, in which the central anaphoric expression is most often “Ave.”16 Apart from the poems with the anaphoric Ave, the corpus of medieval poetry also contains a second group of works, which was not addressed by Meersseman, probably because the poems it includes do not seem to bear any resemblance to the litany.17 In fact, the word Ave appears only once, in the initial position of each poem, and each new line or stanza opens with one of the subsequent words from the Angelic Salutation. A relatively short lyrical verse, which may be classified as part of the second group, was recorded in the thirteenth century in Hildesheim. In the anonymous poem, the Ave Maria was divided into twelve words, which were then distributed among six sestets, so that a given word is always situated in the first or the fourth line of the stanza. The beginning of the poem reads: A v e tu, sponsa regalis, Praeelecta, specialis, Soli Deo dedicata, M a r i a, quae cum angelo Es a salutari vero Feliciter salutata.

16 Cf. the following anonymous works: a lyrical poem in the Walloon dialect, dating from the end of the thirteenth century, which was published by Marius Valkhoff, “Le manuscrit 76 G 17 de la Haye et l’ancienne hymne wallonne,” Romania 62 (1936), no. 245: 23–25; “Un ditté et priere a Nostre Dame,” in Arthur Långfors, “Notice du manuscrit francais 12483 de la Bibliothèque Nationale, XXXIX,” part 2, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques (Paris: Klincksieck, 1916): 644–647; “Ave dame, de cui volt naistre,” in Josef Priebsch, “Drei altlothringische Mariengebete,” Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 33 (1908), no. 1: 211–212. An example from Scottish literature which is worth mentioning is a fifteenth-century Marian poem by William Dunbar “Hale, Sterne Superne, Hale, in Eterne,” in The Makars. The Poems of Henryson, Dunbar and Douglas, ed. Jacqueline A. Tasioulas (Edinburgh: Hewer Text, 1999): 481–484. Cf. Dominika Ruszkiewicz, “‘Thy name I sall ay nevyne’: Fifteenth-Century England and Scotland,” in LV 2: 42–44. 17 Another reason why Meersseman may not have paid particular attention to this group of poems is that in form they resemble poetic glosses of other church prayers, even those which bear little relation to the chairetismic salutations, such as Veni Creator Spiritus (cf. AHMA 30: 181–190). A more careful reading, however, shows that some of the poems also begin with the apostrophe “Ave.” Cf., for example, a poem “Super Magnificat” in AHMA 30: 283–284. Its stanzas begin with the initial words of the verses of the Canticle of Mary, but the opening stanza begins with “Ave.”

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G r a t i a salvationis Ac nostrae redemptionis Per te nobis reformata, P l e n a de patris favore, Dei filii amore, Sanctissima caritate.18

The Latin prayers in the second group varied according to their numerological configurations: some were based on the twelve elements of the Ave Maria, with one element present in each of the twelve tercets, quatrains19 or octaves,20 whereas others included sixteen supplicatory elements, four in each of the four octaves.21 The remaining configurations included, for instance, eighteen elements, two in each of the nine sestets.22 Similar distributions of words are to be found in French poetry,23 but the difference is that in some poems, such as Chant royal, dating from the fifteenth century,24 the stanzaic structure was based only on the words in Luke 1:28, namely “Ave, Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.” These words supplemented with another biblical passage, that is, Elizabeth’s Salutation from Luke 1:42, became in turn the basis for two similar lyrical verses, both by two trouvères—father and son—Baudouin and Jean de Condé.25 Finally, poems such as Rutebeuf ’s “L’Ave Maria” can be classified as being on the periphery of the second group, for they contain echoes of the Ave Maria which are independent of the stanzaic structure. In Rutebeuf ’s poem, for instance, the words of the prayer have been scattered throughout the text in a seemingly random manner, the effect being enhanced by the rhyme pattern aabbbcccd, which is at odds with the stanzaic division into tercets.26 18 19 20 21 22 23

“Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 254. Cf. “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 255. Cf. “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 273–274. Cf. “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 270. Cf. “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 247–248. For instance, there are twelve salutatory elements, one in each quatrain, in “Salus de Nostre Dame,” published by Arthur Långfors, “Une paraphrase anonyme de l’Ave Maria en ancien français,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 7 (1905): 120–123. 24 Cf. Louis Mourin, “Poésies religieuses françaises inconnues, dans des manuscrits de Bruxelles et d’Évora,” Scriptorium 3 (1949), no. 2: 228–229. 25 Baudouin de Condé and Jean de Condé, “Li Ave Maria,” and “Un Dis sur Ave Maria,” in Dits et Contes, ed. Auguste Scheler (Bruxelles: Victor Devaux, 1886), vol. 1: 183–186, and vol. 3: 129–132. 26 Cf. “L’Ave Maria Rustebeuf,” in Œuvres complètes de Rutebeuf trouvère du XIIe siècle, ed. Achille Jubinal (Paris: Adolphe Delahays, 1900), vol. 2: 142–148.

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Apart from the group of poems which contain an anaphora and the group in which Ave appears only at the beginning of the verse, other poems existed which combined both techniques, that is, poems which used the Angelic Salutation merely as a framework of sorts, yet simultaneously preserved the order of the anaphoras. An effective way to combine these two aspects was to either use sufficiently long stanzas or to compose poems in cycles, each poem being centered on a different word from the Ave Maria. The stanzaic method was especially effective, for it entailed a multi-tiered structure within each stanza. This method is represented by numerous examples classified by Guido Maria Dreves as Glossenlieder (glossing songs). For instance, the poem from which fragments are quoted below, is divided into fourteen octaves which are devoted to the fourteen elements from the Ave Maria, with each octave divided into four couplets through an anaphora and the rhyme pattern: A v e, mater unica Nostri salvatoris, Ave, stella mystica, Lumen viatoris, Ave, porta caelica, Salus peccatoris, Ave, stella pistica Mellei dulcoris. M a r i a, te moribus Virtutes decorant, Maria, te laudibus Coelestes honorant, Maria te precibus Perfecti dulcorant Maria, te fletibus Precantes adorant.27

A similar structure is to be found in a slightly shorter poem written in French: A v e , glorieuse pucele; li benoiz fiz Deu te salue, A v e , virge plaisanz et bele au roi dou ciel qui t’a eslue, A v e , a toi vient la novele dont joie est par tot espandue.

27 “Super Ave Maria,” in AHMA 30: 220.

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A v e, Diex te sant, Dié encele, par toi est savetez venue. M a r i a, tu as num Marie, mere seras au roi de gloire; M a r i a, a toi se marie li noble dou haut consitoire, M a r i a, ne t’esmaies mie, ceste parole est toute voire, M a r i a, que tu es amie celui qui sur touz fait a croire.28

Let us, however, return to the two main groups, groups which developed alongside each other until the fourteenth century only to diverge in the subsequent periods. The group characterized by the use of an anaphora on Ave in the lineor stanza-initial position became for some time the domain of devotional mass production, which was mostly devoid of artistic aspirations. Its presence in high culture decreased accordingly, especially from the sixteenth century onward. The second group met an almost similar fate, although its trace lived on in certain poems which took up secular concerns and thus did not relate directly to the Ave Maria. However, an appropriate linguistic equivalent of Ave in the poem-initial position was preserved. The second phenomenon was representative particularly of British literature. In his The Buke of the Howlat, a fifteenth-century Scottish poet, Richard Holland, both acknowledges and distances himself from Marian prayer in that he includes a series of Marian salutations with an anaphora on “Haile” into an animal fable. To provide another example, a chairetismic verse with the refrain “Gladethe, thoue queyne of Scottis regioun,” composed by another Scottish poet—William Dunbar—at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is addressed not to Mary, the Mother of God, but to Margaret Tudor, the Queen of Scots, and as such it exemplifies the process of transposing religious salutations into secular greetings. The relation between both poems and the litany has been extensively examined by Dominika Ruszkiewicz.29 Two hundred years later, the generic markers of the litany become almost completely absent from texts, leaving a litanic trace only in the initial “Hail,” which is occasionally repeated in subsequent lines. This applies to both the religious Hymn 9 by Christopher Smart and the hymns of the

28 Paul Meyer, “Notice sur un recueil de fragments de manuscrits français,” Bulletin de la Société des Anciens Textes Français 22 (1896): 74. 29 Cf. Ruszkiewicz, “‘Thy name I sall ay nevyne’…,” 46–47, 49–50.

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Methodist Church composed by John and Charles Wesley,30 as well as to secular poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Samuel Jones, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and James Thomson, all of which have been examined by Anna Czarnowus.31 These poems are not litanies in the strict sense of the word; they contain only subtle reminders of the chairetismic gene. However, the fact that the gene was reduced to such an extent and transferred to secular poetry seems to indicate that it could be employed, at least initially, to counter the Loretan tradition and all the Catholic prayers which grew out of the Litany of Loreto.

10.3  The Poetic Litany in the Context of Private Piety To sum up the above considerations, certain phenomena and processes may be enumerated that in the context of the Western European litany were not related to the issue of religious denominations. They include, first and foremost, the division of the genre into two parallel branches performing different functions— the ecclesiastical and the poetic. At the time when the church branch became associated primarily with the ektenial gene, the poetic branch was characterized by an almost complete absence of this gene and a continuation of the chairetismic and polyonymic traditions. As concluded in the previous subchapter, the latter tradition was more clearly seen in poetry than the former. Thus, while the polyonymic gene revealed itself in poetry through means similar to those known from Antiquity, the chairetismic gene took forms that were less obvious and more concealed. That it was the same gene will become clear in subsequent chapters of this book. The fact that certain aspects of the genre were preserved in poetry, aspects which in some religions—that is, Lutheranism and Anglicanism—were removed from the liturgical language, happened as a consequence of processes which were characteristic of European culture, a culture which tends to repurpose certain conventions rather than dismiss them outright. A similar rule applies to contemporary fiction, which is often based on motifs that used to furnish pre-Christian mythological imagination. It seems clear that the process occurred in different

30 For instance, the cycle of four poems, addressed to the three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity, individually and collectively, which begins with the following words: “Hail, Father, whose creating call,” “Hail, God the Son, in glory crown’d,” and “Hail, Holy Ghost, Jehovah, Third,” “Hail, holy, holy, holy Lord,” in John Wesley and Charles Wesley, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (London: James Nichols, 1824): 110–112. 31 Cf. Anna Czarnowus, ‘“Hail! the Heaven-born Prince of Peace!’: The Eighteenth Century and Romanticism in England,” in LV 2: 89–91, 102–103.

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ways in different conventions and depended on the historical context. Therefore, we have to add that the dominance of the chairetismic and polyonymic genes was not preserved as a result of replacing one religion with another, but rather of passing from one stage of Christianity to another. If the role of the dominant litanic convention was always taken by the ektenial gene, the dominant tone would be that of deprecation. The fact that in poetic litanies the central focus was moved to the polyonymic gene, and sometimes extended over the chairetismic gene, meant that the tone of the poems was very different: it contained a note of reflective meditation or joyful laudation. The speaker was more concerned with the world around. Consequently, religious enthusiasm was now fueled by growing human knowledge, with specific factors that were subject to change, such as an individual perspective, appreciated more. All these processes seem to be related to the concept of private piety, which reached maturity in the late Middle Ages. Man’s individual relation with God is a phenomenon that is both difficult to understand from the perspective of the history of spirituality and underestimated in terms of the research on the sources from which the notion of literature in its modern sense derives. Its elusive nature seems to result from the fact that private piety is situated between the spheres of sacrum and profanum, with the masters of spirituality endeavoring to extend their religious experience into those aspects of life which are not the focus of the official liturgy and which—in the context of communal worship—are treated as aspects of secular life. What is important is the perspective of the individuals who are situated between God and the world, and whose relations with both the external and internal world—that is, relations connected with finding their place within a society, with facing the challenges of a young or an aging body, the instability of their emotions and the variability of perception—are treated as examples of spiritual exercises. Literature which—under the influence of movements such as Devotio Moderna—learned to appreciate the epiphanic significance of individual events may be referred to as either religious poetry intended for private use or secular poetry infused with religious sensitivity.32 Their own models of private piety were also promoted by the new monastic communities which emerged in the late Middle Ages. For the poetic litany, the most significant communities were those of the Franciscans, who cultivated the laudatory prayer, the Jesuates, who spread the cult of the holy name of Jesus, and the Dominicans, who promoted the Rosary.

32 Cf. Regnerus Richardus Post, The Modern Devotion: Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism (Leiden: Brill, 1968): 647.

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The development of the poetic litanies, however, also had an influence on the evolution of the church litanies. The more secularized the litanic verse became and the less frequently it evoked the traditional representations of God, the more ceremonious and distinctive the church litany appeared, with references to earthly concerns being marginalized and its language becoming removed from the standards of practical communication. When in the nineteenth century Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve used the Loretan formula “ivory tower” to discredit Alfred de Vigny’s artistic stance,33 this showed how far the two branches of the litany had diverged in terms of diction and generic features. It is worth noting that the formula was not incomprehensible in itself. It was well understood in the context of the church litany. The distancing effect was achieved by the differentiation between the two litanic branches, which reached an advanced stage in the age of iron, coal and steam.

33 Cf. Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, “Academie Française: Réception de M. le comte Alfred de Vigny par M. le comte Molé” Revue des deux mondes 13 (1846): 548.

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11 The Parallel Existence of the Polyonymic Gene in Poetry The previous chapter revealed the following hierarchy of the genes used in the poetic litany as opposed to the church litany. The predominant position was assigned to the polyonymic gene, the chairetismic gene was used in subtle forms, with the ektenial gene scarcely used at all. The fact that the polyonymic gene was privileged in poetry was not primarily related to the fact that it appeared most frequently, but rather to the fact that the connections between itself and its own tradition were rarely lost. It was in poetry rather than in church prayers that the polyonymic gene maintained the dominant function assigned to it in Antiquity. As a consequence, a broad spectrum of conventions inherited from the past were continued. Owing to its respectful attitude toward such traditions, the poetic litany managed to save from extinction certain conventions which were not preserved in the church litanies. Among the most important of these conventions is the polyonymic method of enumerating a series of blessings. The litanies of the Protestant churches, which eliminated the polyonymic gene, also lost this illocutionary formula, and instead acquired a deprecatory and supplicatory character. The Catholic Litany of Loreto, in turn, retained the tone of blessing and benediction—in fact, from the semantic point of view, in the prayer equivalent delight is expressed at the grace which filled the Mother of God as at the blessings which were granted to man as a result of her intercession—although the word “blessing” is not used in any of its possible forms. Even the anaphora on “saint” is omitted from the Litany of Loreto, an anaphora which appeared as a semantic equivalent of “blessed” in the earliest Western litanies to Mary. Having said that, the formula of blessing, though absent from the Litany of Loreto, was not eliminated from poetry. In the long line of poetic works stretching from the Middle Ages to the present day, a strong tendency to retain an enumerative structure, a structure resembling the biblical Hymn of the Three Youths, can be seen. The benedictory formula probably owes its popularity to the position of the Hymn of the Three Youths in the Liturgy of the Hours, a position which was already high at a very early stage in the history of the breviary. Robert Taft recounts the testimony of a monk, Rufinus of Aquileia (died 410), who traveled widely throughout the Christian East and West and who “affirms in his Apologia in S. Hieronymum II, 35 that ‘every Church all over the world’ […] sings the canticle of Dan 3 […].” According to Taft, this is proof enough that as early as Rufinus’s time, the Hymn 363

of the Three Youths constituted “a standard OT canticle on Sundays and feasts.”34 As becomes clear from Taft’s seminal monograph on the breviary, the fact that the hymn was a morning prayer is testified to in De virginitate, a work composed in Cappadocia in the second half of the fourth century. As regards the West, numerous testimonies to similar practices in that part of the world come from the sixth century. Examples from Italy include the anonymous Rule of the Master and the Rule of Saint Benedict; from Gaul, the writings of Gregory, bishop of Tours, as well as the two bishops of Arles, Caesarius and Aurelianus; and from the Iberian Peninsula, the Rule for Monks by Isidore of Seville.35 The Hymn of the Three Youths, which from the very beginning held a firm position within the Liturgy of the Hours, was preserved in different forms of worship and appeared frequently, not only in the Early Middle Ages but also in later periods. It is for this reason that it was frequently paraphrased by poets, such as the thirteenth-century Italian Jesuate, Bianco da Siena, in his Lauda 107 composed in terza rima,36 or by the eighteenth-century Anglican James Merrick, who encapsulated the biblical prayer within six-line iambic stanzas.37 Paraphrases of the hymn did not always take the form of litanic verse. For instance, in “Paraphrase sur le cantique Benedicte omnia opera Domini Domino etc.,” composed in 1639 by a French Capuchin, Martial de Brive, a single biblical verse is always paraphrased in a long stanza composed of ten lines and filled with an extended meditation.38 A similar poem was composed in the same century by a French bishop, Antoine Godeau.39 The following century saw the appearance of Mary Chudleigh’s The Song of the Three Children Paraphras’d,

34 Robert Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993): 144. 35 Cf. Ibid., 111–112, 118, 122, 135, 146, 154. 36 Cf. Bianco da Siena, Lauda 107, in Laudi, ed. Silvia Serventi (Roma: Antonianum 2013): 1008–1022. 37 Cf. James Merrick, “The Benedicte Paraphrased,” in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes by Several Hands, eds. Robert and James Dodsley (London: Hughs, 1758), vol. 4: 173–180. 38 Cf. Martial de Brive, “Paraphrase sur le cantique Benedicte omnia opera Domini Domino etc.,” in Les Œuvres poétiques et saintes, ed. Anne Mantero (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2000): 65–84, 198–200. 39 Cf. Antoine Godeau, “Paraphrase du cantique des trois Enfans,” in Poësies chrestiennes (Paris: Jean Camusat et Pierre Le Petit, 1646): 298–304.

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in which the calls of the prayer are paralleled by particular poems within an extensive poetic cycle.40 Let us now return to those poems which preserve the anaphoric structure and in which the anaphora is repeated at relatively short intervals, that is, sentence by sentence. The Hymn of the Three Youths, due to its high standing within church prayer, became—as early as the Middle Ages—a popular framework for addressing private religious experiences. Bridget of Sweden, for example, incorporates a benedictory prayer into one of the first chapters of her Revelationes coelestes, a prayer which, according to her testimony, was dictated to her by Mary during one of her miraculous visions.41 A further example is “Benedicite Domine,” which was reiterated by Julian of Norwich, again in response to her spiritual revelations.42 Additionally, a series of benedictions can be found in a number of anonymous manuscripts. Similarly to the “Blessing of St. Patrick,” an Irish poem discussed in the second part of this book, the benedictory formula often framed a cataloging charm. The twelfth-century “Oratio ad virginem gratulatoria,” for instance, quoted by Gilles Gérard Meersseman, is composed of twenty-four apostrophes addressed to Mary’s body parts. In the extended calls, the anonymous poet praises Mary’s head, ears, eyes and nose: Benedictum sit capud tuum pulcherrimum, quod super dilectum innixa tociens in sinum iocundissime. reclinasti Benedicte sint aures tue sanctissime, quibus ex eius ore dulcisssima verba in corde tuo reponenda tociens excepisti. Benedicti sint oculi tui clarissimi, quibus Christum, vere iusticie solem, quanto proximius, tanto perspicacius perspexisti. Benedictus sit nasus tuus nitidissimus, cuius officio mediante inter eius alimenta studiose discrevisti.43

Subsequently—within the same parallel structure—the pious author somewhat ingeniously pays tribute to the remaining parts of Mary’s head (lips, teeth, tongue, throat, and neck), upper body (shoulders, back, forearms, hands, breasts, and nipples), internal organs (womb, heart, and entrails), legs (thighs, knees, and feet), and finally, on a more universal note—her body and soul. 40 Cf. Barbara Olive, “The Fabric of Restoration Puritanism: Mary Chudleigh’s The Song of the Three Children Paraphras’d,” in Puritanism and Its Discontents, ed. Laura Lunger Knoppers (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003): 122–141. 41 Cf. Brigida, Revelationes coelestes I 8. 42 Cf. Julian of Norwich, Revelations, in The Complete Julian of Norwich, ed. and trans. John-Julian Swanson (Brewster: Paraclete Press, 2009): 89. 43 “Oratio ad virginem gratulatoria,” in HAA 2: 180–181.

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There are two strategies worth mentioning with reference to the text. The effect of both strategies on the enumeration of Mary’s body parts is that the passage becomes deprived of the features characteristic of a cataloging charm. On the one hand, the names of particular body parts are deeply embedded in an extended syntactic structure, in which each of the calls contains three elements: the words “Benedictus sit” in an appropriately inflected form, the name of the body part with an accompanying epithet, and a conjunction of the qui-type which introduces a subordinate clause. On the other hand, the larger whole—which is made up of twenty-four calls—is inscribed into the framework of two prayers, one preceding the enumeration and the other following it. The first prayer is based on the words of the Ave Maria. Having said them, the author does not stop, but returns to certain formulas which have just been uttered and ponders upon them in a contemplative manner. However, having reached the words “benedicta tu in mulieribus,” it appears he loses control of his ability to meditate, as he then dedicates himself wholeheartedly to reciting the laudatory apostrophes mentioned above. Only when the perfection of Mary’s body in its entirety has been celebrated in the symbolic twenty-four sentences can the author proceed to the second prayer. It is at this point that he appears to regain consciousness of his words and finishes his meditation on “benedicta tu in mulieribus” before focusing on the formula “et benedictus fructus ventris tui.” Thus, the series of benedictions is framed by two inflectional forms of the same word, “benedicta […] et benedictus,” as a result of which the cataloging charm is deprived of the remnants of its independence, due to its semantics being controlled by the Ave Maria. In the Middle Ages, the text-within-text structure did not only apply to prose works, for benedictions based on cataloging charms were also an integral part of extensive poems. A series of calls which praise Mary’s body parts are to be found in two nine-line stanzas which belong to a monumental poem of more than four thousand lines, Li roman dou lis, composed in Provençe at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A similar enumeration also appears in the two fourteen-line stanzas of a poem entitled La Louenge à la tres glorieuse Vierge, which was composed in the fifteenth century by George Chastellain. The relations between both poems and the litany have been examined by Magdalena Kowalska in her monograph.44 Poems edited by Giuseppe Tigri and Alessandro d’Ancona show, in turn, that stanzas devoted to an enumeration of benedictions were a frequent interlude in 44 Cf. LV 3: 90–91.

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poems belonging to the popular culture of Tuscany,45 as exemplified by the works of Leonardo Giustiniani and Giovanni Battista Verini.46 However, the turning point in Italian poetry was Sonnet 61 from Petrarch’s collection, a poem analyzed previously in the Chapter 9 devoted to antonomasia. The poet’s decision to combine the litany with the sonnet, which will be considered in more depth later in this book, should not be surprising, even when the sonnet is structured around a series of benedictions. This is because such series often needed to be situated within fixed frames, or frames in which the length of the enumeration, as measured by the number of repetitions, either found symbolic justification or was restricted by the poem’s objective limits. In the anonymous Latin text quoted above, for instance, the number of anaphoras is justified by the number twenty-four, and in the Provençal and Tuscan poems, by the structure of the stanza, often an ottava rima in the latter case. The tendency to mark the boundaries of an enumeration in such a distinct manner may have resulted from the tradition of the cataloging charm—a genre which reconstructed a closed set of elements—but it may also have originated in the Christian tradition. It is enough to mention the eight benedictions in Matthew, a number which Michael D. Goulder connects with the celebration of Pentecost, or the association that Ephrem the Syrian made between the number of benedictions in his poem and the number of Christ’s years on earth. Regardless of whether respecting such a strict rule was encouraged by the pagan or the Christian tradition, the search for a fixed framework to surround the enumeration led to the emergence of highly formalized poems, such as a thirteenth-century Galician song that belongs to the cycle Cantigas de Santa Maria. In this poem, the delimitation tendency was carried to extremes. Apart from the final couplet, which may be treated as an envoi, the poem contains six stanzas; each stanza is divided into twelve lines; each line contains twelve syllables with a caesura after the sixth syllable. Numerous references to the fullness or completeness denoted by the number twelve may be related to the fullness of the grace granted to Mary. Yet, this cannot have been sufficient for the poet as he decided to strengthen the framework by means of additional and equally distinct delimitation markers. While the right-hand side of the stanza quoted below is dominated by an –ada rhyme, which is repeated twelve times, the lefthand side contains a polysyndeton e, which seems to mirror the rhyme. What is 45 Cf. Canti Popolari Toscani, ed. Giuseppe Tigri (Firenze: Barbèra, Bianchi e Comp, 1856): 88, 202–203. 46 Cf. Alessandro d’Ancona, La Poesia Popolare Italiana (Livorno: Raffaello Giusti, 1906): 238–239, 510, 553.

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more, because the word bẽeyta (blessed), repeated in various inflectional forms in anaphoric positions, also contains the vowel e, the poem creates the effect of a musical dialogue by juxtaposing two voices, a voice which tends to overrepresent e in the onset, and another which results from overrepresenting the rhyming a. Bẽeyta es, Maria, Filla, Madr’ e criada de Deus, teu Padr’ e Fillo, est’ é cousa provada. Bẽeyta foi a ora en que tu gẽerada fuste e a ta alma de Deus santivigada, e bẽeyto, o dia en que pois fuste nada e d’Adam o peccado quita e perdõada, e bẽeytos los panos u fust’ envurullada e outrossi a teta que ouviste mamada, e bẽeyta a agua en que fuste bannada e a santa vianda de que fust’ avondada, e bẽeyta a fala que ouviste falada e outrossi a letra de que fust’ ensinada.47

Bearing this in mind, as well as the other medieval poems mentioned above, Petrarch’s artistic stance should not be surprising. The poet’s decision to incorporate a series of benedictions into the fixed frame of the sonnet appears to be the natural consequence of a literary tradition which was rooted in the polyonymic gene. In Sonnet 61, the enumeration is based on a vast accumulation of nouns, with the word “benedetto” or “benedette” appearing only four times: Benedetto sia ’l giorno e ’l mese, et l’anno e la stagione e ’l tempo et l’ora e ’l punto e ’l bel paese e ’l loco ov’io fui giunto da’ duo begli occhi che legato m’ànno; et benedetto il primo dolce affanno ch’i’ ebbi ad esser con Amor congiunto, et l’arco e le saette ond’i’ fui punto, et le piaghe che ’nfin al cor mi vanno. Benedette le voci tante ch’io chiamando il nome de mia donna ò sparte, e i sospiri, et le lagrime e ’l desio;

47 “Cantiga CSM 420 — Bẽeyta es, Maria,” in Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X, el Sabio. A Performing Edition, transcribed by Chris Elmes (Edinburgh: Gaïta Medieval Music, 2013), vol. 4: 210–211.

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et benedette sian tutte le carte ov’io fama l’acquisto, e ’l pensier mio, ch’è sol di lei sì ch’ altra non v’à parte.48 [Blest be the day, and blest the month, the year, / The spring, the hour, the very moment blest, / The lovely scene, the spot, where first oppress’d / I sunk, of two bright eyes the prisoner: // And blest the first soft pang, to me most dear, / Which thrill’d my heart, when Love became its guest; / And blest the bow, the shafts which pierced my breast, / And even the wounds, which bosom’d thence I bear. // Blest too the strains which, pour’d through glade and grove, / Have made the woodlands echo with her name; / The sighs, the tears, the languishment, the love: // And blest those sonnets, sources of my fame; / And blest that thought—Oh! never to remove! / Which turns to her alone, from her alone which came.]49

When compared with the other works examined so far which are religious in theme and purpose, and in the context of the philosophical assumptions underlying the litanic genre, a genre which proclaims a theocentric worldview, Petrarch’s love sonnet, in which the phenomena described relate to a woman, may seem out of place. Indeed, as long as we perceive religious and secular poetry as two opposite poles, benedictory formulas may be considered inappropriate within works focused on earthly topics. However, if we take into account a hypothesis which postulates that certain aspects of poetic language are evolutionary forms of religious language, such transformations and overlappings become a natural development. In Sonnet 61, the amorous focus of the poem does not immediately become apparent. Indeed, the initial words of the poem sound like a thanksgiving prayer and it is only toward the end of the first stanza that Petrarch decides to reveal “two bright eyes” that imprisoned him. Yet even when the true intentions of the poem are exposed, the religious references are not completely excluded, and the events still take place within the space-time characteristic of the litanic genre.

48 Petrarch, Sonnet 61, in Canzoniere, ed. Gianfranco Contini and Daniele Ponchiroli (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1974): 83. 49 Petrarch, Sonnet 61, trans. Francis Wrangham, in The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch (London: George Bell, 1890): 61. For a modern translation cf. The Canzoniere or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, ed. and trans. Mark Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999): 138–139. The poem is also analyzed in Part III (Chapter 9).

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Between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, Petrarch’s poem was subject to countless imitations.50 It may even have seemed, at least until a certain moment in time, that the conventional enumerations of benedictions were trapped permanently within the form of the sonnet. Translators and imitators of the Tuscan poet who followed the Petrarchan tradition in their own works can be divided into three different groups. The f i r s t g r o u p is composed of two Italian poets, Lorenzo Moschi and Panfilo Sasso, as well as a Croatian author, Marin Držić;51 but first and foremost, the numerous translators of Petrarch’s works into French (Estienne du Tronchet, François de Chantelouve, Jacques de Romieu, Philippe de Maldeghem and others), Catalan (Julián Romea), German (Karl Förster) and English (Francis Wrangham, Elizabeth Barrett Browning).52 In their renditions of Petrarch’s Sonnet 61, the authors and translators mentioned above in the main preserved the four repetitions of the anaphora at the onset of particular stanzas, only occasionally changing the position of one of the repetitions or adding a fifth repetition within one of the stanzas. The members of the s e c o n d g r o u p, Panfilo Sasso, Antonio da Ferrara, Jean Antoine de Baïf, Joachim du Bellay, and Charles de Vion d’Alibray,53 paid

50 In the words of Jean-Claude Moisan (“La Répétition dans la poésie du XVIe siècle,” in Écrire et conter: Mélanges de rhétorique et d’histoire littéraire du XVIe siècle offerts à JeanClaude Moisan, eds. Marie-Claude Malenfant and Sabrina Vervacke (Saint-Nicolas: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2003): 62), who limits his observation to French literature and Petrarch’s first stanza: “Les imitations de ce qutrain sont légion.” 51 We are thinking of the following poems: Lorenzo Moschi’s “Benedetta sia l’ora e la stagione,” Panfilo Sasso’s “Sia Benedetta la notte che ‘l giorno,” Marin Držić’s “Pjesma 4.” 52 The following poems are meant: Sonnet 35 from Lettres amoureuses by Estienne du Tronchet, “Béni soit l’an, et le jour et le mois” (trans. by François de Chantelouve), Sonnet 40 from Les Mélanges by Jacques de Romieu, Sonnet 47 from Le Pétrarque en rime française (trans. by Philippe de Maldeghem), “Bendito sea el año, el mes, el día” (trans. by Julián Romea), “Gesegnet sei mir Jahr und Tag empfangen” (trans. by Karl Förster), “Blest be the day, and blest the month, the year” (trans. by Francis Wrangham), “How blessed be the day and month and year” (trans. by Elizabeth Barrett Browning). 53 Panfilo Sasso’s, “Sia benedetta la notte che ‘1 giorno,” Antonio da Ferrara’s “Io benedico il dí che dio ti cinse,” Jean Antoine de Baïf ’s “Et bien heureux l’ombrage, où Madame est couchée,” and “Heureux les pignes chers qui ces cheueux pignerent,” Joachim du Bellay’s poem 94 from the collection Les Regrets (“Heureux celuy qui peult long temps suivre la guerre”), Charles de Vion d’Alibray’s “Bien-heureux les souspirs qui passent par ta bouche.”

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more attention to the polyonymic convention, increasing the recurrence of the benedictory formula. This fact even applies to the poems of Olivier de Magny, Vasquin Philieul, Adam Mickiewicz or Barbarina Dacre,54 which were intended to be translations of the Italian source text. Ludovico Ariosto, in turn, probably in an attempt to avoid direct imitation, repeats the anaphora in every second line and replaces “benedetto” with “felice.”55 The second group, in which—as noted above—the anaphora attains a higher frequency, also contains two interesting French poems, dating from the sixteenth century, namely Sonnet 4 from Guillaume Des Autels’s cycle Amoureux Repos and Sonnet 35 from Pontus de Tyard’s Les Erreurs amoureuses. Guillaume Des Autels uses the adjective bénit alternately with the participle béni in various inflectional forms at the beginning of the odd lines from one to nine and at the onset of all three lines in the final tercet.56 The repetition is further strengthened in Pontus de Tyard’s poem, in which the adjective heureux and its various derivatives are placed irregularly in different positions within a line, sometimes even appearing twice in the same line. In this way, the reader has a feeling of being surrounded by the polyonymic enumeration, which seems to dominate the sonnet: Heureux le moys, heureuse la journée, Heureuse l’heure et heureux le moment, Heureux le siecle, heureux le firmament Souz qui ma Dame heureusement fut née. Heureuse soit l’heureuse destinée De l’astre heureux, lequel heureusement Faisoit ce jour son heureux mouvement Sur toute estoille en bon aspect tournée. Heureux ce monde auquel elle sejourne, Et le Soleil, qui autour d’elle tourne, En s’eclipsant à l’objet de sa veüe.

54 The translations have the following titles or incipits: “Bienheureux soit le jour, et le mois, et l’année,” (trans. by Olivier de Magny), “Bienheureux soit le jour, le mois, l’année” (trans. by Vasquin Philieul), “Błogosławieństwo” (trans. by Adam Mickiewicz), “Blest be the year, the month, the hour, the day” (trans. by Barbarina Dacre). 55 Ludovico Ariosto, Sonnet 5, in Opere, ed. Mario Santoro (Torino: Unione TipograficoEditrice Torinese, 1989), vol. 3: 216. 56 Cf. Guillaume Des Autels, Sonnet 4, in Amoureux Repos (Lyon: Temporal, 1553): fol. A-ii verso and recto.

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Moy malheureux en mon affection, Qui n’esjouis ma triste passion, La cognoissant de si grand heur pourveüe.57

The next step in strengthening the polyonymic convention was to subordinate the text completely to the litanic markers and simultaneously abandon the sonnet form. This in fact happened as early as the fourteenth century in Italy and is exemplified by two influential poems. One is a passage of two ottave rime probably modeled on Petrarch and included in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Filostrato (Part Three, stanzas 83 and 84), which opens with the words “E benedico il tempo, l’anno, e ‘l mese.”58 The second poem is even more interesting as it opens with the following words: “Sia benedetto in cielo e in terra l’ora,” and was composed by Franco Sacchetti, a writer with connections to Florence. The latter poem may be viewed as an alternative to Sonnet 61, as becomes clear through the symbolically reversed form of the anaphora: “sia benedetto” instead of Petrarch’s “benedetto sia.” Even though the poem includes some of Petrarch’s terms, its structure resembles the Galician song analyzed above. It is composed of a five-line ending, preceded by five thirteen-lined stanzas, in each of which lines one, four, seven and ten are opened with the anaphora “sia benedetto,” as illustrated by stanza one: Sia benedetto in cielo e in terra l’ora, la qual per Imeneo fe’ venire Amor costei dove cominciò forma: sia benedetto il nobil nido ancora che la portò dinanzi al partorire, fin ch’ ella apparve fra l’umana torma. Sia benedetto il dí che venne in norma al mondo, che Lucina diè favore, quando con fasce gli si fece vesta: sia benedetta l’ onorata testa e l’acqua sparta suvvi al fonte sacro,

57 Pontus de Tyard, Sonnet 35, in Les Erreurs amoureuses, ed. John A. McClelland (Genève: Droz, 1967): 145. 58 Cf. Gordon R. Silber, “Alleged Imitations of Petrarch in the Filostrato,” Modern Philology 37 (1939), no. 2: 114–115; Ernest H. Wilkins, “On the Circulation of Petrarch’s Italian Lyrics during His Lifetime,” Modern Philology 46 (1948), no. 1: 3; Frederic J. Jones, The Structure of Petrarch’s Canzoniere: A Chronological, Psychological and Stylistic Analysis (Cambridge: Brewer, 1995): 111; William T. Rossiter, Chaucer and Petrarch (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010): 87–94.

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e’ lucenti capelli e l’alta fronte che son venuti raggi di Fetonte.59

Franco Sacchetti’s father came from Dalmatia.60 It is difficult to say whether it was mere coincidence or not, but the enumerations of the benedictions that resemble those of Petrarch, yet appear outside the sonnet form, are to be found in later Dalmatian poetry. Dunja Fališevac in her article dedicated to the reception of Sonnet 61 in Croatia,61 quotes poems by Šiško Menčetić, Mavro Vetranović and Ivan Bunić, all of which include paraphrases of Petrarch’s sonnet, despite failing to fulfill the formal requirements of the sonnet. The first of the quoted poems, for instance, is composed of seven couplets and the divisions between them are marked by both rhyme and anaphora: Blaženi čas i hip najprvo kada sam ja vidil tvoj obraz lip od koga slava sja. Blažena sva mista kada te gdi vidih, dni, noći, godišta koja te ja slidih. Blažen čas i vrime najprvo kada čuh ljeposti tve ime kojoj dah vas posluh. Blažene boljezni ke patih noć i dan cić tvoje ljubezni za koju gubljah san. Blaženi jad i vaj ki stvorih dosade želeći obraz taj sve moje dni mlade. Blaženo vapinje kad ime tve zovih i gorko trpinje u željah kad plovih.

59 Franco Sacchetti, “Sia benedetto in cielo e in terra l’ora…,” in Giosue Carducci, Antica lirica italiana (canzonette, canzoni, sonetti dei secoli XIII-XV) (Firenze: Sansoni, 1907): 155. 60 Cf. Bariša Krekić, Dubrovnik, Italy, and the Balkans in the Late Middle Ages (London: Variorum Reprints, 1980): 247. 61 Cf. Dunja Fališevac, “Petrarkin sonet br. LXI kao citatni predložak hrvatskim ranonovovjekovnim pjesnicima” [“Petrarchan Sonnet 61 as a Quotation Template for Early Modern Chroatian Poets”], in Poslanje filologa: Zbornik radova povodom 70. rođendana Mirka Tomasovića [The Philologist’s Mission: A Collection of Works on the Occasion of the Seventieth Birthday of Mirko Tomasović], eds. Tomislav Bogdan and Cvijeta Pavlović (Zagreb: FF press, 2008). Cf. Emilian Prałat, “‘Oh the blessed one, oh the most holy one, oh elevated above all the blessed ones’: Litanic Patterns and Folk Inspirations in Croatian Poetry,” in LV 1: 262–264.

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Blažen trak od uze ljuvene u kojoj stvorih plač i suze, želeći da sam tvoj. Blažena ljepos tva, blažena tva mlados, pokli se meni sva darova za rados.62

The conventional enumeration of benedictions is so greatly enhanced in the poem that it cannot be reduced to the role of a regular poetic device used in sonnets. In Posvetilište Abramovo (Abraham’s sacrifice) by the second of the Croatian authors, Mavro Vetranović, an awareness that the benedictory convention is in fact older than the sonnet, for the polyonymic gene dates back to biblical times, manifests itself through a series of blagoslova (blessings), which are inspired by Petrarch yet used in a mystery play on the Binding of Isaac. Even though it may seem that in the readers’ consciousness the anaphora on “Benedetto” has become firmly associated with Sonnet 61, European literature followed the same route as its Dalmatian counterpart in that both eventually emerged from the shadow of Petrarch. The fact that the benedictory formulas regained their direct connection with the litany can, it is thought, be attributed to two factors. First of all, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that is, the period in which Petrarch’s sonnets enjoyed their greatest acclaim, poets still composed laudatory verses which bore little resemblance to the sonnets, and still less to Petrarch’s Sonnet 61. They were composed by well-known poets, such as Pietro Bembo, the author of a poem with the incipit “Dolce mal, dolce guerra, e dolce inganno.” Second, poetry created throughout this period, and later on too, still harked back to its biblical source for the benedictory formula. Among the points of reference that were still relevant was not only the Hymn of the Three Youths, as noted above, but also the series of eight benedictions from Matthew, which was evoked, for example, in Anne d’Urfé’s three sonnets63 and in many other poems. However, as has also already been mentioned, there also remains a t h i r d g r o u p of followers of Petrarch, a group which included Italian poets, such as Giusto de’ Conti and Gaspara Stampa, as well as Nicolás Fernández de Moratín and Juan Boscán, who translated and paraphrased Petrarch’s work into Spanish, and Friedrich Werthing, who translated his work into German.64 The members of this group decided to follow a different course, restricting—sometimes 62 Fališevac, “Petrarkin sonet br. LXI…,” 34–35. 63 Cf. Anne d’Urfé, Œuvres morales et spirituelles inédites, ed. Yves Le Hir (Genève: Droz, 1977): 157–158. 64 Giusto de’ Conti’s, “Sia dunque benedetto il primo inganno”; Gaspara Stampa’s “lo benedico, Amor, tutti gli affanni”; “Aplauso a Dorisa,” trans. by Nicolás Fernández de

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dramatically—the appearance of the benedictory formula, which often resulted in a greater generic uniformity within the sonnet, an effect achieved by Werthing, who used the anaphora on “Gesegnet” (“blessed”) only in lines one and nine and by Boscán, who introduced the words “dichoso” and “dichosa” (“happy” in the masculine and feminine forms, respectively) as late as in the tercets. More often, however, reducing the frequency of the benedictory formula did not simultaneously reduce the impact of the polyonymic gene. For instance, Joachim du Bellay, whose poem 94 from the collection Les Regrets was classified above as belonging to the second group, in Sonnet 33 from the cycle L’Olive shows his indebtedness to Petrarch in a manner which underscores his affinity with the third rather than the second group: O prison doulce, où captif je demeure Non par dedaing, force, ou inimitié, Mais par les yeulx de ma doulce moitié Qui m’y tiendra jusq’à tant que je meure. O l’an heureux, le mois, le jour, et l’heure, Que mon cœur fut avecq’elle allié! O l’heureux nœu, par qui j’y fu’ lié, Bien que souvent je plain’, souspire et pleure! Tous prisonniers, vous etes en soucy, Craignant la loy et le juge severe: Moy plus heureux, je ne suis pas ainsi. Mile doulx motz, doulcement exprimez, Mil’ doulx baisers, doulcement imprimez, Sont les tormens où ma foy persevere.65 [O sweet prison, in which captive I remain / Not because of contempt, force or enmity, / But because of the eyes of my sweet beloved, / Who will hold me until I die. // Oh, happy is the year, month, day and hour, / When my heart is united with her! / Oh, lucky is the knot, by which I am bound, / Although I often complain, sigh and cry! // All the prisoners, you are worried, / Fearing the law and the severe judge, / Whereas I—much happier—am not so. // A thousand sweet words, gently expressed, / A thousand sweet kisses, gently impressed, / Are torments in which my faith perseveres.]66

Moratín; Juan Boscán’s “La tierra, el cielo, y más los elementos”; “Gesegnet sey der Tag, das Jahr, die Stunde,” trans. by Friedrich Werthing. 65 Joachim du Bellay, “33,” in L’Olive, ed. Ernesta Caldarini (Genève: Droz, 2002): 88–89. 66 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Lyrics of the French Renaissance: Marot, Du Bellay, Ronsard, trans. Norman R. Shapiro (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): 171.

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The word “heureux” only appears three times in the poem. However, it is never placed in line-initial position, but is instead hidden within the line, with the role of the anaphora taken by the exclamation “O.” The fact that the key formula is withdrawn to a less central position is undoubtedly connected with the paradoxical meaning of the poem, which is signaled as early as the opening oxymoron “O prison doulce” (“O sweet prison”). Sonnet 33 seems particularly significant, as reducing the frequency of the formula “heureux” does not simultaneously diminish the benedictory tone of the poem, but it does give the piece an ironic twist. In this way, the poem shows irrefutably that the benedictory tone may be revealed in the polyonymic gene even in the absence of anaphoras, such as heureux, bienheureux, bénit or béni. This is made possible by the fact that the benedictory illocution is immanently present in the formal, constitutive and definitional features of the polyonymic gene. This conclusion is also borne out by the poems of two other French poets, Anne de Marquets and Jean-Joseph Surin. The first poet, that is, Anne de Marquets, flourished in the sixteenth century, and composed a cycle of sonnets inspired by the series of beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. There are nine sonnets altogether in the cycle; each contains the adjective “bien-heureux” (“blessed”) and in each this word appears only once. It does not appear in the role of an anaphora unless we treat it as an anaphora of the whole cycle rather than of the lines or stanzas of a single poem. Nevertheless, the first of the sonnets, which sets the tone for the whole collection, is clearly litanic in its structure, a fact which becomes quite clear in its use of the pronoun “qui,” which is well known from the Litany of the Saints: Que ceux-là sont au ciel maintenant bien-heureux, Qui humbles ont esté et pauvres volontaires, Qui pleuroient leurs deffauts, qui estoient debonnaires, Qui estoient de justice ardemment desireux, Qui estoient au prochain misericordieux, Qui de la paix estoient amateurs ordinaires, Qui de cœur pur pensoient aux choses salutaires, Qui pour le droict souffraient maints tourments odieux.67

A hundred years later, another poet, Jean-Joseph Surin, also refers to Matthew 5:3–12. Similarly to de Marquets, Surin also does not view anaphoras, such as heureux, bienheureux, bénit or béni, as a sine qua non in poems which are modeled on a series of evangelical benedictions: 67 Anne de Marquets, Sonnet 446, in Sonets spirituels, ed. Gary Ferguson (Genève: Droz, 1997): 349.

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Etre Roi sans vous posséder, c’est être pauvre; Etre pauvre et vous posséder, c’est être Roi; Etre grand sans vous obéir, c’est être esclave; Etre esclave, et vous obéir, c’est être grand. Etre mort, et tenir Jésus, c’est être en vie; Etre en vie, sans tenir Jésus, c’est être mort, Etre bien, sans penser à lui, c’est être en peine, Entre en peine, et penser à lui, c’est être bien.68

Both de Marquets’s and Surin’s poems contain clear echoes of the biblical text, which distinguishes them from the other poems discussed previously. The only feature they seem to share with du Bellay’s Sonnet 33 is their use of the polyonymic convention without recourse to anaphoric expressions typical of the polyonymic gene. This leads to the conclusion that the benedictory context is raised in the reader’s consciousness every time a text evokes a litanic enumeration of events or elements of the world, even if the enumeration is not enhanced by an appropriate anaphora. This becomes possible because the polyonymic gene is filled with a certain semantic potential, thanks to which a sense of benediction can be bestowed on expressions other than those which are purely benedictory. A case in point are the two stanzas quoted below, which are taken from A Song to David by an English eighteenth-century poet, Christopher Smart: Glorious the sun in mid career; Glorious the assembled fires appear; Glorious the comet’s train; Glorious the trumpet and alarm; Glorious the Almighty’s stretched-out arm; Glorious the enraptured main: Glorious the northern lights a-stream; Glorious the song, when God’s the theme; Glorious the thunder’s roar; Glorious Hosannah from the den; Glorious the catholic Amen; Glorious the martyr’s gore.69

This is only one example of many which provide evidence that in the poetic branch of the litany, the semantic potential of the benediction remained within 68 Jean-Joseph Surin, “Cantique 55: Antithèses sentencieuses,” in Cantiques spirituels de l’Amour divin, ed. Benedetta Papasogli (Firenze: Olschki, 1996): 236. 69 Christopher Smart, A Song to David, ed. John Ramsden Tutin (London: William Andrews, 1898): 41.

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the polyonymic gene as an extremely strong and indeed long-standing influence. In the case of particular poems whose content was ironic or satiric in tone, a dialogic relation was established between the text and its generic foundation. The benedictory tone, however, was not erased from the poem, and still determined its primary semantic context.

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12 Versification in the Church Litanies and Poetic Litanies The two branches of the litany—one serving a devotional and the other a poetic function—assigned a different weight to particular litanic genes and variously employed their formal and thematic potential. Having said that, the process of distancing one branch from the other was not only effected at the level of single genes, but also applied to the whole genre, with the crucial difference between the two branches primarily being in versification. In an extensive anthology of medieval Marian poetry in Latin, which is included in Meersseman’s book, we find poems based on various rhythmical schemes. The anthology contains, amongst others, a rendition of the Litany of Loreto dating from the twelfth century which may be treated as a classical model of litanic versification in that it does not use any other linguistic devices apart from syntactic parallelism, anaphora and a series of responsorial answers. Among the seventy-three Marian antonomasias, only thirteen are made up of three words; the remaining sixty are two-word antonomasias. In the Venetian Litany, which was probably composed earlier but is also preserved in a twelfth-century manuscript, the ratio between the two- and three-word antonomasias is, on the one hand, more balanced, yet on the other hand, it is disrupted by the presence of a group of even longer formulas. Among the forty-two calls in the main part of the prayer, there are nineteen two-word antonomasias and eighteen three-word expressions; additionally, there are three four-word and two five-word calls. Yet, despite the greater variation in the length of antonomasias, the reader still gets the feeling that the regular repetition scheme has its own systematic and predictable rhythm. This is due in the main to the same responsorial answer and the anaphora. The latter was later rejected from the Litany of Loreto, but is still consistently employed in the Venetian Litany: Sancta Maria, templum domini, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, porta paradisi, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, fons caritatis, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, fons pietatis, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, fons dulcedinis, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, cubile celestis regis, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, celi scala, ora pro nobis.

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Sancta Maria, stella celi clarissima, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, celorum regina, ora pro nobis.70

As can be seen from the fragment quoted above, the antonomasias are on both the left and the right, framed by identical anaphoras and responses, which means that each call is divided into three parts. Even though only the initial and final elements have a fixed prosodic form, with the second element differing from line to line with regard to syllable numbers and stress, the whole structure seems to represent a balanced versification system, a system which is very different not only from ancient meters, but also from modern rhythmic patterns, such as syllabic or accentual verse. In terms of rules, this system was analyzed in our earlier works within the context of Polish church litanies.71 However, the Polish system, which we referred to as accentual-phrasal verse, seems a later equivalent of its Latin counterpart. In Latin litanies, all the calls—which from the perspective of poetics are equated with lines—are divided into no more than four syntactic phrases. Each of the phrases is made up of at least one word and is separated from the other phrases by a short pause. In the Venetian Litany—as has already been noted— each line contains three phrases and the number of words within a single phrase varies from two to five. Nearly nine hundred years after their composition, it is very difficult to speculate on factors other than the pause and the musical content which ensured the rhythmical distinctiveness of the phrases. Our hypothesis is that the common feature they shared was, amongst others, the fact that one word was singled out within a phrase, a word which subsequently became the central focus of the phrase and as such was stressed more than the other words.72 The division of the line into phrases was intended to signal the arrangement of the semantic components, which were discussed in the third part of this book. In the passage from the Venetian Litany that was studied, each call is made of two components—one a variant and the other an invariant—as well as a responsorial answer, so creating a pattern which is mirrored in the threefold prosodic structure. The phrasal arrangement, however, does not have to be an exact reflection of the componential arrangement. It is enough if these two patterns are 70 Venezianische Litanei in HAA 2: 215. 71 Cf. Witold Sadowski, “Litania wierszem a wiersz syntagmotoniczny” [“Litany in Verse vs. Accentual-Phrasal Verse”] in LP 123–130. 72 It would be indicated by the accentual relations among the words within a Latin sentence. Cf. Wallase Martin Lindsay, “Accentuation of the Sentence,” in The Latin Language: An Historical Account of Latin Sounds, Stems, and Flexions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894): 165–170.

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correlated. For instance, part A of the Litany of the Saints contains two components—the call, that is, sanctus, and the name of the saint—as well as a responsorial answer, and yet a contemporary church recitation of the Litany does not involve a threefold, but rather a twofold division of the calls, with phrases such as “Saint Peter” being treated as single units. Thus, a single phrase may contain two semantic components. The reverse situation, however, is not possible—a single semantic component cannot be recited as two distinct phrases. Since the componential and phrasal arrangements do not have to be exact structural replicas of each other, therefore, on condition that a consistent rhythm is maintained, the number and composition of the individual components may alter throughout, creating the effect of lively variety rather than monotonous repetition. This aspect of the litanic phenomenon has been examined in detail in the third part of the book. Bearing in mind that this system was ideally suited to religious poetry, which was based on a set of ready-made formulas, it is hardly surprising that it became dominant in the church litanies. In the Middle Ages, however, it was neither the main nor the only system underlying the litanic text. In fact, medieval litanies drew upon a wide repertoire of versification conventions: some of them were patterned upon forms which would nowadays be classified as prose; others were influenced by either ancient meter or syllabic verse. The forms which are closer to prose are those that use the conventions in which Marian antonomasias were even more extended than in the Venetian Litany. It is hard to determine how long and complicated the calls became before the reader lost any sense of the litanic rhythm. Did this process begin when the length of antonomasias ranged from a few to over a dozen words? A case in point is one of the prayers dating from the twelfth century: Ave, Maria, gratia plena, humilis ancilla, regina celsa et a deo sublimata. Ave, Maria, domina, maris stella, solem insticie enixa. Ave, Maria, genitrix gloriosa et non detrimentum virginitatis passa. Ave, Maria, inter mulieres benedicta, inter virgines egregia, decus feminarum et tocius castitatis speculum.73

Or maybe the sense of the litanic pattern was lost to the readers only when the appearance of anaphoras was limited to one per paragraph, as was the case in a thirteenth-century prayer recited “ante communionem”:

73 “Ave, Maria, a deo preclecta…” in HAA 2: 161.

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Ave, Maria. Ave, humilis ancilla dei, cuius filius in celo imperat. Que obedisti, quando verbum Gabrielis archangeli credidisti, fac me perfecte obedire illi et omnibus, pro illius amore, quibus debeo, ut eum semper propitium habeam per humilem obedientiam. Ave, Maria. Ave, rubens rosa caritatis, cuius ardet sinus, in quo iacet soi divinus. O rosa, o lylium, cuius odor suavissimus traxit dei filium carnis ad connubium. Me famulum tuum accende ignite caritatis flamma, ut te et tuum unicum amen super omnia. Ave, Maria. Ave, civitas divinitatis, in qua rex regum novem mensibus habitavit. Ave, fons pietatis, omnium virtutum et gratiarum referta ubertate, in tuis gestans visceribus deum et hominem verum.74

Considering the notion of a recognizable litanic rhythm, we have to remember that originally the litany was sung rather than recited and the convention of accentus ecclesiasticus encouraged a sense of unity, even with respect to very long phrases. However, as noted above, the modification of litanic verse could also go in a different direction: rather than in the direction of prose, it could move toward various versification systems. A few examples of litanies patterned upon the ancient meter were provided in the first part of the monograph, and a further example will be discussed in the following chapter. The present focus will be on the syllabic verse, for it was this kind of verse—with its different variants and stanzaic patterns—that was most frequently used in medieval Latin poetry as the vehicle for the repetitive litanic calls. Quoting from Meersseman’s anthology once more, we can see that the litany adapts easily to the changing prosodic context. Its antonomasias can take the form of short, six-syllable lines: O virgo serena, o mater amena, O virgo sacrata, o sponsa beata. O iustitie dux, o letitie lux. O blanda precanti, o dulcis amanti.75

but may also stretch over longer, thirteen-syllable lines joined in couplets: Ave, dei gratia virgo singularis, que figuris variis pulchre figuraris.

74 “Ante communionem,” in HAA 2: 165. 75 “Invocatio cum laude,” in HAA 1: 185.

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Ave, que propheticis dictis declarata, ab eterno creditur deo preparata. Ave, quam in utero matris consecratam, prorsus absque vicio profitemur natam. Ave, quam archangeli voce salutatam novimus absque viro mire fecundatam.76

Litanic antonomasias are equally appropriate for sestets: Ave, lumen gratiae, Fons misericordiae, Virgo fecundata, Radix pudicitiae, Spes eterne gloriae, Regina beata. Ave, venerabilis, Mater admirabilis, Per quam lux est orta, Flos incomparabilis, Splendor ineffabilis. Felix caeli porta. Ave, novum gaudium, Salutis exordium, Lumen veritatis, Caeli luminarium. Languoris remedium, Forma sanctitatis.77

as well as for the octaves rhyming ababbaab, which were popular in troubadour poetry and were often used in the Spanish tradition in copla de arte menor: Ave, rosa rubens et tenera, Cuius odor inestimabilis. Ave, stella transcendens sidera, Cuius fulgor inenarrabilis, Myrrha fragrans, hysopus humilis, Per quam Deus de Dei dextera Se inclinans ad nostra infera Nostrae fuit naturae nubilis.

76 “Oratio valde devote,” in HAA 1: 225. 77 “Ave, lumen gratie…,” in AHMA 32: 27. Cf. HAA 1: 223.

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Ave, virga Iesse florigera, Flos hic, inquam, immarcessibilis, Ave, dulcis virgo puerpera, Puer cuius nulli consimilis, Qui immensus, interminabilis Intra tua se clausit viscera, Lac de caelo potans de ubere: Potans talis mire laudabilis. Ave, sponsi celestis camera, Cunctae genti desiderabilis, Ave, dicta confirmans vetera Prophetarum, Christi visibilis Facta mater, qui et passibilis, Mortem crucis tulit post verbera, Que mors licet fuerit aspera Et despecta, nulla tam utilis.78

We may thus say that the Middle Ages left a rich legacy of works in which the litany occupies nearly all the prosodic positions on the axis, from prose through accentual-phrasal verse—as is the case in the church litanies—to regular versification forms characteristic of quantitative and non-quantitative poetry, as well as stanzaic and non-stanzaic works. We have to bear in mind that this applies to a period in which the distinction between verse and prose was not as strongly felt as it is now, and these alternatives were perceived as variants of the same tradition rather than mutually exclusive methods of composition. Having said that, this fact is being highlighted merely for academic clarity, as in Early Modernity the situation regarding litanic verse did not change dramatically. In the same period in which accentual-phrasal verse was selected to act as the sole compositional variant for all the church litanies, poetic litanies still appeared in the context of different compositional conventions both in verse and prose. When the Middle Ages drew to a close, the changes that were underway did not affect litanic verse, which seemed to exist outside the temporal scope relevant to the rest of the culture. When in Early Modernity a clear distinction was made between verse and prose, and when the national systems of versification—with their wide range of stanzaic and non-stanzaic variants—became fixed, litanic verse still proved our thesis, postulated in the first part of the book, about the embryonic character of this form. However, while in the Middle Ages the undetermined status of litanic verse corresponded with the analogous situation of many other 78 Adam von La Bassée, “Ave, rosa rubens et tenera…” in AHMA 48: 305. Cf. HAA 1: 205.

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versification conventions, in a world of normativized modern poetics, the convention—which was halted halfway through its development into a full-fledged system—may have appeared incomplete. This is the source of the many unusual features of litanic verse, which will be examined below. The accentual-phrasal system, which was the domain of the church litany and was not used in any other genre, played a crucial role in isolating the litany from other literary forms. The use of this system meant that a certain piece of writing was almost automatically classified as a devotional work. The poetic litany in turn, which retained the ability to appear in different rhythmical variants, was receptive to the current literary trends. Such different versification forms were not semantically neutral, but were connected with particular motifs, styles and poetic genres. Thus, openness to various rhythmical schemes led to an openness to various themes and as a result—to a paradoxical situation. While the accentual-phrasal system appeared only in a limited number of prayer texts, which were highly conventionalized and quite schematic, the poetic litany, which was genetically connected with the church litany, became one of the most popular means of free expression in early modern literature.

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13 The Art of Paraphrase, Commentary and Self-Commentary In order to describe the specific features of the poetic litany, let us consider certain poetic works which—due to their similarities and references to particular church prayers—may be seen in relation to them. As has already been noted, in the early Middle Ages all the works in verse, which to the modern reader resemble the Litany of the Saints, exemplified the same genre, a genre which left the medieval writers with ample room for maneuver. Among those works is a hymn composed in senarius and attributed to an Irish monk of the seventh century, Cummian the Tall. Even though the list of saints it includes evokes the Litany of the Saints, the poem is not a derivative, but rather a parallel text: Celebra Iuda festa Christi gaudia apostulorum exultans memoria Clauiculari Petri primi pastoris piscium rete euangelii captoris

alleluia

Pauli gentium egregi preceptoris uasis electi Israhelis seminis

alleluia

Andreæ atque precamur egregia pasi pro Christi fide aduocamina

alleluia

Iacobique consubrini domini preces adiuuent in scammate sæculi

alleluia

Iohannis sacri electi ab infantia qui accumbebat sponsi inter ubera

alleluia

Oris lampadis eloquentis Pilippi opem oremus prole cum peruigili

alleluia

Bartholomei impendamus nutibus nati pendentis æquora in nubibus

alleluia

Tomæ tendentis partes inter Parthiæ nos illuminet abyssus scientiæ

alleluia

Mathei quoque fiscali a munere donati Christum sequentis præpropere

alleluia.79

79 “Hymnus C. Cuminei Longi in Laudem Apostolorum,” in The Irish Liber Hymnorum, eds. John Henry Bernard and Robert Atkinson (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1898), vol. 1: 18–19.

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In Part II of this book (Chapter 7.4.2) we quoted a similar but significantly longer litany, written in the eighth century by Hrabanus Maurus. Composed in elegiac couplets, this poem is another example of a work which cannot be treated as a poetic paraphrase of the prayer recited in church, for it came into being in the period when the Litany of the Saints did not yet have an established position in Western Europe. Similar poems were being composed as late as the fifteenth century, as is testified by a sixteen-stanza song known to the Carthusian community in Trier. With the exception of the last two stanzas, each stanza is opened with the chairetismic apostrophe “Gaude” and each is addressed to a different saint: Mary, Peter, Paul, or one of the remaining apostles, such as Matthias in the fragment below: Gaude, Matthia, parve Christi, Qui thronum Iudae meruisti Prae cunctis in hoc saeculo, Fac inter sanctos nos ascribi, Ut semper collaetemur tibi In trinitatis speculo.80

The appearance of similar poems in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in vernacular languages even later, indicates that the choice between centrifugal tendencies—that is, the tendencies to separate the church branch of the litany from the poetic branch—and centripetal tendencies—which counteracted this process—was suspended for a long time.

13.1  Poetic Paraphrases of the Church Litanies As the Litany of the Saints became more and more standardized, those poetic works which showed a certain affinity with the litany but did not strictly correspond to the canonical model began to take on features of the litanic paraphrase. It is hard to determine when exactly this process occurred. It seems, however, that an extensive poem written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, which is discussed by Magdalena Kowalska in her monograph,81 may in fact date from the period of transition. Arthur Långfors, a twentieth-century publisher of the work, expressed his doubts as to whether the poem represents a single text with a variable structure

80 “In Divisione Apostolorum,” in AHMA 29: 134. 81 Cf. LV 3: 89–90.

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or—alternatively—two or even three independent texts.82 From our point of view, this issue is of secondary importance, for if it is truly a single text, this means that the three structures which can be observed within it represented to the author three different variants of the same convention. If, on the other hand, the texts were written by three different authors, their affinity must have been noted by the medieval editor who decided to place them alongside each other in the manuscript. Whichever was the case, it is not our interpretation, but the interpretation from the period in question which was recorded in the versification structure of the text: the whole piece was written in alexandrines and the majority of it was arranged in quatrains. It is also not our intention to examine the text in its entirety, but rather to focus on one aspect of it. In stanzas one to thirty-six, the text seems to resemble the Marian church litanies, whereas in stanzas thirty-seven to fifty-five it seems closer to the Litany of the Saints. This is because the first part contains antonomasias which recall the Litany of Loreto (“mere au creatour,” “mere au sauveour,” “couronne virgine,” “la tour David,” “estoile de mer,” “roïne des angres”) as well as many other formulas typical of Marian discourse (“verge au roy Jessé,” “temple Salemon,” “porte de paradis,” etc.). It begins in the following way: Ave, sainte Marie, mere au creatour, Roïne des angres, plainne de douçour, Ave, estoile de mer, de grant resplendisour, Ancele Dieu le pere, salus de pecheour.83

In the second part, however, the poet evokes John the Baptist, the apostles, including Paul and Barnabas, although no distinction is made between the older and younger Jacob, the martyrs, starting with Stephen, before concluding with the holy confessors and holy virgins: Or vous pri, saint Sanson, Elfege et saint Dustan, Saint Esuuald, saint Eguine, et le dous saint Wistan, Saint Gile, saint Geroime, et saint Cuchbert le bon, Et vous, très dous martir, monseigneur saint Albon. Je requier les martirs et tous les confesseurs, Qui servent nostre seigniour et par nuit et par jour,

82 Cf. Arthur Långfors, “Notice du manuscrit français 12483 de la Bibliothèque Nationale,” in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale et autres bi­ bliothèques (Paris: Klincksieck, 1909), vol. 39 (Première Partie): 643. I wish to thank Magdalena Kowalska for drawing my attention to this commentary. 83 Ibid. 644.

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Et si requier les virges, de chasteé les flors, Requerez nostre Dame qu’ele me doint secours.84

The text may thus seem to be a combination of a Marian litany and the Litany of the Saints. In fact, however, it exemplifies the final stage of an evolutionary process which in its initial stage also concerned the church litanies, but in fact was completed only in the poetic branch of the litany. The process began with the Litany of the Saints and involved extending the section addressed to the Mother of God. While in the oldest known version of the prayer the apostrophe to Mary took the form of a single call, over time it was extended to include other Marian antonomasias. Due to this, Virgin Mary became the only holy person who deserved more than one litanic formula. According to Meersseman, when the number of such formulas increased to an excessive degree, the Marian section was singled out and elevated to the status of a separate prayer. This was to be the source from which the Litany of Loreto developed. The tradition of an extended Marian section continued for a long time within the Litany of the Saints, as can be demonstrated in a passage from a litany recited in Winchester Cathedral which was only written down in the fifteenth century: Sancta Maria mater domini ora [pro nobis] Sancta Dei genitrix ora [pro nobis] Sancta virgo virginum ora [pro nobis] Sancta regina celorum ora [pro nobis] Sancta domina angelorum ora [pro nobis] Sancta Maria mater misericordie et pietatis ora [pro nobis].85

However, as the Litany of Loreto grew in popularity, the need to retain a separate section devoted to the Mother of God was no longer felt to be essential, and consequently the number of Marian apostrophes was reduced to the first three formulas from the passage quoted above. Thus, in the church branch of the litany a process was stopped which—if it had developed any further—might have led to the emergence of a variation on the Litany of the Saints that would have included an extended section addressed to the saints, a section that would have contained two large sub-sections: one comprising a dozen, or even several dozen, Marian antonomasias, with another based on calls directed to the remaining saints.

84 Ibid. 651. 85 “VIII Cambridge, University Library Kk.6.39, fols. 195r–203v,” in English Monastic Litanies of the Saints After 1100, ed. Nigel J. Morgan (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 2012), vol. 1: 58.

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Such a litany was never developed within the church branch of the prayer, but the tropes which did not find their way into church litanies are to be found in the poetic litanies, as seen in the poem mentioned in the first paragraph of this subchapter. This fourteenth-century poem seems to be situated at a moment of transition between two epochs. On the one hand, it cannot be regarded as a commentary to either of the church litanies, for it exemplifies a different variant of the same common genre. On the other hand, it introduces the first signs of a growing distance between the two branches in that it not only replaces accentual-phrasal verse with syllabic verse, but also continues a line of development which was stopped halfway through within the church branch. Another important element worth highlighting in the poem is the language: the text was not composed in Latin, but in French.

13.2  Poetic Commentaries on the Church Litanies Another step in the separation of the church branch of the litany from the poetic branch was taken when poetic expression began to be treated as a commentary on the church prayer. This step became possible due to the poems that were written in long stanzas, for only a long stanza could provide the space for a clear-cut distinction between the canonical formulas and syntactic schemes, on the one hand, and the poet’s own words, on the other. The line between these two approaches may have been drawn in different ways. It may have divided the stanza into a conventional initial part and an authorial final part; it may also have corresponded to the division into stanzas and refrain; or—alternatively—it may have been aimed at setting the limits of the framework. In the last case, litanic formulas were allowed only in those lines which formed the framework, that is, the initial and the final lines, whereas the remaining lines within the stanza were either left unmarked by any litanic features or such features were allowed to appear, albeit only occasionally.

13.2.1  The Medieval Period An interesting case in point is a poem from this period analyzed by Magdalena Kowalska. Composed in Occitan in the fourteenth century, the poem begins with an auto-thematic reference:

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Las letanias romansadas Totz homs aysi trobara,86 [All men will find here romancized litanies.]87

What makes the reference somewhat surprising is the fact that the reader is informed in a Romance language that the litanies included have actually been paraphrased into that Romance language. In fact, this seemingly gratuitous reference indicates a change in perspective. Replacing Latin with the vernacular is associated with diverting the reader’s attention away from direct prayer by transferring it to the level of commentary. Accordingly, to read the poem does not mean it is the litany which is being recited, but rather that it is a meditation on its formulas that is being declaimed. As noted by Kowalska, in certain passages, such as a series of lines opening with an anaphora on que, we get the feeling that the meditation takes on the litanic rhythm, which is applied to the whole stanza. This, however, only happens occasionally, with the most frequently used structure being an anaphora in the first line of the stanza, followed by an excerpt from a saint’s life, before concluding with a plea in the final line: Senher sant Johan Baptista, Que fust per Dieu marturiatz, La tieua testa fon requista El tieu sanc fon escanpatz, Per conselh de Rodiana A cubrir sas malvestatz. Tu m’arma que es tan vana, Fay perdonar sos pecatz.88 [The holiest John the Baptist. / Who wast martyred for God’s sake, / Thine head was taken from thee, / Thine blood was spilt / On the advice of Herodias, / To conceal her meanness. / Thou defendest me from what is so vain. / Make it happen that our sins are forgiven.]

If the stanza above were reduced to the initial and final lines, the poem would show a greater resemblance to the Litany of the Saints than it shows in the authorial version, in which the focus is on visualizing the hagiographic scenes. The fact that the canonical litanic rhythm could be restored in the text at any moment 86 “Paraphrase des litanies en vers provençaux,” ed. Camille Chabaneau, in Revue des Langues Romanes 28 (1886): 221. 87 Translation by Witold Sadowski. Cf. Catherine Léglu, Between Sequence and Sirventes: Aspects of Parody in the Troubadour Lyric (Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 2000): 109–111. 88 “Paraphrase des litanies…,” 223.

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demonstrates that the interior of the stanza, which is seemingly distant from the litany, follows the basic assumptions behind the litanic structure. To provide a comparative example, the Venetian Litany quoted above, with its structure composed of three elements—for instance: “Sancta Maria, templum domini, ora pro nobis”—shows that the interior of the stanza in the Provençal poem is a free development of the second element. This has an obvious connection with the phenomenon of litanic narration, which was described in Chapter 9 devoted to antonomasia. As was noted, litanic antonomasias are not ordinary nominal expressions, but contain references to the litanic performative context, references which are concealed to a lesser or greater degree. Thus, the name is treated as a manifestation of being and action, which can be verbalized and developed into narration. In a typical church litany, the adjective “marturiatz” (martyred), which is used in the Provençal stanza quoted above, would form a single oneword antonomasia. In the poem, however, it is developed into a longer narration, which verbalizes an allusion to a biblical story, giving the poet more latitude to artfully design the interior of the stanza. It is not always the antonomasia which is used as the starting point for a longer section in a prayer. In “Bogurodzica” (“Parent of God”), the earliest Polish religious song which probably dates from the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, the space between the apostrophe and the ektenial component was filled with lines that constituted a variation on the latter. In the second stanza of the poem quoted below, there are no narrative elements, for the ektenial component does not necessitate an opportunity to be developed into a hagiographic story. Instead, the object of the plea is carefully delineated: Twego dziela Krzciciela, bożycze, Usłysz głosy, napełń myśli człowiecze. Słysz modlitwę, jąż nosimy, A dać raczy, jegoż prosimy: A na świecie zbożny pobyt, Po żywocie rajski przebyt. Kyrieleison.89 [For Thy Baptist’s sake, God’s son, / hear our voices, fill the human mind, / hearken unto the prayer that we offer, / and may you give us what we ask for: / while on earth a godly life, / and a paradise afterlife. / Kyrieleison.]

89 “Bogurodzica” [“Parent of God”], in Chrestomatia staropolska [An Old-Polish Chrestomathy], eds. Wiesław Wydra and Wojciech Ryszard Rzepka (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1995): 235.

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In the case of both the Provençal and the Polish poems, the interior of the stanza is rooted in the structural component of the canonical litany, but the development of this component takes the poems outside the standardized church prayer. The song which is thereby created is not an alternative version of the Litany of the Saints, but may be treated as a poetic meditation based on its content. It is worth noting that this kind of meditation leads to the creation of a two-tier structure, that is, a commentary on the litany, rather than to the more usual combination of the two generic patterns, that is, the litany + the commentary. This is because the litanic genre does not appear directly, even in those parts of the stanza which take on the role of the frame. Similarly to a frame surrounding a work of art, a litanic frame is an area of increased conventionality, in which the “Kyrieleison” formula is quoted rather than simply said.

13.2.2  The Post-Reformation Period The status of those poems which evoked one of the main church litanies was altered significantly in the sixteenth century, when the leaders of the main denominations within Western Christianity dramatically reduced the canon of litanies which were permitted for public use. Those poets who wished to continue their creative work within the litanic genre without risking violating the ban made recourse to various poetic strategies. One of these was to take the position adopted by commentators who do not aspire to co-create the rules of official worship, but who limit their role to presenting their commentary on the already existing and officially approved church prayers. Seen as such, the poem was not a new variant of the litanic prayer, but rather a commentary on the canonical text. Of particular importance are the works that were composed during the Reformation, as well as during later periods in which religious life was undergoing a major upheaval, for such works—apart from the words addressed directly to God—operate in a sense as a doctrinal debate. Traces of such decisive moments in Christian history are to be found in two poems which display a dialogic relation to their own particular setting in time, one of which dates from the seventeenth century, and the other from the middle of the nineteenth century. The first example, “a choral poem that summons a cosmic grandeur in writing of fall and redemption,”90 was composed by an English author, John Donne. A Litany has twenty-seven nine-line stanzas, and can be divided into two equal halves, with stanza fourteen marking the boundary. The division in a way mirrors 90 Frances Cruickshank, Verse and Poetics in George Herbert and John Donne (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010): 71.

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the rift between Anglicanism and Catholicism, a rift which disturbed the basic stability of English society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and seems to be verbalized in the final couplet of stanza fourteen: Hear this prayer Lord: O Lord deliver us From trusting in those prayers, though poured out thus.91

In her analysis of the poem, Dominika Ruszkiewicz refers to earlier interpretations and then presents a rather more cautious stance, saying that these words may have played the role of a poetic self-commentary.92 If this is indeed true, the most important aspect of the self-commentary is that it reveals the two-tier structure of the poem, a structure which presupposes not so much the performance of the prayer as the commentary on it. The commentary is based on a clear juxtaposition between what will be stated in the final thirteen stanzas of the poem and what has already been said in the initial thirteen stanzas. These two parts are markedly different. In the first part, the poem’s indebtedness to the church litany is manifested mainly on the level of the poem’s plan with each stanza corresponding thematically to a successive call or group of calls from the Litany of the Saints. Yet, all the conventional markers of the litanic genre are carefully ignored. Thus, the poem does not contain any, not even the slightest trace, of litanic versification. Apart from a very few exceptions, we do not find any traditional formulas, and typical litanic antonomasias appear only occasionally. In the stanzas which begin with a name or antonomasia, the twofold division which has been described above may be observed, namely the division into those lines which evoke a church formula in either a more or less literal form, and those which extend it further. More specifically, the following expressions are succeeded by meditation: “Father of heaven” (stanza 1), “Son of God” (stanza 2), “Holy Ghost” (stanza 3), “Blessed glorious Trinity” (stanza 4), “fair blessed mother-maid” (stanza 5), etc., as shown in the first two stanzas: I The Father   Father of heaven, and him, by whom It, and us for it, and all else, for us   Thou mad’st, and govern’st ever, come And re-create me, now grown ruinous:

91 John Donne, “A Litany,” in The Complete English Poems, ed. Albert James Smith (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984): 321. Cf. Müller, “Liturgie und Lyrik…,” 66–68. 92 Cf. Ruszkiewicz, “‘Thy name I sall ay nevyne’…,” 86.

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    My heart is by dejection, clay,     And by self-murder, red. From this red earth, O Father, purge away All vicious tinctures, that new fashioned I may rise up from death, before I am dead. II The Son   O Son of God, who, seeing two things, Sin, and death crept in, which were never made,   By bearing one, tried’st with what stings The other could thine heritage invade;     O be thou nailed unto my heart,    And crucified again, Part not from it, though it from thee would part, But let it be by applying so thy pain, Drowned in thy blood, and in thy passion slain.93

Stanzas which do not open with a name or antonomasia, however, are entirely dominated by meditation, and the litanic features are completely melded into their surroundings. In such sections of the poem, the affinity between a certain stanza and the Litany of the Saints is maintained only because the stanza’s place within the poem corresponds to the place occupied by a given call within the church prayer. Among the stanzas of purely meditative character is stanza six, devoted to the angels: VI The Angels   And since this life our nonage is, And we in wardship to thine angels be,   Native in heaven’s fair palaces Where we shall be but denizened by thee,     As th’ earth conceiving by the sun,    Yields fair diversity, Yet never knows which course that light doth run, So let me study, that mine actions be Worthy their sight, though blind in how they see.94

93 Donne, “A Litany…,” 317. 94 Ibid., 319.

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as well as stanza ten, dedicated to the martyrs: X The Martyrs   And since thou so desirously Didst long to die, that long before thou couldst,   And long since thou no more couldst die, Thou in thy scattered mystic body wouldst     In Abel die, and ever since     In thine, let their blood come To beg for us a discreet patience Of death, or of worse life: for oh, to some Not to be martyrs, is a martyrdom.95

Consequently, the first thirteen stanzas of Donne’s poem create the impression that the poet is carried away by his meditative impulse, which diverts his thoughts away from the Litany of the Saints, so that his poem—which is centered around the litany—is not in fact an example of the litany itself. In a difficult time of religious wars, the poet, who was himself a convert from Roman Catholicism to the Anglican faith, must have had a premeditated plan with regard to the poem’s structure. The first part of the poem contains no signs of the poet’s intention to produce a litany meant for communal recitation in church.96 What makes such a performance unlikely is first and foremost the frequent use of enjambment. However, the freer the text becomes from litanic markers, the more aware the reader becomes of its indebtedness to a particular prayer, namely the Litany of the Saints in its unabridged version which was forbidden in the Anglican Church.97 It is only when the readers relate the poem to the Catholic litany in its

95 Ibid., 320. 96 As Helen Gardner wrote in her “Introduction” to John Donne, The Divine Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952): xxiv, xxviii, A Litany “appears impersonal, but is, in fact, highly personal. […] It is an elaborate private prayer, rather incongruously cast into a liturgical form. […] Donne’s poem could hardly be prayed by anyone but himself. Although he preserves the structure of a litany (Invocations, Deprecations, Obsecrations, and Intercessions), he does not preserve the most important formal element in a litany, the unvarying responses in each section.” Cf. Theresa M. DiPasquale, Literature and Sacrament: The Sacred and the Secular in John Donne (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1999): 90. 97 Barbara Kiefer Lewalski argues that Donne’s poem is based on the Anglican litany from 1544. This version, however, does not include separate calls devoted to particular groups of saints, as is the case in Donne’s poem. Cf. Eadem, Protestant Poetics and the

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entirety, that is, taking into account the calls addressed to the saints, that they begin to see how consistent the first part of Donne’s poem is in evoking this prayer. This is not to say, however, that the poet attempts to express veiled approval for the Litany of the Saints. The puzzling structure of the first thirteen stanzas, in which the prayer is both commented upon and passed over in silence, is explained in the above-mentioned couplet, which closes stanza fourteen: “O Lord deliver us / From trusting in those prayers.” Through these words, Donne symbolically distances himself from the Catholic litany to follow the model dictated by The Book of Common Prayer in the second half of the poem. While in the first thirteen stanzas the litanic markers are reduced to a minimum, in the final thirteen stanzas the litanic features are at their most prominent. The apostrophe “O Lord deliver us” functions as a syntactic justification for the first anaphora used in the poem, that is, the anaphora “from,” which appears at the end of stanza fourteen in the expression “From trusting in those prayers” and then opens fourteen out of the twenty-seven lines in stanzas fifteen to seventeen. Additionally, subsequent stanzas contain anaphoras which are either identical or similar to those that are characteristic of the Anglican litany. John Donne is the only prominent poet of whom we know who juxtaposes two distinct perspectives on the church litany in such a clear manner.98 A Litany reveals the poet’s self-awareness, for it is through his conscious choice of one of the competing prayers that he defines his own religious identity.99 In later periods, when religious animosities ceased, poets still composed works which were intended to provide commentaries on one of the officially approved litanies. The choice of the prayer, however, was by then predetermined, as the question of which litany should be recited was changed into a different

Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979): 259–260. 98 Roman R. Dubinski in his study, “Donne’s ‘A Litanie’ and the Saints,” Christianity and Literature 41 (1991), no. 1: 5, proposes a different reading of Donne’s poem. According to him, the poet wanted “to find some common ground between the Churches and to discourage divisions in Christendom.” Therefore, A Litany had to “be acceptable to both the Catholic and the Reformed Church.” 99 However, George Klawitter in his article, “John Donne and the Virgin Mary” in John Donne’s Religious Imagination. Essays in Honor of John T. Shawcross, eds. Raymond-Jean Frontain and Frances M. Malpezzi (Conway: UCA Press, 1995): 131–132, claims that A Litany “contains very un-Protestant sentiments,” including Marian devotion: “as if to aggrieve Protestants more, Donne elevates Mary to a superhuman state when he names her in line 38 a ‘she-Cherubin.’”

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one, namely how should we understand the litany which was a priori officially assigned to be recited? Among the poems which belong to this group is an entire poetic volume that was meant as a commentary on the Litany of Loreto. Entitled Unsrer Lieben Frau (Our Lady), the collection of poems was written by Ida Hahn-Hahn,100 a German poet who—at the mature age of almost forty-five and so deeply moved by the death of her partner—decided to embrace the Catholic faith. It is not coincidental that the volume appeared in 1851, that is, immediately after Hahn-Hahn’s conversion, for the poet, who had been brought up within the Protestant culture in which the litany was relegated to the margins, treats the prayer as a didactic tool which may help her determine her confessional identity. Even though when compared with Donne’s poetry, Hahn-Hahn’s litany illustrates change from the opposite standpoint; the mere fact that both poets use the litany to manifest their new religious orientation is not without significance. When examined within the context of other poetic litanies, Hahn-Hahn’s volume is characterized by its greater length. It is not an integral work divided into sections, but a collection of thirty-two self-contained units. The first poem in the volume constitutes a meditation centered around the initial litanic calls addressed to the Holy Trinity, whereas the last is based on the Angelic Salutation, with each of the remaining thirty poems related to a single Loretan call. Altogether, the book contains 142 pages filled with an exceptionally long meditation which has its own dramatic dimension and which in scope resembles an epic novel, a genre which holds a unique place in Hahn-Hahn’s own creative oeuvre. While the litany tends to be regarded as a monotonous form of expression, Unsrer Lieben Frau is characterized by great structural variety, for it uses stanzas and lines of different length. The idea to impose the pattern of the Litany of Loreto upon the whole book leads to interesting results. As the call, around which a given poem is structured, is indicated in the title, the content of the poem itself may not include any markers of litanic verse or direct references to the Marian prayer. In this respect, Hahn-Hahn’s volume resembles the first part of Donne’s work. A fixed refrain, for instance, which is a litanic marker, appears only in a series of three poems structured around the following calls: “Refugium paccatorum,” “Consolatrix afflictorum,” and “Auxilium Christianorum”; only the second of these poems contains a refrain sourced from the Litany of Loreto: “Maria, bitt’ für uns!” (“O Mary, pray for us!”). Also, the anaphora seldom makes an appearance—in the whole 100 Cf. Ida Hahn-Hahn, Unsrer Lieben Frau (Mainz: Kirchheim und Schott, 1851).

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work it dominates only in the verse which opens the cycle (entitled “Kyrie eleison!”), while in the remaining verses it only is seen in certain passages. These two aspects of the poem’s structure, that is, the use of the anaphora only in certain stanzas, together with the simultaneous predominance of a single call from the Litany of Loreto, produce the effect of the litany within a litany. A case in point is the poem which is built around the call “Regina Martyrum.” It is composed of fourteen stanzas, but only two of them—stanzas eight and nine—constitute an inner litany to the Cross: Das Kreuz in seiner schlichten Größe, Das Kreuz in seiner nackten Blöße, Mit Nägeln und mit Dornenkron’; Das Kreuz, daran in Finsternissen, Vom Speere und vom Schmerz zerrissen, Ein Dulder hängt – der Gottessohn! Das Kreuz — die Heilung aller Sünden! Das Kreuz — der Leuchtthurm für die Blinden! Das Kreuz — der Anker fern und nah! Das Kreuz — um das die Engel schweben! Das Kreuz — vor dem die Teufel beben! Das Kreuz! das Kreuz auf Golgatha!101 [The cross alone in simple state— / The cross with all its native weight, / With all its nails and thorny crown; / The cross, whereon in darkness drear, / Smarting with pain, transfixed with spear, / A sufferer hangs—God’s only Son! // The cross, where sinners pardon find— / The cross, bright beacon to the blind— / The cross, the anchor near and far— / The cross, which angels hover nigh— / The cross, from which the devils fly— / The cross, Mount Calvary’s bright star.]102

None of the remaining stanzas in “Refugium peccatorum” are subordinated to the anaphora “Das Kreuz.” Similarly, none of the remaining lines are characterized by parallelism. This distinguishes stanzas eight and nine from the rest of the poem, but this is not in itself a unique phenomenon. In fact, European literature has produced numerous examples of poems in which the anaphoric pattern applies only to a certain section of the work. For centuries, this was the only means of introducing litanic verse to drama and prose, yet in the examined poem, as well as in a few others from the same collection (“Mater 101 Eadem, “Regina Martyrum,” in Ibid., 126–127. 102 Eadem, “Regina Martyrum, Ora pro nobis!” in Poems on the Litany of Loreto, trans. Frederick Charles Husenbeth, in The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary… (London: Virtue, 1864): 813.

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divinae gratiae,” “Speculum justitiae,” and “Stella matutina”), the distinctness of the litanic stanzas may carry additional information, namely they may reveal the attitude of the poet herself toward the poetic branch of the litany. Due to the litany-within-a-litany structure, the inner litany to the Cross can by no means be regarded as competing with those litanies which have been approved by the Holy See, for the place it occupies within the work is significantly lower, not only with respect to such litanies, but even with respect to the single call from the Litany of Loreto. What is paradoxical about Hahn-Hahn’s volume is the extent to which it marginalizes litanic verse, especially when the length of the work and its litanic content is taken into account. This paradox may result from the poet’s Protestant upbringing, which equipped her with a set of basic convictions, including those relating to the litany. Associated with Baroque aesthetics, which was at that time characteristic of the Roman Catholic culture, the litany may have become a symbol of poor taste within literature. From our perspective, however, the source of the paradox is less important than the consequences it occasions in poetry. Ida Hahn-Hahn’s collection clearly shows that when a poetic work takes on the role of a commentary on the official church litanies, this underscores the respect for the canonical prayer, but at the same time does not allow litanic verse to flourish without any constraints. It is probably for this reason that poems similar to Donne’s and Hahn-Hahn’s works do not appear frequently in European literature. The research that has been conducted in relation to our project reveals that poems whose structure clearly corresponds to the pattern of the Litany of the Saints, for instance, or the Litany of Loreto are few and far between. If litanic verse were to develop rapidly and extensively, without either undermining the unique position of the canonical litanies in the Catholic Church or questioning the partial or total objection toward the genre voiced in different branches of the Protestant churches, it had to operate within an entirely different modi operandi. Yet, the majority of the poetic litanies shared a common feature with Donne’s and Hahn-Hahn’s poems. Even though they were not based on a particular church litany, they still preserved the two-tier structure which encompassed a prolonged meditation on what is said in the text.

13.3  Self-Commentary as a Specific Technique of Litanic Verse Interestingly enough, the third step to increase the distinctiveness of the poetic litany was taken—similarly to the two previous steps—as early as the Middle Ages. This is because radical moves could not happen as a result of non-radical

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actions, but occurred in parallel to them. These two tendencies co-existed at least until the nineteenth century. The third step consisted in changing the object of the commentary, so that it no longer concerned the text of a commonly known and officially approved church prayer, but rather the poet’s own litanic text. A codex with twelfth- and thirteenth-century poems by Alain of Lille and Nicholas of Tournai contains Psalterium beatae Mariae Virginis, a poem which is not unique, but instead representative of medieval religious poetry as many such poems are recorded in medieval manuscripts. The poem contains 151 stanzas, the final two of which are quoted below: Ave, splendor angelorum, Cuius odor unguentorum Ascendens de Libano Sedes transit seniorum, Dulcem sponso sonans chorum In chordis et organo, Tu cum carnis tympano Introgressa coeli chorum, Micas mensae dominorum Mitte foras orphano. Ave, decus saeculorum, Coeli splendor, laus sanctorum, Dulce melos hominum Fons salutis, hortus florum, Porta vitae, via morum, Virgo gemma virginum, In te laudent Dominum, Quibus iudex meritorum Per te sedes beatorum Dat post vitae terminum.103 [Hail, the brightness of the angels, / The fragrance of whose balms / Ascending from Lebanon / Surpasses the seats of the patriarchs / To the sweet spouse sounding choir / On strings and organs. / Thou through the tympanum of the body, / Hath introduced the heavenly choir. / The remains from the table of our Lord / Send out to the orphan. // Hail, the glory of ages, / The brightness of heaven, the praise of the saints, / Sweet melody of man, / The source of health, the garden of flowers, / The gate of life, the road of behavior, / The virgin of the jewel of virgins, / In Thee the Lord is praised / By those,

103 “Psalterium beatae Mariae V.,” in AHMA 36: 26.

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to whom the good judge / Thanks to thee, the seats of the blessed / Will give at the end of life.]104

Both stanzas are divided into two unequal parts: while the first part is filled with conventional formulas, the second is freely rendered by the poet, with the boundary between the two halves falling in different places. In stanza 150 it falls immediately after the first line, for the stanza contains only one conventional antonomasia— “splendor angelorum”—which becomes the object of meditation from the second line onward. However, in stanza 151 the poet enumerates nine antonomasias and does not resort to more individualized language until line seven. Despite this difference, both stanzas share a common feature, namely the fact that antonomasias which are the object of a later commentary are not quoted from a particular church prayer, but come from the basic repertoire of religious formulas. In this way, Psalterium reveals the main feature which in the centuries to come was to determine the peculiarity of the poetic branch of the litany, a peculiarity which lies in the two-tier structure of the prayer. The commentary may refer to the same formulas which form the core of the church litanies, but it may also draw upon the poet’s own creative resources to include expressions that fulfill the criteria of litanic formulas yet are not used in church prayers. In the latter case, the relation between the commentary and the text is one of the key elements of the strategy aimed at determining or simulating the litanic orientation of the text. A two-tier structure—analogous to those created by Donne and Hahn-Hahn—helps to classify as litanic the supplicatory formulas invented by the poets in their works. It therefore follows that while in the church branch of the litany, the prayer is simply composed of certain formulas, in the poetic branch, the same formulas which are used to communicate with God simultaneously become the object of poetic scrutiny. The poets do not merely recite the prayer, but also observe how the prayer grows sentence by sentence. They may, at one moment, identify themselves with the text of the prayer, only to adopt an outsider’s perspective at the next, as if distancing themselves from their own words. The more space devoted to expanding or commenting on the formulas introduced by the poets, the more inventive their conceits are. Thus, it should come as no surprise that in the past the two-tier structure was most often created within stanzaic poetry. The  use of this particular versification form enabled writers, such as Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic—a seventeenth-century Polish poet—to offer comprehensive commentaries on the litanic formulas. Zimorowic’s “Litanija,” for instance, which is 104 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz.

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made up of eight ottava rima stanzas, contains a typical Marian antonomasia— “the paradise of delight”—in the opening line of stanza seven, the same antonomasia subsequently being analytically expanded in the following words: Raju rozkoszny na ziemi sadzony, Bujny w owoce i drzewa wieczności,105 [The paradise of delight on the earth planted, / Abundant in the fruits and trees of eternity].106

The expressions enumerated in the second half of the first line and the second line expand the motif which was signaled in the initial antonomasia. The role they play is that of epithets—“on the earth planted,” “abundant in the fruits,” “and [abundant in the] trees of eternity”—which grow out of the formula “the paradise of delight” as branches grow out of a common stem, thereby reflecting in the syntactic structure of the sentence the image of Mary as an abundant garden. The poet does not stop at this, however, but in the following line presents the same motif from a different perspective, in that he evokes another conventional antonomasia that describes Mary as hortulus conclusus; the antonomasia is elaborated upon by the poet and followed by these epithets: Ogrodzie ręką królewską zamkniony, Pełen róż wstydu i lilij czystości,107 [The garden with a royal hand enclosed, / Rich in the roses of shame and lilies of purity].

This couplet is governed by the same concept as the previous one. In fact, the same structure is predominant in seven other couplets in the remaining stanzas of Zimorowic’s poem, thereby expressing through formal means a profound theological message. The Mother of God, who guarantees access to eternal life to future human generations, continues to astonish the world with her life-giving energy in a manner similar to the poet who astonishes the reader with his ability to create, one by one, entirely new antonomasias and epithets. The result of the poet’s creativity is a long succession of litanic formulas, one being added to another in a single sentence like beads on a string. Indeed, each subsequent line is surprising. Having read line four, the reader moves on to line five, which takes the form of a five-word antonomasia—“Pagórku 105 Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic, “Litanija” [“A Litany”], in Hymny na uroczyste święta Bogarodzice Maryjej [Hymns for Ceremonial Feasts of Mary, the Mother of God], ed. Radosław Grześkowiak (Warszawa: Sub Lupa, 2017): 112. 106 Translation by Dominika Ruszkiewicz. 107 Ibid.

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wyższy nad święte Syjony” (“The Mount surpassing the holy Zions”)—only to note that in line six it is appended with another extended epithet: “Opływający oliwą litości” (“Filled with the oil of mercy”). The extensions added within the boundaries of the stanza, in this case stanza seven, lead to the postponement of the plea to Mary until the couplet which closes the ottava rima: Maryja, Matko prawdziwa, Bądź nam, grzesznym, miłościwa.108 [Mary, our true Mother, / Have mercy on us sinners!]

The form of the ottava rima corresponds perfectly with the poet’s intention to center his meditation around a basic litanic pattern: an antonomasia followed by a plea. In European poetry, the meditative tendency can also be observed in non-stanzaic poems, but this context imposes different requirements upon the poet. While in stanzaic litanies meditation has been based on a multilayered accumulation of segments in a sentence, in non-stanzaic poems the artistic effect depends on the choice of pertinent yet concise formulas that briefly comment on the object of meditation. For instance, in the passage quoted below, which comes from Alphonse de Lamartine’s poem entitled “Poésie ou Paysage dans le golfe de Gênes,” on the left-hand side there is an enumeration of various phenomena which are briefly described on the right, thereby presenting the poet’s subjective perspective. This shift from the general toward the particular is supported by the complex sentence pattern: Les mers d’où s’élance l’aurore, Les montagnes où meurt le jour, La neige que le matin dore, Le soir qui s’éteint sur la tour, Le bruit qui tombe et recommence, Le cygne qui nage ou s’élance, Le frémissement des cyprès, Les vieux temples sur les collines, Les souvenirs dans les ruines, Le silence au fond des forêts!109

In the passage quoted above, Lamartine does not recite a prayer, or—if he does— it is a prayer that is concealed. The structure of the enumeration, however, would

108 Ibid. 109 Alphonse de Lamartine, “Poésie ou Paysage dans le golfe de Gênes,” in Œuvres poétiques, ed. Marius-François Guyard (Paris: Gallimard, 1963): 330.

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have been different if he had not adopted the commentary technique from the litanic genre and applied it to the consecutive elements on the list. In short, the method used by the poet consists in repeatedly shifting the focus between the two perspectives. To be more precise, the poet alternates between using words or expressions which appear to be his own and treating the same words and expressions as objects which need to be supplemented, elaborated or commented upon or even corrected, as if they were the words of others or of a voice drawn from a different aspect of his personality. The feeling of a constantly changing perspective dates back to the Middle Ages, when the poetic litanies were composed from ready-made formulas which were considered to be the common property of all medieval poetry, and it was the commentary that allowed the poets to introduce their own subjective voice into the poem, as was shown through the example of Psalterium beatae Mariae Virginis. The technique seems to have implications which reach far beyond the framework of the poetic litany. If we accept the classical thesis that the peculiarity of poetry lies in drawing the reader’s attention to the poem’s form,110 poetic litanies fulfill this requirement through the two-tier structure, which has been described in this chapter. This is because focusing the reader’s attention on the text changes the perspective from which we approach a given work, and we have been accustomed for centuries to perform this change unconsciously. In poetic litanies, however, the focus on the form of the text does not occupy all the reading time, for it is accompanied by a certain promise, which has already been mentioned in the third part of this book. This is a promise which has been inscribed into the figure of antonomasia since Antiquity and which gives us the hope that we will be able to move beyond the mere linguistic meaning of words. In poetic litanies, this promise gains a new form of fulfillment. While reading the text we may at one moment lift our eyes toward eternity before lowering our vision in order to see eternity through the text. To use the terminology employed by Roman Jakobson, we can say that the poetic function does not cancel but, rather, coexists with the referential and metalingual functions.111

110 Cf. Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Language in Literature, eds. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987): 69. 111 Cf. Ibid. 66, 69.

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14  The Litany’s Relation to Other Genres As has already been suggested, the distance between the two perspectives within poetic litanies is achieved through various means. In the case described in the previous chapter, it has been achieved through a particular arrangement of elements within the stanza or line, but a two-tier structure may also be achieved due to the formal additions from other genres. In fact, in Early Modernity the litany virtually ceased to appear on its own; whenever it appeared in poetry, it was usually together with an additional well-known convention. We may thus say, quite paradoxically, that a heterogeneous generic structure became a marker of the poetic branch of the litany.

14.1  The Litany versus the Sonnet The range of genres which accompanied the litany was in fact very wide. Additionally, the ways in which the two conventions could be combined also varied, as the litany was not always the dominant form in a particular work. The numerous analyses described in previous volumes of the Litanic Verse series revealed that among the genres which most frequently accompanied the litany was the sonnet. Using multiple examples, Magdalena Maria Kubas has shown that litanic sonnets are characterized by a marked presence of litanic enumerations in the quatrains but that their presence is limited or even absent in tercets.112 This difference does not seem surprising if we take into account the results of our previous findings. The division of the sonnet into two sections, that is, the eightand the six-line sections, mirrors—albeit on a larger scale—the division into the formularized part and the commentary. It was this division that in the Middle Ages allowed the poetic branch of the litany to be distinguished from the church branch. Accordingly, what in the Middle Ages was seen as a structural feature of each of the litanic stanzas could also be extended to encompass the whole sonnet, as shown in a poem by Enzo, King of Sardinia: Tempo vene chi sale e chi discende, tempo è da parlare e da tacere, tempo è d’ascoltare e da imprendere, tempo è da minacce non temere, tempo è d’ubbidire chi ti riprende,

112 Cf. LV 4: 164.

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tempo di molte cose provvedere, tempo di vegghiare chi t’offende, tempo di fignere di non vedere. Però lo tegno saggio e canoscente quegli che fa i fatti con ragione, e che col tempo si sa comportare; e mettesi in piacere della gente, che non si trovi nessuna cagione che lo su’ fatto possa biasimare.113 [The time comes for him that ascends and that descends, / there is time to speak and to be silent, / there is time to listen and to take action, / there is time not to fear the threats, / there is time to listen to him that reproaches you, / there is time to oversee a number of things, / there is time to defend yourself against him that offends you, / there is time to seem not to notice them. / Therefore I consider to be reasonable and conscious, / him that uses reason in his actions / and that takes heed of the time; / and that pleases the people, / that is without any fault, / that is not to be blamed for any cause.]114

Composed in the thirteenth century, the poem belongs to the earliest group of sonnets in literary history. It seems significant that from the remote past of the history of Italian poetry, the sonnet emerges together with the litany. In the case of this particular poem, it is difficult to determine which convention performs the role of the welcoming host who invites a visiting guest into their territory and which convention—the sonnet or the litany—takes the role of the guest. The text itself is divided into two parts. The first contains a consistent anaphora and an equally pronounced parallelism; the second does not discard such devices, but uses them with less regularity and in a somewhat chaotic manner. In the first part, the poet follows the example set in Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 by adopting the central compositional idea from the Bible and paraphrasing a series of sapiential expressions; in the second part, he turns the previously quoted words into objects to be commented upon, a commentary which is endowed with a more individualized tone. The boundary between the two parts falls after line eight, that is, in a place which later became the fixed dividing line in an Italian sonnet.

113 Enzo, King of Sardinia, “L’uso del Tempo,” in Italian Extracts, Being an Extensive Selection from the Best Classic & Modern Italian Authors, ed. Antonio Montucci (London: Boosey, 1818): 180. 114 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Michael R. G. Spiller, The Development of the Sonnet (London: Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005): 12–13.

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François Jost regards such sonnets as faux sonnets (false sonnets)115 and examines in detail those examples in which the anaphoric pattern is extended over a wider area than the octave. Among these are the verses of Mellin de Saint-Gelais, Joachim du Bellay, Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, as well as William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66, quoted below: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disablèd, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly doctor-like controlling skill, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill. Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that to die I leave my love alone.116

The anaphoric pattern, which in this instance pertains to lines three to twelve, moves beyond the role of arranging individual elements in an expected order that is intended to help the readers orient themselves within the text. According to Helen Vendler, Shakespeare’s use of the pattern in his sonnet entailed the introduction of a hierarchical order: As the poem progresses, passing in its paratactic and … and … and from social, moral, and political wrongs to aesthetic, cognitive, and linguistic evils, we see that the speaker has a hierarchy of social abuses in mind. These roughly parallel the Christian hierarchy of sins, in which sins of the flesh are ranked as less serious than sins of the will and the intellect. For Shakespeare (the artist in language) miscall[ing] is the greatest sin, and is therefore placed in the climactic position, closely preceded by the pretense of learning (doctor-like folly) and censorship of art.117

115 François Jost, Le sonnet de Pétrarque à Baudelaire: Modes et modulations (Berne: Peter Lang, 1989): 124. 116 William Shakespeare, “66,” in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, in Complete Works, eds. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2007): 2446–2447. 117 Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999): 310.

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Since the hierarchically structured enumeration may be seen as the litany’s contribution to literature, we may conclude that Shakespeare’s poem contains a combination of two genres: the litany and the sonnet. Each convention presents a different perspective on the structural composition of the text. The rhyme pattern divides the poem into a sequence of three quatrains followed by a final couplet. However, this modular structure, typical of the Shakespearean sonnet, seems to apply only to the right-hand side of the poem and does not extend to the left, which is dominated by a very different convention. Taking into consideration the presence or absence of anaphoras, the frame is formed by the initial and final couplets, a frame which encompasses a ten-line enumeration. The effect of juxtaposing these two compositional planes is that the boundaries delimited by the rhyme are immediately canceled at the onset, and conversely, the progressive continuity which results from the hierarchically ordered enumeration is constantly disturbed by the unexpected references to a past underscored by the rhymes. From the point of view of aesthetics, the poem’s compositional structure can be assessed somewhat differently. In his examination of “faux sonnets,” Jost probably took into account their recitation potential, which is of particular relevance in the context of the generic combination, for the litany prevents the possibility of a full vocal expression of the contrasts and tensions which are characteristic of the sonnet, and the sonnet, in turn, disturbs the calm and predictable rhythm which is peculiar to the litany. We do not intend to question this fact, but rather to shed a different light on this issue. It is our firm conviction that the reception of the poem is not limited to the listener’s aural experience of the poem’s melodic line, but it also includes the reaction the poem evokes in the reader’s consciousness. This is most relevant to the experience of silent reading, but may also be the case in reading the text aloud, for the reader’s reception is not only limited to what is clearly heard, but it also includes what cannot be heard, i.e. the meaning that is latent in the text. Indeed, it is when the structure of the text reaches the reader’s consciousness in its fullness, in its actual and potential forms, in forms voiced and unvoiced, that the co-existence of the litany and the sonnet does not lead either to mutual destruction or a weakening of the genres, but allows the reader to grasp the distance between them and, as a consequence, to see them as two distinct forms within one text. Thus, the co-existence of the litany and the sonnet does not have to lead to a conflict between the two genres. While in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66 they may, in fact, be seen as two competing forces, in the examples quoted earlier in which the anaphora only dominates the octave, the two genres seem to cooperate willingly. Let one more example be added to this group, an example dating from 410

Shakespeare’s times, namely the sonnet “À morte de Cristo” (“On Christ’s death”) composed by a Portuguese poet, Baltasar Estaço: Aqui onde venceo a morte à vida, aqui vencido tem a vida à morte, aqui onde subiu mais alto a morte, aqui a fez descer mais baixo a vida. Aqui onde matou a morte à vida, aqui morta deixou a vida à morte, aqui onde se viu mais dura a morte, aqui também se vê mais forte a vida. Por que pudésseis dar tão alta vida, quisestes padecer tão baixa morte, assim que em vossa morte, tenho vida, pois sendo vossa a vida, e vossa a morte, com vossa vida, compro a doce vida, com vossa morte pago a dura morte.118

The appearance of both the litany and the sonnet in the poem is beneficial to each genre. The fact that the litany occupies only the first eight lines leads to their separation from the remaining tercets. Thus, it seems possible that the perception of the sonnet in terms of two different parts—the descriptive and the reflective—a perception that is dominant not solely in Romance countries, dates back to this kind of poem in which the octave is devoted to an enumeration of worldly phenomena and the last six lines to a commentary. What the litany gains from the cooperation with the sonnet is a different textual context which allows it to take on a form distinct from the church litanies. As has been noted above, the distinctness of poetic litanies was determined by, amongst other factors, the development of the poetic commentary. Since this element was not, strictly speaking, part of the litanic repertoire of features, it had to be borrowed from other genres. While the church litany was from the Middle Ages subject to a universalizing tendency, which manifested itself in the adoption of a single generic norm—if not within the whole of Europe, at least within one religious denomination—poetic litanies were built upon the variable repertoire of additional conventions, both local and foreign. The poems of Enzo, Estaço and many other authors show that the genre which most often co-existed 118 Baltasar Estaço, “À morte de Cristo” [“On Christ’s Death”], in Camões e os poetas do século XVI [Camões and the Poets of the Sixteenth Century], ed. Marina Machado Rodrigues (Rio de Janeiro: Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2006): 164.

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with the litany was the sonnet, with its own reflective section which allowed the poet to adopt a more personal stance through introducing a commentary on the formulas enumerated in the earlier section.

14.2  The Litany and the Remaining Medieval Genres The sonnet is not the only genre which contributed to the development of the poetic branch of the litany. In the Middle Ages, at least three other conventions were relevant in this context. The first tradition grew out of Latin, or to be more precise, from two verbalmusical genres, the trope and the sequence. Those two genres were influenced by the specific features of the medieval liturgical song, which in turn created the appropriate conditions for the development of two main litanic traditions, the polyonymic-ektenial and the polyonymic-chairetismic, traditions which developed in contradistinction to both the Litany of the Saints and the Marian church litanies. It is worth recalling that the Gregorian chant was to a large degree based on the figure of melisma, and the complexity of its melodic line led to the emergence of a verbal content intended to assist in the mastery of liturgical songs. It is significant that in order to fill the melody with words, the trope and the sequence did not restrict themselves to their own generic rules, but drew upon the experience of other genres, if only partially. Their indebtedness to the litanic form is particularly relevant to our purposes. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the Kyrie tropes as they contributed to the development of specific formulas that were taken from the Litany of the Saints, as well as to take into account certain sequences that constituted a frame within which the literary convention inspired by the Akathist Hymn could develop.119 Initially, the texts of the tropes and sequences were written for practical, especially didactic purposes, and were involved in musical education. Therefore, they were not subject to such strict normative rules as, for instance, the canon of the mass. As a result, the conditions were such that both genres were able to move beyond the canonical church litanies, while nonetheless still remaining within the limits of liturgical works. This realm became home to the artistic ambitions of the litany, which thence spread to other literary conventions, thus influencing the Italian lauda, the German laise, or, for example, the Scandinavian leis, a genre

119 HAA mentions numerous poems which are headed by either sequentia or prosa and are composed of several dozen lines with an anaphora Ave.

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through which litanic features also found their way to the Swedish ballad.120 In this way, the trope and the sequence became the first group of medieval genres which encouraged the expansion of the poetic litany. The second group is made up of pagan genres—the list of maxims, the list of heroes, and the cataloging charm, that is, the very same conventions which toward the end of the first thousand years of Christian history played a significant role in assimilating and popularizing the Litany of the Saints. Even though the genres did not enter the official text of the Litany of the Saints, which preserved the shape of its Syrian model, they left traces in those works that combined oriental and vernacular influences, some of which will be examined below. Thus, having found themselves incorporated into the Christian framework, they acquired a second existence outside the liturgical culture, either in folk songs or high literature, thereby constituting the poetic branch of the litany. A particularly strong influence was exerted by the pattern based on the cataloging charm. This influence may be felt in poems which are very remote from each other in both time and place and as different in structural terms as the following: “a rhythmic catalog of events that occur upon human death,” an example of thirteenth-century English literature quoted by Anna Czarnowus in her article;121 laudatory works in praise of Mary, recorded in sixteenth-century Hungarian codices and enumerated by Ágnes Czövek;122 or the series of French Renaissance love sonnets examined by Magdalena Kowalska.123 Yet a much more significant contribution to the development of the poetic litany came from the third literary tradition, which—to simplify matters—may be called a Romance tradition, for it grew in large measure from Roman popular poetry,124 and initially developed in two Gallo-Romance languages, that is, Old Occitan and Old French. While the features of the church litany were standardized in the British Isles, the poetic litany owes the most to the culture of presentday France, as well as to that of northern Italy and Catalonia, including Valencia.

120 Cf. Magdalena Żmuda-Trzebiatowska, “Transformations of Litany in Swedish Poetry: From the Middle Ages to the Modern Breakthrough (1100–1879),” in LV 2: 234–235. 121 Cf. Czarnowus, ‘“Hail! the Heaven-born Prince of Peace!’…”, 28–29. 122 Cf. Ágnes Czövek, “‘I gave night music to my heart from which deep litanies pealed’: Hungarian Poetry,” in LV 1: 311. 123 Cf. Jean Antoine de Baïf ’s “Ô beaux yeux azurins, ô regards de douceur!,” Guy de Tours’s “Par vos beaux yeux où la délicatesse,” and Pierre de Ronsard’s Sonnet 140 from Le Premier Livre des Amours. Cf. LV 3: 116–117, 124. 124 Cf. James T. Monroe, “Formulaic Diction and the Common Origins of Romance Lyric Traditions,” Hispanic Review 43 (1975), no. 4.

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What is seen in this case are interlinked and mutual dependencies which are difficult to disentangle: the litany infiltrates poetry together with another genre and this genre in turn becomes an acknowledged actor on the literary stage, partly because it adopts certain litanic characteristics. In this way, the responsorial part, which appears in both the litany and in other church songs and prayers, became a prototype of the refrain which is to be found in the alba, rotrouenge and virelai.125 Regardless of their origins, the conventions soon became independent of their religious prototypes, which does not mean that there were no exceptions. In fact, there are two exceptions which are of particular interest to us, both of which left a trace on the later shape of the poetic litany, even though they did not play a major role in the tradition of the troubadour and trouvère poetry with which they are primarily associated.126 The exceptions in question, the plazer and the enueg, appeared together, complementing each other in poetry. The former was used by a poet to enumerate the various pleasures and delights experienced by man, and the latter— conversely—to draw up a list of what might be termed nuisances. It is assumed that they came into being as a result of three independent traditions. First of all, the plazer–enuer opposition may be regarded as the transformation of a different polyonymic pair known from the Bible, namely the benediction–malediction pair. While church litanies preserved only the former tradition, that is benediction, the enueg made it possible for the poetic litany to renew its links with the latter tradition, namely malediction. Secondly, such biblical inspiration involved to a considerable extent the use of formulas characteristic of vernacular sapiential genres, which may have been analogous to the list of maxims mentioned above. The list of maxims, it should be noted as an aside, did not have a function that was equivalent to the polyonymic gene, but was simply the source of the material that was incorporated into the framework of the plazer and the enueg. Thirdly, and finally, an important change was effected in the way benediction and malediction were understood. Having found themselves in the field of a new interpretant, the two genres constituted a response to the social tensions which existed in the High Middle Ages, a response which was delivered in a satirical tone.

125 According to Maria Spyropoulou Leclanche, the word “refrait,” which is an earlier variant of “refrain,” originally referred to the responsorial part of the prayer song. Cf. Eadem, Le refrain dans la chanson française de Bruant à Renaud (Limoges: Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 1998): 5. 126 Cf. Frank M. Chambers, An Introduction to Old Provençal Versification (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1985): 202.

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The use of a satirical tone in the plazer and the enueg allowed the poets to move beyond the tasks set by the polyonymic gene. Thus, the writers went beyond their role of impartial reporter, a role which was limited to reconstructing an objective order, as represented by the cosmological ladder, by deciding to share with the reader their own, subjective commentary on events which are situated horizontally, within a network of social relations. Both genres, the plazer and the enueg, were used by Pèire de Vic, a Benedictine monk who was born in the Auvergne, flourished at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and is known in criticism as Monge de Montaudon. One of his lyrics, beginning with “Mout me platz deportz e gaieza,” is characterized by the polysyndeton “e” which forms an anaphora and is often accompanied by the verb plazer (to give pleasure).127 A similar enumeration is also used, albeit less frequently, in a poem with the incipit “Be·m platz lo gais temps de pascor,” written in the same period but by a different troubadour, namely Bertran de Born.128 Examples of the enueg include Pèire de Vic’s octosyllabic poems with the following incipits: “Be m’enoja, per saint Salvaire,” “Be m’enoja, per saint Marsal”129 and “Be m’enoja, si l’auzes dire.”130 Their common feature is the almost compulsively repeated verb enojar (to annoy), which overwhelms the reader’s imagination, evoking a series of overpoweringly negative events. According to Raymond Thompson Hill,131 Pèire de Vic’s poetry was a source of inspiration for a Lombard poet, Girardo Patécchio, who—as early as the first half of the thirteenth century—introduced the enueg to Italian literature. In his poetry, the Provençal enojar finds an equivalent in the verb noiare. Among other examples of the plazer and the the enueg quoted by Hill are the poems of Guittone d’Arezzo, the founder of the Tuscan school of poetry, such as Sonnet 54. Even though the poem does not use the word noiare, it offers a very interesting example from our perspective, for it combines two phenomena discussed earlier, namely the enueg and the sonnet, in such a way that the conventional division into the octave and tercets becomes a template for the litany followed by a commentary: 127 Cf. Monge de Montaudon, “Mout me platz deportz e gaieza,” trans. Robert Kehew, in Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours. A Bilingual Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005): 184–185. 128 The poem is examined by Magdalena Kowalska in LV 3: 45. 129 For both poems cf. Der Mönch von Montaudon: ein provenzalischer Troubadour, ed. Emil Philippson (Halle an der Saale: Lippert, 1873): 49–51. 130 Cf. Lark in the Morning…, 186–191. 131 Cf. Raymond Thompson Hill, “The Enueg,” PMLA 27 (1912), no. 2; Idem, “The Enueg and Plazer in Mediæval French and Italian,” PMLA 30 (1915), no. 1.

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Deo! che mal aggia mia fed’e mi’ amore e la mïa gioventa e ’l mio piacere, e mal aggia mia forza e mio valore e mi’ arte e mio ’ngegno e mio savere; e mal aggia mia cortesia e mi’ onore e mi’ detto e mi’ fatto e mio podere, e mia canzon mal aggia e mio clamore, e mio servire e mio mercé cherere, poi c’al magior mister c’avesse mai, o cred’aver, no m’àn valuto fiore. Ai! con’ mal, lasso, en lor mi confidai, ché ’n fidanza de lor debel valore vincente senza fallo esser pensai de ciò ch’eo son venciuto a desinore!132

In his examination of the further development of the plazer and the enueg, Hill includes quotes from Tuscan poets of the thirteenth century (e.g., Chiaro Davanzati), the fourteenth century (e.g., Bindo Bonichi, Antonio Pucci, Burchiello), and even subsequent centuries. One, but not the only, prototype of the later litanies based on negation was Petrarch’s Sonnet 312. However, Hill’s opinion that it was in Italy that the form of both the plazer and the enueg “has been most cultivated ever since its first appearance in the noie of Girard Pateg”133 may be somewhat exaggerated. In fact, the researcher seems to have somewhat gratuitously enlarged the set of Italian texts by taking into account regular benedictions, in which the polyonymic gene appears on its own, that is, without the other two genes, as was the case in biblical prototypes. The plazer and the enueg, on the other hand, are the result of a cooperation between the litany and other generic forms, namely the sapiential and the satiric. Without questioning the role of the Tuscan poetry, the significance of the Provençal poetry and its influence on the literatures of the adjacent nations also requires consideration. For instance, the plazer and the enueg infiltrated Catalan poetry in a broad sense, as is clearly shown in the poetry of writers connected with Valencia, such as Pere March, the author of a plazer with the incipit “Dompna·m platz ben arreada” and Jordi de Sant Jordi, the author of Los anuygs, mentioned by Hill. According to Ernest H. Wilkins, the enueg is also represented

132 Giuttone d’Arezzo, Sonnet 54, in Canzoniere: I sonetti d’amore del codice laurenziano, ed. Lino Leonardi (Torino: Einaudi, 1994): 162. 133 Hill, “The Enueg and Plazer…,” 48.

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in English literature by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66,134 quoted in subchapter 14.1. The verb to tire, which opens the poem, plays an analogous role to the Provençal enojar, and the core of the poem is built around the anaphora “and,” which appears in place of the Provençal polysyndeton “e.” Finally, it is worth considering a French poem examined by Hill, namely Eustache Deschamps’s “Tout ne me plaist pas ce que j’oy,” which shows that the two conventions, the plazer and the enueg, still appeared alongside each other in the fourteenth century. In terms of tone, the poem belongs to the enueg. Quite unusually, however, the tone is conveyed by means of a verb which is central in the plazer, that is, plair: Tout ne me plaist pas ce que j’oy, Tout me desplaist ce que je voy, Tout me trouble mon esperit, Tout du present temps se perit, Justice, raison, foy et loy.135

As has been noted above, the contribution of the enueg to the development of the poetic litany was the tradition of the malediction that dated back to biblical times, a tradition which was adopted by the poetic litanies, but suppressed in the church litanies. Deschamps’s poem demonstrates that the tendency to draw upon the tradition was not as wide-ranging as to allow complete independence for the maledictory convention. This is because while reading the list of complaints, the reader was also able to bear in mind the opposite sequence. Thus, whenever male­dictions were enumerated, it was always in opposition to benedictions. This method of defining phenomena brings to mind Augustine’s definition of evil, which—according to the bishop of Hippo—can only be defined through its relation to its opposite and thus understood as a lack of good. We may then conclude that the positive attitude toward worldly affairs, which is imposed by the polyonymic gene, was still relevant, even when the content of the poem was negative. This predetermined optimism was not erased from the litany but was part of the litanic context throughout the Middle Ages and the whole of the early modern period, an aspect which will be discussed in Chapter 15. All the genres discussed in this subchapter—the plazer and the enueg, the trope and the sequence, the list of maxims, the list of heroes, and the cataloging charm—were at their most popular in the Middle Ages. In subsequent centuries,

134 Cf. Ernest H. Wilkins, “The Enueg in Petrarch and in Shakespeare,” Modern Philology 13 (1915), no. 8. 135 Eustache Deschamps, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Libraire de Firmin Didod, 1889), vol. 6: 178–179.

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the frequency of their appearance decreased significantly. Some were utterly rejected from the repertoire of productive literary forms, although not without leaving traces. As a consequence of the processes described, the litany acquired a fixed predilection for cooperating with other genres relevant to the literary trends and the religious movements, which led to a proliferation of litanic variants, both historical and regional, which were peculiar to later periods.

14.3  The Litany versus Early Modern Genres During the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the tendency of the poetic litany to cooperate with other genres was influenced by another factor of great significance. The function of other genres associated with the litany was no longer confined to providing a basis for the free development of litanic genes, as had previously been the case with the trope and the sequence; nor was it enough for them to enhance the commentary, as illustrated by the merging of the litany and the sonnet; furthermore, their role was not limited to inventing a new language for the old litanic convention, the potential for which was demonstrated by the remaining medieval genres. The other genres, it might be said, began to resemble robes which could be put on the litanic body of text. This happened when the author, following the teachings of a specific branch of the church, decided not to use the genre as an independent entity. It is in such instances that new genres came into play, as to combine the litany with a different genre meant that church regulations were not violated. This process may be seen as a response to the restrictions imposed upon the litany by the authorities of the Western churches. This response was particularly relevant with regard to poems with a clear religious orientation, for in such cases breaking the ban would be the most noticeable. One way out of this situation was to combine the litany with another religious genre. Before we move on to discuss certain examples, let us re-emphasize the fact that this method was not a unique, sixteenth-century invention, but had been used earlier. Therefore, in order to understand the compositional decisions of the poets writing in the early modern period, it is necessary to refer back to the late Middle Ages. In thirteenth-century Italy, a religious movement was born called compa­gnie dei laudesi (confraternities of praise); its significance for the litanic genre has been carefully examined by Magdalena Maria Kubas.136 The anonymous members of this movement introduced a new form of prayer book, the so-called laudario

136 Cf. LV 4: 31–37.

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(praise-book), which contained songs in the vernacular and which—for this reason—was a welcome alternative to the prayer books composed in Latin. Since it is the most outstanding achievements that have an impact on the development of literary conventions, the majority of the laudari analyzed by Kubas will not be addressed, but instead we will focus on examples written by Jacopone da Todi, a Franciscan monk, and his follower, Bianco da Siena. Jacopone’s collection does not contain any prayers which could be set alongside any of the main church litanies. In generic terms, all his poems represent laudas and if they bear any similarities to church prayers, it is through their repetitiveness. In Giovanni Ferri’s classical edition of Jacopone’s laudario,137 eleven out of the one hundred and two songs are extremely repetitive. However, the repetitions never extend over the whole poem, as they do in the songs of Ferri’s most eminent disciple, Bianco da Siena. Living in the second half of the fourteenth century, da Siena produced two songs (numbers 45 and 109),138 which are in their entirety composed of litanic verse, either non-stanzaic or stanzaic in structure. Yet even these two poems do not deserve to be simply considered as examples of litanies, for their structure is based on the anaphora “amor,” a term which is contemplated in a manner characteristic of the Italian lauda. Thus, the assumption behind Jacopone’s and Bianco’s laudari is that the poetic litany cannot function on its own, but only in connection with the genre of lauda, a genre which does not merely combine with the litany within one poem, but imposes upon the litany the manner of its performance. On the one hand, the lauda draws the reader’s attention to individual words which are repeated in series (e.g. “amor, amor, amor”); on the other hand, it allows the song to be performed in the manner of a lay ballad rather than a litany.139 However surprising it may seem, it was this Italian prototype that went on to become a model for the poetic prayer books composed in other European countries during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation period. Yet, outside Italy the genre which was combined with the litany was not the lauda. In Lutheran countries, the litany—marginalized as an independent supplicatory genre—appeared in songs written in the hymnal style, known in the Scandinavian culture as psalms. It has to be noted that in comprehensive Protestant hymnals, made up almost entirely of non-litanic songs, poems which are based on very clear repetitive patterns are much less common than they were

137 Cf. Jacopone da Todi, Laude, ed. Giovanni Ferri (Roma: La Società, 1910): passim. 138 Cf. Bianco da Siena, Laudi…, 626–631, 1035–1043. 139 Cf. LV 4: 34–35.

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in Jacopone’s laudario. Among the most significant exceptions are, for instance, the psalms written by Danish poets, Bertel Pedersøn and Hans Adolph Brorson, which were discussed in Chapter 10, or the refrain “Kyrie eleison,” which is repeated in the hymn entitled “Hela världen klagar sig” (“The whole world complains”), composed in the sixteenth century by the archbishop of Uppsala, Laurentius Petri Gothus.140 Occasionally, we find refrains which are—to a greater or lesser degree—equivalent to “Kyrie eleison,” such as the refrain “Hielp, Jesu hielp, herre Jesu, hielp!” (“Help, Jesus, help! Oh, Jesus the Lord, help!”) from a Danish poem entitled “En Klagelig oc dog troestelig Sang og Vise” (“A song full of complaint yet full of consolation,” 1589) by Hans Christensen Sthen,141 or the refrain “Hör oss, milde Herre Gud” (“Hear us, oh our merciful God”) from a Swedish song “Herre, dig i nåd förbarma” (“Lord, by your grace have mercy,” 1798) by Samuel Ödman.142 As has already been noted, all the poems mentioned above were exceptions, for in the majority of Lutheran hymns the appearance of litanic verse was very subtle and almost imperceptible. A case in point is an eighteenth-century poem by a German Pietist, Johann Christian Lange, entitled “Mein Herzens-Jesu, meine Lust” (“Jesus, the desire of my heart”), which contains indirect repetitions of a highly unsophisticated anaphora “Du bist” (“You are”).143 Apparently, however, it is such inconspicuous rhythmical techniques—short and irregular enumerative series, scattered anaphoras, occasional refrains and exclamations—that proved to be not only the most frequent and long-standing means of combining the Lutheran Church hymn and the litany, but also the most typical manifestation of the litanic genre in German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian poetry. It is in the Lutheran song book that the rule of minimalized presence was first applied to the litany before it was implemented in the following poems of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock: “Die Frühlingsfeier” (“Celebration of Spring”), “Das große Halleluja” (“The Great Hallelujah”), “Dem Erlöser” (“Savior”), and “Psalm.”144

140 Cf. Laurentius Petri Gothus, “Hela världen klagar sig,” in Den gamla psalmboken, ed. Håkan Möller (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2001): 112–114. 141 Cf. the analysis of the poem conducted by Cymbrykiewicz, Wilkus, and Zańko, “Litany Undercover…,” 187–188. 142 Cf. a description of the poem’s litanic features in Żmuda-Trzebiatowska, “Transformations of Litany in Swedish Poetry…,” 237. 143 Cf. Johann Christian Lange, “Mein Herzens-Jesu, meine Lust,” in Kleines Gesangbuch der evangelischen Brüdergemeine (Gnadau: Evangelische Brüder-Unität, 1875): 111–112. 144 Cf. Wantuch, “Pietist Litanies…,” 154–160.

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Other examples of the fusion of the litany with another lyrical genre were— from the same period—also to be observed in the Catholic countries, although not so much in the church hymnals as in the volumes of poetic prayers composed for private use. In French literature, this lyrical genre was known as chanson spirituelle or cantique spirituelle. Collections of chansons and cantiques usually contained songs with refrains, which were particularly well suited for church performance and included a dialogue between cantor and choir. Refrains from such songs were usually two to four lines in length. If, however, the refrain of the chanson happened to be a shorter, one-line acclamation, and an anaphora was used in the main text, the influence of the litany could be felt, as demonstrated in song number 20 from Marguerite de Navarre’s collection of religious poetry: A Dieu pour tout jamais, A Dieu; A Dieu pour tout jamais, plaisir Qui met l’âme à damnation; A Dieu, de tout bien le désir Qui donne tribulation; A Dieu, d’honneur l’ambition Qui brusle le cœur comme un feu, A Dieu. A Dieu pour tout jamais, A Dieu; A Dieu, je ne veux plus de vous, N’autre plaisir ne veux avoir Que l’union de mon Espoux; Car mon honneur et mon avoir, C’est par Foy mon Tout recevoir, Que ne dois laisser pour le peu, A Dieu.145

Dating from the first half of the sixteenth century, de Navarre’s collection shows how elusive the difference between a pure chanson and a chanson plus litany can be. The short refrain that the poet uses consists either of the French idiomatic expression “Hélas” (c.f. songs number 27 and 28) or lullaby-like repetitions (cf. Chanson 12), which reflect the desire of the soul to fall asleep next to its beloved God. The poem with the refrain “A Dieu,” which is hidden among these songs, bears only a passing resemblance to the litany, and does not in any way strive for precedence over the church litanies. The litany does not function as a separate genre in this instance, but merely lends some of its characteristic features to the genre of the chanson 145 Marguerite de Navarre, “Autre chanson,” in Chansons spirituelles, ed. Georges Dottin (Genève: Droz, 1971): 56–57.

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spirituelle. It is precisely this lack of independence that is the most distinct marker of the poetic litany, distinguishing it from the church litany. Some researchers of litanic verse stipulate that a list of the possible sources of poetic litanies should include the complaint, understood as a genre which developed within Provençal poetry.146 This standpoint may contain an element of truth, if only for the reason that the beginnings of the chairetismic gene were rooted in the Greek funerary and nuptial lament, as has been noted in the second part of this book. This hypothesis of an affinity between the litany and the Provençal complaint, however, is not supported by the troubadour poetry, which, in the main, does not include consecutive litanic enumerations. Once some of Rutebeuf ’s poems have been examined, such as “La complainte d’Outre-Mer,” “La complainte de Constantinoble” and “La novele complainte d’Outre-Mer,” as well as the poems written by his numerous followers, it is not difficult to conclude that the complaint in its pure form does not embody any litanic aspects, and that the views concerning the correspondence between the two genres arose on the basis of the poems in which they were connected in a manner similar to the fusion between the litany and certain conventions mentioned in this subchapter, namely, the lauda, the Protestant psalm, as well as the Catholic chansons and cantiques. There are two situations in particular in which the connection between the complaint and the litany can be noted. In French literature, litanic elements were introduced into the complaint for parodic purposes. A case in point is a series of antonomasias focusing on the nose, which are included in a sixteenth-century poem composed by Théodore de Bèze entitled “Complainte de Messire Pierre Liset sur le trespas de son feu nez.”147 A similar phenomenon also appeared in relation to the popular complaint which was often irreverent in tone.148 However, apart from parodic intent, there was another reason why the complaint was combined with the litany. In this instance, the poets’ intent was serious, yet it was not

146 Cf. Françoise Sylvos, “Laforgue et la poétique de la complainte populaire,” in Les Complaintes de Jules Laforgue: l’ idéal et C ie, eds. José-Luis Diaz and Daniel Grojnowski (Paris: SEDES, 2000): 125–130; Isabelle Krzywkowski, “La litanie: une écriture sans fin de la fin,” in Anamorphoses décadentes: l’art de la défiguration, 1880–1914, eds. Isabelle Krzywkowski and Sylvie Thorel-Cailleteau (Paris: Presses de l’université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2002): 65. 147 Cf. Charles-Antoine Chamay, “Les Satyres chrestiennes de la cuisine papale: Jeux et enjeux d’un texte de combat,” in La Satire dans tous ses états: Le ‘meslange satyricque’ à la Renaissance française, ed. Bernd Renner (Genève: Droz, 2009): 270. 148 Cf. Monika Wodsak, Die Complainte: Zur Geschichte einer französichen Populärgattung (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1985): 59–61.

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enough for them to describe the object of the complaint, as other objectives had to be considered. Among the situations which provoked this change in attitude, there was, for instance, a meditation on the Passion. “Complaincte sur la passion de Jesus-Christ” by Gabrielle de Coignard, dating from the second half of the sixteenth century, does not display any litanic features, perhaps because the author had to take into account the typically French context of her work, in which the combination of the litany and the complaint took on parodic connotations. By contrast, the poem “The Sacrifice,” composed fifty years later by an English poet, George Herbert, freely employs litanic repetitions. In the poem, Christ utters words of complaint against His torturers and the complaint itself is in no way litanic. However, when the poet decides to meditate on the events described, he introduces a litanic refrain into the poem: Oh all ye, who passe by, whose eyes and minde To worldly things are sharp, but to me blinde; To me, who took eyes that I might you finde: Was ever grief like mine? The Princes of my people make a head Against their Maker: they do wish me dead, Who cannot wish, except I give them bread: Was ever grief like mine? Without me each one, who doth now me brave, Had to this day been an Egyptian slave. They use that power against me, which I gave: Was ever grief like mine? Mine own Apostle, who the bag did beare, Though he had all I had, did not forbeare To sell me also, and to put me there: Was ever grief like mine?149

For the speaker, the sorrow of the Passion is so overwhelming that his words go beyond the limits of pure complaint and begin to resemble a litany.150 149 George Herbert, “The Sacrifice,” in The English Poems of George Herbert, ed. Helen Wilcox (Cambridge University Press, 2013): 96. 150 However, the serious tone of the poem is questioned in the following paper: Ilona Bell, “‘Setting Foot into Divinity’: George Herbert and the English Reformation,” in Essential Articles for the study of George Herbert’s Poetry, ed. John R. Roberts (Hamden: Archon Books, 1979): 69: “In fact, once we begin to examine Herbert’s own attitude, even the most conventional elements become problematic. The refrain, to take the most prominent example, is completely conventional: the question

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The form of the complaint was also insufficient when it came to conveying the speaker’s own suffering. If the speaker found the strength to overcome his feeling of hopelessness and turn to God, his plea for help required the presence of the litany, as can be seen in a Swedish poem by Ernest Gestrinius, who lived at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Hjälp oss och led! Hjälp oss och led Til en ewig fred. In i Himla-Frögde-salen, När wi dö från jämmer-dalen, Hjälp oss och led till en ewig fred! [Help us and lead us! Help us and lead us / To eternal peace. / To the rooms of heavenly joy, / When dying we will leave the valley of tears, / Help us and lead us to eternal peace!]151

The examples provided in this subchapter should not give the impression that in the early modern period the litany had a tendency to combine exclusively with supplicatory genres. When linked with the lauda, the Protestant psalm, the spiritual song, the canticle or certain varieties of the complaint, the litany promoted a Christian worldview. Its connections with the sonnet meant it was also permitted to enter secular genres and secular themes, such as love. Even though the devotional context did not come to the surface in this kind of literature, the secular themes were situated against the background of the religious space-time. We may thus assume that it was the fusion between the litany and the sonnet that paved the way for the diverse associations between the litany and love poetry that were effected in the nineteenth century, as can be seen in the verse by a Danish poet, Emil Aarestrup: Der er en klarhed på din pande, der er et mørke i dit haar, der er en strøm af blomster-ånde

‘Was ever grief like mine?’ was frequently attributed to Christ in medievial poetry […]. Nevertheless, Herbert’s unusual, drilling repetition calls attention to Christ’s unusual grief and causes us to wonder whether Herbert intended to question the traditional participation in Christ’s grief taught by Catholic meditation.” For a review of interpretations of Herbert’s poem cf. Robert V. Young, Doctrine and Devotion in Seventeenth-century Poetry: Studies in Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, and Vaughan (Cambridge: Brewer, 2000): 107–109. 151 Ernest Gestrinius, “Klagellg röst” [“The lamenting voice”], in Żmuda-Trzebiatowska, “Transformations of Litany in Swedish Poetry…,” in LV 2: 240. The poem was translated by Magdalena Żmuda-Trzebiatowska and Dominika Ruszkiewicz.

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omkring dig, hvor du står og går. [There is brightness on your forehead, / There is darkness in your hair, / There is a stream of flower-breath / Around you, where you stand and go].152

If we were to treat the genres of elegy and ode as an antonymic pair, the litany in general did not combine with the elegy, although it did with the ode. Numerous examples of the litany plus ode combination are examined by Magdalena Maria Kubas in her monograph.153 Connections with other genres led the litany in two opposing directions. On the one hand, it contributed to the establishment of a set of features peculiar to the poetic branch of the litany, and in consequence, to the creation of a slightly different model of expression from that which was used in the church litanies. Thus, the litany proved to be a genre with an unexpectedly large semantic capacity and considerable openness. Its generic worldview created a space-time framework which could accommodate almost any human experience with the assumption that—regardless of its ethical dimension—this could only be fulfilled within the boundaries established by God. On the other hand, links with other genres put the litany at risk of overstepping its own boundaries, that is, of producing a poem which might wish to contradict its theological assumptions. The self-commentary on the litanic form, which was achieved through the involvement of another convention, would then be negative. Even though such radical artistic experiments did not begin to appear until the middle of the nineteenth century—a period which is beyond the scope of this book—we may say that the way for such experiments was paved considerably earlier through the large-scale cooperation of the litany with other genres.

152 Emil Aarestrup, “Til en veninde” [“To a [female] Friend”], in Joanna Cymbrykiewicz, Aldona Zańko, “Litany in Retreat: Denmark from Romanticism to the 1930s,” in LV 2: 204–205. For another English translation cf. Anna Hersey, Scandinavian Song: A Guide to Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish Repertoire and Diction (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016): 351. 153 Cf. LV 4: 266–267, 309–314, 317–318, 327–340.

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15 Interpretations—Reinterpretations— Experiments We concluded the previous chapter with the contention that in Early Modernity the litanic worldview was not undermined. Irrespective of the objects enumerated in a given poem, the concentric space-time in which they were assigned a particular position was not questioned. Simultaneously, over a long period of time, the first traces of which were to be seen in the late Middle Ages and which in Romanticism very slowly, and rather erratically, gave way to the subsequent artistic developments, various creative operations were noted which—by poetic means—attempted to determine the limits of the generic worldview. When examining how the specificity of the poetic branch of the litany was shaped, we stressed that it drew upon somewhat different generic resources than the church branch. The act of drawing inspiration from a centuries-long tradition, however, should not be seen as a mechanical or imitative process of using old conventions, for the generic resources—as employed in poetry—became the object of interpretation and reinterpretation, even of experimentation, and these will be discussed below, starting with the less radical developments before moving on to the more radical.

15.1  Interpretations of the Generic Resources Among the earliest modifications, which allowed new opportunities for the genre without questioning its limits, was the introduction of an apostrophe of the O! type. In ancient literature, this exclamation—which appeared in various languages and genres—acquired the character of a supernational, onomatopoeic sound, imitating emotions through which the speakers attempted to establish a link with their listeners. The emotions in question were very often negative and this added a tone of indignation to the apostrophe O!, an example being the Ciceronian “O tempora, o mores!” In the Septuagint, the Greek ὦ was used in the translation of the Hebrew interjections oy (Numbers 24:23) and hoy (Zechariah 11:17), which often preceded the maledictions, and hence had a somewhat pejorative undertone, as reflected in their English renditions—“alas” and “woe.” The word ὦ is also to be found in the New Testament, if not in a pejorative, certainly in an admonitory context, as illustrated by “ Ὦ ἀνόητοι Γαλάται!” (“O foolish Galatians!”), spoken by Paul in Galatians 3:1. However, in general, apart from a few exceptions, ὦ is unequivocally positive in the New Testament. 427

A case in point are the words of admiration Jesus addresses to a woman of Cannan: “ Ὦ γύναι, μεγάλη σου ἡ πίστις!” (“O woman, great is thy faith!”) in Matthew 15:28. It was this positive dimension of the O! that was adopted by the Christian litany. A series of five triumphant calls, for instance, is to be found at the pinnacle of a Latin Easter hymn Exsultet, which dates from the transition between Antiquity and the Middle Ages: O mira circa nos tuae pietatis dignatio. O inaestimabilis dilectio caritatis: ut servum redimeres, Filium tradidisti. O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est. O felix culpa: quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem. O vere beata nox: quae sola meruit scire tempus et horam in qua Christus ab inferis resurrexit.154

With the positive sense of the interjection O! in mind, the conventions which were adopted from the Greek religion in the period preceding the life of Christ should also be considered. One of these conventions was a supplicatory apostrophe, which consisted in placing ὦ immediately before the exclamation χαῖρε, as seen in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus (line 22) included in Liddell & Scott.155 It is probable that as a result of the influence of this particular convention, in the Middle Ages the exclamation O! began to be regarded as an equivalent of χαῖρε and was therefore used in Marian poetry in the place of Ave. An example illustrating the use of O! is found in the song “Invocatio cum laude,” recorded in a twelfth-century Parisian manuscript and quoted in Chapter 12. In the Middle Ages, the affirmative O! gained such popularity that it quickly moved beyond the Latin language, but the fact that it originated in Marian salutations was still acknowledged in vernacular poetry, at least for some time. A case in point is, for instance, a didactic poem Miserere by Renclus de Moiliens, dating from either the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth century.156 As early as the Middle Ages, however, the exclamatory O! also began 154 “Easter Hymn,” in A Book of Medieval Latin Readings, ed. Aaron W. Godfrey (Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci, 2003): 36. 155 “ὦ,” in Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clardendon Press, 1996): 2029. 156 Cf. Renclus de Moiliens, Li Romans de carité et Miserere: Poèmes de la fin du XIIe siècle, ed. Anton-Gerardus van Hamel (Paris: Vieweg, 1885): 277–283; Scott L. Taylor, “‘L’aage plus fort ennaye’: Scienta moris, Ars moriendi and Jean Gerson’s Advice to an Old

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to be employed in other contexts, and so the anaphora on “O” is found in Jacopone da Todi’s Lauda 67, which is addressed to Christ, and in Bianco da Siena’s songs (e.g., Lauda 20). From our perspective, however, a decisive point in the development of the convention was the use of the anaphora on “O” in love rather than religious poetry. In Petrarch’s Sonnet 161, for example, the anaphora on “o” or “oi” opens as many as nine lines: O passi sparsi, o pensier’ vaghi et pronti, o tenace memoria, o fero ardore, o possente desire, o debil core, oi occhi miei, occhi non già, ma fonti! O fronde, honor de le famose fronti, o sola insegna al gemino valore! O faticosa vita, o dolce errore, che mi fate ir cercando piagge et monti! O bel viso ove Amor inseme pose gli sproni e ’l fren ond’el mi punge et volve, come a lui piace, et calcitrar non vale! O anime gentili et amorose, s’alcuna à ’l mondo, et voi nude ombre et polve, deh ristate a veder quale è ’l mio male!157 [O scatter’d steps! vague and busy thoughts! / firm-set memory! O fierce desire! O passion powerful! O failing heart! / O eyes of mine, not eyes, but fountains now! // O leaf, which honourest illustrious brows, / Sole sign of double valour, and best crown! / O painful life, O error oft and sweet! / That make me search the lone plains and hard hills. // O beauteous face! where Love together placed / The spurs and curb, to strive with which is vain, / They prick and turn me so at his sole will. // O gentle amorous souls, if such there be! / And you, O naked spirits of mere dust, / Tarry and see how great my suffering is!]158

At approximately the same time, a sonnet with an anaphora on “O” was composed by Giovanni Boccaccio.159 However, it was Petrarch’s Sonnet 161 that became the object of admiration and imitation among fifteenth- and sixteenth-century man,” in Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007): 412. Renclus de Moiliens’s poem is analyzed in detail by Magdalena Kowalska. Cf. LV 3: 74–75. 157 Petrarch, Sonnet 161, in Canzoniere…, 217. 158 Petrarch, Sonnet 161, trans. Major Macgregor, in The Sonnets…, 154. For a modern translation cf. The Canzoniere or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta…, 252–253. 159 Cf. Giovanni Boccaccio, Rime, Part Two, “2,” in Tutte le opere, ed. Vittore Branca (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1992), vol. 5, 1: 98.

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Italian poets, such as Panfilo Sasso, Iacobo Sannazaro, Ludovico Ariosto, Giovanni Muzzarelli and Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo,160 as well as a great number of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French poets, such as Pierre de Ronsard, Philippe Desportes, Flaminio de Birague and Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement,161 and—to a lesser extent—the poets of Spain (Luis de León162), Croatia (Dinko Ranjina163) and England (Philip Sidney164). Not all the verses were devoted to love, but there were so many close imitations of Petrarch’s Sonnet 161 that it became as important in the formation of the convention O! as his Sonnet 61 was for the benedictory convention. An especially interesting example is the French rendition of the Petrarchan comparison between eyes and fountains, with its characteristically convoluted thinking: “O eyes of mine, not eyes, but fountains now!” which was translated verbatim by Clément Marot (“O vous mes yeux, non plus yeux mais fonteines”165).

160 Cf. Panfilo Sasso, Sonnet 62, in Sonetti (1–250), ed. Massimo Malinverni (Pavia: Croci, 1996): 81; Iacobo Sannazaro, Sonnets 27 and 98 in Opere volgari, ed. Alfredo Mauro (Bari: Laterza, 1961): 155, 210; Ludovico Ariosto, Sonnet 24 in Opere, ed. Mario Santoro (Torino: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1989), vol. 3: 230; Giovanni Muzzarelli, Sonnet 2, in Rime, ed. Giuseppina Hannüss Palazzini (Mantova: Gianluigi Arcari, 1983): 69–70; [Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo,] “O viva fiamma,” in Claudio Monteverdi, Songs and Madrigals, trans. Denis Stevens (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2000): 152–153. 161 Cf. Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets 54, 178, in Œuvres complètes, eds. Jean Céard, Daniel Ménager, and Michel Simonin (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), vol. 1: 51–52, 118; Philippe Desportes, Sonnets 36, 42, 48, in Les Amours d’Hippolyte, ed. Victor E. Graham (Genève: Droz, 1960): 81, 87, 93; Flaminio de Birague, Sonnets 17, 44, 53, in Les Premières œuvres poétiques, eds. Roland Guillot and Michel Clément (Genève: Droz, 1998): 57, 119, 138; Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement, Sonnet 64 in Les Œuvres poétiques, ed. Roland Guillot (Genève: Droz, 1994): 273. 162 Cf. Luis de León, Sonnet 4, in Raquel Medina, “Erotismo e imitación-emulación en los cinco sonetos de fray Luis de León,” in Fray Luis de León: Historia, humanism y letras, eds. Víctor García de la Concha and Javier San José Lera (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1996): 694. 163 The poet seems to have composed his works in Italian. Cf. Domenico Ragnina [Dinko Ranjina], Sonnet 3, in Rime scelte da diversi eccellenti autori, ed. Lodovico Dolce (Ferrara: Gabriel Giolito, 1564), vol. 2: 608. 164 Cf. Philip Sidney, Sonnet 100, in Sir Philip Sidney: The Major Works, ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 206–207. 165 Cf.  Clément Marot, “Six sonnets de Petrarque,” in Œuvres (La Haye, Gosse & Neaulme, 1731), vol. 3: 157.

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Marot’s translation was quoted by Olivier de Magny,166 extended by Jean Antoine de Baïf (“O mes yeux, non plus yeux, mais de pleurs deux fontaines!”167), and rendered descriptively by Étienne Pasquier: O yeux, ainçois de riviere conduits, O pleurs, non pleurs, ains coulante fontaine.168

The popularity of the Petrarchan comparison between eyes and fountains underscores the litanic predilection for fixed formulas, which are extended to include a poetic commentary. This characteristic feature of the litanic genre did not disappear even when the litany began to move away from a direct treatment of the subject of religion. On the contrary, the expressions once used, tended to become formulas, and these formulas were repeated in subjective contexts. When in the mid-sixteenth century the apostrophic series of O! gained popularity among the French sonneteers, they were immediately associated with the vestiges of the cataloging charm. In Joachim du Bellay’s Sonnet 91 from the cycle Les Regrets, for instance, the apostrophic “ô” precedes an enumeration of the body parts of the poet’s beloved: “O beaux cheveux,” “O front crespe et serein,” “O beaux yeux de crystal! ô grand’ bouche honorée,” etc.169 The interjection O! functions in the same way in the sonnets of Louise Labé,170 Étienne Pasquier,171 and Guy de Tours.172 In de Baïf ’s Sonnet 102, the predictability of the series is broken, for the apostrophes directed to the addressee’s eyes, hair and mouth are intertwined with words of praise for her glance, smile, voice, and kisses.173 It was often the case that within the concise space of the sonnet, the only difference between the various renditions of the Petrarchan convention was the 166 Cf. Olivier de Magny, Sonnet 55, in Les Souspirs, ed. David Wilkin (Genève: Droz, 1978): 66. 167 Cf. Jean Antoine de Baïf, Sonnet 44, in Les Amours de Francine. Sonnets, ed. Ernesta Caldarini (Genève: Droz, 1966): 193. 168 Étienne Pasquier, Sonnet 60, in Les Jeus poétiques, ed. Jean-Pierre Dupouy (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2001): 221. 169 Cf. Joachim du Bellay, Sonnet 91, in Les regrets et autres œuvres poëtiques eds. John W. Jolliffe and Michael A. Screech (Genève: Droz, 1966): 164. 170 Cf. Louise Labé, Sonnet 2, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Enzo Giudici (Genève: Droz, 1981): 142. 171 Cf. Étienne Pasquier, “O teste heureuse ou gist si grand cerveau…,” in Recueil des rymes et proses (Paris: Vincent Sertenas, 1555): 21–22. 172 Cf. Guy de Tours, Poem 12, in Premières œuvres & Souspirs amoureux, ed. Prosper Blanchemain (Paris: Léon Willem, 1878): 67. 173 Cf. Baïf, Sonnet 102, in Les Amours de Francine…, 259.

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epithet used with reference to the body parts of the beloved, which placed the poems in a dialogic relationship. The expression “O beaux yeux,” for instance, was accompanied by different epithets: “de crystal” (of crystal) in du Bellay’s sonnet, “bruns” (brown) in Labé’s and de Magny’s verses, “azurins” (azure) in de Baïf ’s sonnet, with the form “brunelets” (“brownish”) in a sonnet by de Tours. In short, this supports our thesis that due to the popularity of Petrarch’s Sonnet 161 among Italian and French poets, the anaphoric series of O! was for some time appropriated by the love sonnet. Yet, similarly to the benedictory tradition and the poems inspired by Petrarch’s Sonnet 61, the convention O! also managed to be freed from the shadow of the Tuscan master. There were three factors that contributed to this. First of all, a certain group of authors, such as Luis de León, Lazare de Selve, Garbielle de Coignard and Jean de La Ceppède—authors who did not begin their poetic careers before the second half of the sixteenth century— attempted to reestablish the connection between the litanic convention and religious subjects, even though they themselves still employed the sonnet form. Second, in some cases Petrarchan love poetry rejected the sonnet in favor of other, equally significant rhythmic traditions. In Francesco Maria Molza’s poetry, for example, the apostrophes which undeniably are related to Petrarch (“O rose ardenti sparse infra le vive”) are couched in the form of terzetti. His poem has twenty-eight lines, that is, it is twice as long as a typical sonnet.174 Third, Petrarch’s Sonnet 161 only resonated strongly in Italy and France, while in other European countries its impact was extremely limited. Among the English poems which were evidently inspired by Petrarch, Philip Sidney’s Sonnet 100 from the cycle Astrophil and Stella, in which the number of anaphoric repetitions were reduced to three, should be included. The most famous sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English authors, in turn, frequently employed the interjection O!, but for a different purpose than in the Petrarchan poetry. The apostrophic O! was addressed directly to God, and a case in point is George Herbert’s “Sighs and Grones,” in which almost every stanza opens and closes with an anaphora on “O do not,” as in stanza one: O do not use me After my sinnes! look not on my desert, But on thy glorie! Then thou wilt reform And not refuse me: for thou onely art The mightie God, but I a sillie worm; O do not bruise me!175

174 Cf. Francesco Maria Molza, “Terzetti,” in Poesie, ed. Pierantonio Serassi (Milano: Società Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1808): 240. 175 George Herbert, “Sighs and Grones,” in The English Poems of George Herbert…, 297.

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The most likely reason why the English poets refrained from reducing the interjection O! to a lover’s sigh in amorous poetry was the fact that the word appeared in Thomas Cranmer’s version of the The Letany in The Book of Common Prayer. While the anaphoric O! is used in neither Italian nor French church litanies, it does appear in the key moments of The Letany, such as the conventional introduction to the Holy Trinity: O God the father of heaven: have mercye upon us miserable synners. O God the sonne, redemer of the world: have mercye upon us miserable synners. O God the holy Ghost, proceding from the father and the sonne: have mercye upon us miserable synners. O holy, blessed and glorious Trinitie, three persones and one God: have mercy upon us miserable synners,176

or the final Agnus Dei. The fact that in English religious language the interjection O! functions as an anaphoric marker of the holy addressee—a role which in other languages is achieved by inflectional means—inhibited the spread of the anaphora beyond religious poetry. When compared with Continental literature, the English poetry most clearly preserved the connection between the interjection O! and the traditional semantic content of the apostrophic χαῖρε. However, in European literature the role of χαῖρε was also taken over by other words, which were either used incidentally—in single works—or more consistently. A particularly notable example is that of the imperative “come,” which was usually treated as an expression of an amorous call to the Savior. In the song “Sie rufet ihm abermal sehr begihrlich” (“He is called again most fervently”) by Angelus Silesius, a Silesian poet writing in German—who was born in 1624 into a Lutheran family, but who embraced Catholicism—the apostrophe on “Komm” appears in the anaphoric position in all the eighteen lines of the work, as demonstrated in stanza one: Komm mein Herze, komm mein Schatz, Komm mein grüner Freudenplatz; Komm mein Leitstern, komm, mein Licht, Komm mein liebstes Angesicht, Komm mein Leben, meine Seele, Komm mein wahres Balsamöle.177

176 “The Letany,” in The Book of Common Prayer—1552, http://justus.anglican.org/ resources/bcp/1552/Litany_1552.htm (accessed December 14, 2017). 177 Angelus Silesius, “Sie rufet ihm abermal sehr begihrlich,” in Heilige Seelenlust oder Geistliche Hirtenlieder der in ihren Jesum verliebten Psyche (Halle an der Saale: Max Niemeyer, 1901): 19.

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[Come, my heart, my treasure, / Come, my green place of joy, / Come, my lodestar, come, my light, / Come, my dearest countenance, / Come, my life, my soul, / Come, my true balm oil.]

Angleus’s song can be compared to George Herbert’s “The Call,” for the English metaphysical poem is also composed of three stanzas with an anaphoric “Come.” Such songs have a long history. From a genealogical perspective, the calls “come” initially constituted a separate phenomenon and functioned independently of the litanic genes. They were very popular among various religious groups in the first centuries after Christ, as can be seen in Chapter 27 of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas from “early third-century Syria.”178 In European poetry, however, they seem to have merged smoothly with the chairetismic gene. The chairetismic gene, however, was not the only vessel for the various related or supplementary conventions. The polyonymic gene too was subject to similar interpretations. In the same way that the change from the apostrophic χαῖρε to the anaphoric O! or “komm” breathed new life into the chairetismic gene, the introduction of the word “love” in an anaphoric or refrainic position—most often used as a noun, but sometimes also as a verb—provided the means for enlarging the thematic concerns expressed through the polyonymic gene. This word, which is rich in associations and which without doubt played a central role in troubadour, trouvère and minnesinger poetry, preserved from the Middle Ages the typical fluidity of the semantic boundaries combined with the instability of the semantic center. Therefore, enumerations of “love” are to be found in both religious poetry, inspired by the hymn from 1 Corinthians 13, and in love litanies. A model for the former was provided by the poems of Jacopone da Todi, especially a passage from his Lauda 89, with its persistent repetitions of the twice used “amore,” often abbreviated to “amor”: Amore, Amore, quanto tu me fai, Amore, Amore, no ’l pòzzo patere! Amore, Amore, tanto me tte dài, Amore, Amor, ben ne credo morire! Amore, Amore, tanto preso m’ài, Amore, Amore, famme en te transire! Amor, dolce languire, morir plu delettoso, Amor medecaroso, anegam’enn amore.179

178 Cf. Philip Sellew, “Thomas Christianity: Scholars in Quest of a Community,” in The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, ed. Jan N. Bremmer (Leuven: Peeters, 2001): 33. 179 Jacopone da Todi, “89,” 267–274, in Laude, ed. Franco Mancini (Roma: Laterza, 1974): 288.

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Lauda 89, together with similar laudas, that is, 18 and 39 by the same poet,180 was frequently imitated by representatives of Italian religious associations, among whom we should mention Bianco da Siena, and especially his Lauda 19, written in ottave rime. Such poems will not be discussed in this book, for they have been carefully analyzed by Magdalena Maria Kubas.181 The convention fell on particularly fertile ground in Portuguese literature, in which the anaphora on “amor” was used by a most renowned Renaissance poet, Luis de Camões, in five ottave rime of part four of a lengthy poem entitled Oitavas (Ottave rime).182 Yet the fact that the same anaphora was employed by Portuguese religious sonneteers, such as Agostinho da Cruz183 or Baltasar Estaço,184 may be related to the impact of French literature, with its dominant subject of earthly love. The anaphora on “Amour, Amour,” for instance, opens the quatrains of Ronsard’s Sonnet 49 from Le Premier Livre des Amours.185 In Jean Antoine de Baïf ’s sonnet, which commences with the words “J’aime ce teint comme roses vermeil,” the amorous confession “J’aime” appears at the beginning of eight lines.186 The manner in which the thematic concerns expressed through the polyonymic gene were broadened is best testified by the works in which the concept of love is openly attributed neither to the religious nor to the amorous register, or by the works which move slightly toward one of these registers. This happens because the very center of these poems is occupied by love itself, understood as a philosophical if not an ontological category. This convention was clearly delineated in the Middle Ages—as can be seen in Jean Froissart’s Rondeau 18, composed in the ballade stanza187—and it recurred systematically in successive centuries. In the eighteenth century, for instance, it is seen in Песня 65 (Song 65) by a Russian classicist, Alexander Sumarokov, the refrain of which is as follows: 180 Cf. Laude, 52–55, 107–113. 181 Cf. Magdalena Maria Kubas, “Litania come strategia retorica nelle Laudi del Bianco da Siena,” Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria 122 (2015). 182 Cf. Luís de Camões, Obras, ed. João António de Lemos Pereira de Lacerda (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1861), vol. 2: 326–327. 183 Cf. Agostinho da Cruz, “Á Cruz,” “Voto de ardente amor divino,” in Obras (Coimbra: França Amado, 1918): 198, 213. 184 Cf. Baltasar Estaço, “Ao Nascimento de Jesus,” in Antologia de Poesias Religiosas: desde a século XV, ed. Guilherme de Faria (Lisboa: Gama, 1947): 100. 185 Cf. Ronsard, Sonnet 49, in Œuvres complètes…, vol. 1: 49. 186 Cf. Jean Antoine de Baïf, Euvres en rime, ed. Charles Marty-Laveaux (Paris: Alphonse Lamerre, 1882), vol. 1: 286. 187 Cf. Jan Froissart, Rondeau 18, in Œuvres, ed. Auguste Scheler (Bruxelles: Victor Devaux, 1872), vol. 3: 162.

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Любовь, любовь, ты сердце к утехам взманя, Любовь, ты уж полонила меня.188 [O love, o love, with heart-alluring delight, / O love, thou hast captivated me.]189

In this context it is also worth mentioning Passion 89 by the English Renaissance author, Thomas Watson. The poem, which seems to contain the typical protestations of a Petrarchan lover complaining of his woes, consists of wisdom sentences in the first twelve lines, which begin with the noun “Love” and constitute translations or paraphrases of ancient and Renaissance authors. The list of these authors is opened—somewhat surprisingly—by Jerome.190 Love hath delight in sweet delicious fare; Love never takes good Counsel for his friend; Love author is and cause of idle care; Love is distraught of wit and hath no end; Love shooteth shafts of burning hot desire; Love burneth more than either flame or fire.191

It is due to such litanic poems that love—on the one hand—ceased to be treated solely as the highest attribute of God or the main theological virtue, ensuring a relation between man and the Savior—and on the other hand—was not restricted to the feeling between a man and a woman, as was the case in love poetry. In litanic verses, love becomes the central principle governing the world, which was not only responsible for naming the world’s polyonymic diversity, but primarily for grasping the true source of this diversity. “Love,” as well as the other anaphoric words examined in this subchapter, were not typical of the litany. Instead, they recalled the richness of the literary traditions from which they developed and to which they belonged. Once they became the central focus of litanic poetry, however, they proved well suited to proclaim the litanic worldview.

188 Cf. Александр П. Сумароков, “Любовь, любовь, ты сердце к утехам взманя…,” in Избранные произведения [Collected Works] (Москва: Директ-Медия, 2015): 134. 189 I wish to gratefully acknowledge Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz’s aid in the translation of this passage. 190 Cf. William Courthope, A History of English Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1895), vol. 2: 300. 191 Thomas Watson, “My Love is Past,” in Rare Poems of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. William J. Linton (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883): 34.

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15.2  Reinterpretations of the Generic Resources By using the term “reinterpretation,” we do not mean to signal a shift in the direction of those works in which the assumptions underlying the generic worldview undergo significant modifications. In the works to be discussed below, a discrepancy can be noted between the semantic basis of the genre and the verbal material that is used to convey it. In all the examples analyzed, the material corresponds closely with the tradition of the litanic genes, although this fact may not be immediately recognized. Instead, the poems evoke the genre in a more oblique way, namely by introducing anaphoric words that are incompatible with model litanic apostrophes. In the previous subchapter, we referred to litanic poems with anaphoras on “come” that result from interpretative actions performed on the conventional chairetismic apostrophe “hail.” The same apostrophe could also be modified in a more controversial manner, a manner which led in an antonymic rather than synonymic direction, by the introduction of the verb “farewell.” As was already noted in the second part of the book, the ambiguity surrounding the Greek word χαῖρε, which could be used equally effectively as a welcome and as a farewell, allowed both of these senses to emerge in Greek religious rituals, that is, in both nuptial and funerary rituals. The fact that the greeting χαῖρε was used by Archangel Gabriel (cf. Luke 1: 28) entailed a transfer of the focus onto the welcoming element, but it did not deprive the chairetismic gene of the meaning connected with a farewell. To illustrate the point, a twelfth-century Latin poem quoted by Meersseman may be considered, a poem which consists of forty calls. At the beginning of the prayer, that is, in the first twenty calls which open with the anaphora “Ave” (hail), the poet greets Mary only to realize that they have to part and she must be bid farewell, which is achieved by means of the anaphora “Vale” (farewell) in the next twenty calls: Vale, virgo regia, dei plena gratia. Vale, Iesse virgula, florida per secula. Vale, stirps davidica et mater deifica. Vale, virgo virginum, que portasti dominum.192

As may be easily inferred, this reinterpretation of the chairetismic gene brings us close to one of the main motifs of adventure poetry, namely a farewell to the native land: 192 HAA 1: 184.

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Adieu m’amour, adieu douces fillettes, Adieu Grant Pont, hales, estuves, bains, Adieu pourpoins, chauces, vestures nectes, Adieu harnois tant clouez comme plains, Adieu molz liz, broderie et beaus seins, Adieu dances, adieu qui les hantez, Adieu connins, perdriz que je reclaims, Adieu Paris, adieu petiz pastez!193

As the motif of valediction could easily be transferred to love poetry, it does not seem particularly surprising that Eustache Deschamps, a medieval author who in the passage quoted above bids a mournful farewell to Paris, should use analogous means to part from his beloved in another song: Adieu mon cuer, adieu ma joye, Adieu tout le bien que j’avoye, Adieu ma tresparfaitte amour.194

The influence of literary techniques derived from love and adventure poetry was an important stimulus in the process of expanding the thematic range of the litany. It provoked a reconsideration of the chairetismic anaphora, which appeared in unexpected guises, attracting attention and questioning momentarily the generic status of the works in which they were used, even though the assumptions governing the litanic space-time were still relevant. The polyonymic anaphoras, too, were subject to such practices. As already argued in subchapter 14.2, the poetic litany saw the reemergence of maledictions, which, however, did not exist independently of benedictions. It seems relevant to add that this dependence could take the form of direct references to particular works which conveyed benedictions. For instance, Cino da Pistoia, an Italian poet from the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, composed a sonnet, whose initial line “Io maledico il dì, ch’ io veddi prima” prepared the reader for a reversal of the Petrarchan scheme, as found in Sonnet 61. An even more obvious example is provided by a seventeenth-century Polish poet, Jacynt Przetocki, who reverses the theme of the Hymn of the Three Youths in his Lament 24. In his poem the Crucifixion incites mourning rather than benediction: Płacz, słońce Pana, płacz koło miesięczne, płacz z narzekaniem na ludzie niewdzięczne.

193 Eustache Deschamps, “Autre Balade,” in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Auguste-Henry-Édouard Queux de Saint-Hilaire (Paris: Libraire de Firmin Didot, 1887), vol. 5: 51–52. 194 Eustache Deschamps, “Autre Rondel,” in Oeuvres completes…, (1884), vol. 4: 36.

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Odmieńcie zwykłe Pana wychwalanie w żal i stękanie! Płaczcie, maluchno gwiazdy jaśniejące. Płaczcie, planety po niebie błądzące. Odmieńcie zwykłe Pana wychwalanie w żal i stękanie! Płaczcie, dzdże Pana role skrapiające. Płaczcie, ochłodę rosy dawające. Odmieńcie zwykłe Pana wychwalanie w żal i stękanie!195 [Mourn, sun of the Lord, mourn the monthly orbit, / mourn and bemoan the people ungrateful. / Supplant the Lord’s conventional praise / With grief and woe! // Mourn, little shining stars. / Mourn, planets wandering the sky. / Supplant the Lord’s conventional praise / With grief and woe! // Mourn, rains falling on the Lord’s fields. / Mourn, moisture giving dew. / Supplant the Lord’s conventional praise // With grief and woe!]196

Przetocki’s idea of building the whole poem around the apostrophe “mourn” may have derived from two distinctly different sources. On the one hand, the author may have been inspired by a traditional Jewish song Mourn Zion and her cities, which has been attributed to Judah Halevi,197 an Iberian poet from the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Composed in Hebrew, the song begins with the imperative ‫( ֱאלִי‬mourn!), and using an anaphoric pattern of lines, the poet bemoans the fall of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the refrain of Lament 24 may have been modeled on the Lament for Bion, attributed to Moschus, a Greek poet from the second century before Christ.198 This ancient work, which begins with a communal and onomatopoeic cry of woe αἴλινά μοι and whose refrain incites the Sicilian muses to mourning, was written in response to the death of the Greek bucolic poet Bion of Smyrna. Having said that, if Przetocki was genuinely inspired by any of the possible prototypes for Lament 24, his inspiration was limited to the use of plaintive 195 Jacynt Przetocki, Lament 24, in Lamenty abo żale serdeczne i głosy żałobne dusz chrześcijańskich nad niewinną śmiercią Jezusa Ukrzyżowanego [Laments or Deep Sorrows and Mournful Voices of the Christian Souls over the Innocent Death of the Crucified Christ] (Kraków: Cezary, 1647): 81. 196 Translation by Dominika Ruszkiewicz. 197 Cf. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lord is Righteous in All His Ways: Reflection on the Tish’ah be-Av Kinot, ed. Jacob J. Schacter (Jersey City: Ktav Publishing House, 2006): 313. 198 Cf. LP 203–207.

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apostrophe and repetition as a marker of woe. The Polish poet resorted neither to a description of extinct Jewish rites, which are mourned in Halevi’s poem, nor to mythological references, which are often evoked in Moschus’s poem. Instead, the author of Lament 24 turned to a third source of inspiration and subjected his work to an enumeration of the same cosmic forces which are listed in the Hymn of the Three Youths. In the context of a rhythmically repeated plaintive formula, Przetocki’s enumeration gained a paradoxical undertone. The sun, moon, stars, and planets, as well as the rains and the dew are called upon not to praise God, but to weep over Christ’s Passion. This call, incorporated as it is in the concentric spacetime of the litany, is then marked by a contrasting tension between the mournful content which is signaled by the apostrophe “mourn” and the cheerful tone which is due to the polyonymic gene, the gene responsible for the benedictory illocution. What may account for the confrontation between these two voices—the plaintive voice based on the wording of the text and the laudatory voice based on the semantic content of the genre—as well as for the discrepancy between the three intertextual contexts—one referring to a Jewish synagogue song, another to Greek bucolic poetry, and yet another to the biblical benedictory hymns— seems to be the baroque aesthetics of contrasts and unexpected surroundings. Now almost entirely forgotten, Jacynt Przetocki was very popular in his time. A hundred and seventy years later, Hyman Hurwitz, a Polish Jew who emigrated to England, published a song in Hebrew, a song which was based on a similar idea, but which evoked a contemporary event. In 1817, the British monarchy was shaken by the loss of the only heir to King George IV, namely Princess Charlotte, who died after giving birth to a stillborn son.199 This sad event was commemorated by a bilingual edition of Hurwitz’s poem,200 in which the original text—which begins with the same imperative as in Halevi’s song, namely ‫( ֱאלִי‬mourn!)201—is accompanied by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s translation entitled “Israel’s Lament”: Mourn, Israel! Sons of Israel, mourn! Give utterance to the inward throe, As wails, of her first love forlorn, The virgin clad in robes of woe!

199 Cf. Ewan James Jones, Coleridge and the Philosophy of Poetic Form (Cambridge University Press, 2014): 165. 200 Cf. Hyman Hurwitz, ‫קינת ישרון‬: A Hebrew Dirge, Chanted in the Great Synagogue, St. James Place, Aldgate, on the Day of the Funeral of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte, trans. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London: Barnett, 1817). 201 Cf. Karen Weisman, “Mourning, Translation, Pastoral,” in Romanticism/Judaica: A Convergence of Cultures, ed. Sheila A. Spector (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011): 48–50.

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Mourn the young Mother, snatch’d away From light and life’s ascending sun! Mourn for the Babe, Death’s voiceless prey, Earn’d by long pangs and lost ere won. Mourn the bright Rose that bloom’d and went, Ere half disclosed its vernal hue! Mourn the green Bud, so rudely rent, It brake the stem on which it grew!202

The anaphora “mourn” refers through antonymic means to the polyonymic apostrophe “bless” in a manner similar to the way that the anaphora “farewell” brings out the opposite dimension of the chairetismic apostrophe “hail” in the examples quoted earlier. The reversal of the convention does not lead to the questioning of the litanic space-time, without which we would not be able to discern a shift in the direction of the optimistic tradition of the polyonymic and chairetismic genes. Covered by a shroud of sadness and wrapped in mourning, the world celebrates its pain within the same space-time relations that are evoked in the canonical litanies. The verses of Przetocki, Hurwitz and Coleridge, dating from the mid-seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, should by no means lead to the conclusion that a defamiliarized use of the litanic convention only appeared in European poetry in the post-Renaissance period and that it was a sign of literature gradually moving away from the vision of the world as proclaimed by religious authorities, for in fact, earlier centuries witnessed even more radical examples of typical litanic anaphoras being turned upside down. Before we evoke the most far-reaching instances from the Middle Ages, let us first recall a series of Italian verses inspired by Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, which were examined in the third part of this book. By means of an anaphora on “time,” the verses in question unfold themselves in sequences of moments which seem to continue infinitely, bringing the reader closer to an understanding of time as the monadic eternity governing the world. What was previously of interest was the general cosmological vision of the world these poems conveyed, a vision through which the changeability based on a succession of moments dissolves in the stability of the universal time. Having said that, the same space-time can be approached from the opposite perspective, with passages from two poems being used to illustrate this concept below, poems

202 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Israel’s Lament,” in The Collected Works, ed. James C.C. Mays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), vol. I 2: 951.

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in which the universal time is manifested in the ongoing flow of earthly time. In both poems, the litanic space-time takes ever more surprising forms. The first step toward reversing the perspective is to be seen in a poem which probably dates from the twelfth century. Instead of demonstrating that the changeability of the world testifies to the stability of the space-time, the author argues the reverse: the stability of the space-time is taken for granted, and the poet shows how it gives rise to what is changeable: Mundus abit; res nota quidem, res usque notanda; Nota tibi mundi sit nota; Mundus abit. Mundus abit; non mundus idem, haec machina mundi Dico, sed mundi gloria, mundus abit. Mundus abit; cito nomen abit, cum nomino mundum, Sed citius mundi nomine mundus abit. Mundus abit; tria suut: Erit, est, fuit; haec tria mundum Mota movent, clamant haec tria: Mundus abit. Mundus abit fugiens, ut tempus, ut annus, ut aura, Ut mundus; satis est dicere: Mundus abit.203 [The world passes. A well-known thing that is still to be noticed / known to you should be known to the world: The world passes. / The world passes. Yet not the world itself and not the machine of the world / but the glory of the world, as I say. The world passes. / The world passes. When I say “the world,” its name quickly passes / yet sooner than its name the world passes. / The world passes. They are three: it will be, it is, it was; the three move / the moving world and the three proclaim that the world passes. / The world passes with the fleeting weather, year, air, / and the world. It is rightly said [that] the world passes.]

The poem contains twenty-six lines, with the sentence “Mundus abit” (“The world passes”) appearing in anaphoric and line-final position in each of the couplets. If we follow this line of thinking, which stresses the fleeting rather than the universal aspect of time, and if we remember that “hail” can be easily replaced with “farewell” and “bless” with “mourn,” we will not find it surprising that the second step in the defamiliarization of the litanic form is to introduce the noun “death” in an anaphoric position. Another poem, also probably composed in the twelfth century, no longer contains the phrase “The world passes” in the lineinitial and line-final positions, as the role of the framing phrase is assigned to the sentence “I am going to die,” as demonstrated in the initial lines of the verse: Vado mori, mori, naturae cedo, recedo, Ut pereunt, abeunt cetera, vado mori.

203 “De Vanitate Mundi,” in AHMA 46: 354.

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Vado mori tortus, ortus sub littore portus, Qui vix, si vixi; discite, vado mori, Vado mori, pueri teneri sub sorte, teneri Me morbis orbis sentio, vado mori. Vado mori crescens, adulescens corpore grato, Fato compellor cedere, vado mori. Vado mori iuvenis et plenis sanguine venis, Areo nunc, pereo, marceo, vado mori.204 [I am going to die. To the law and to nature I yield myself and yield back. / As the others disappear and depart I am going to die. / I am going to die, tormented and retrieved from off-shore harbors, / Learn from me who lived so troubled. I am going to die. / I am going to die. Young children under the heavens, I feel / I suffer from world diseases. I am going to die. / I am going to die. My growing, young and pleasing body, / I am forced to yield to nature. I am going to die. / I am going to die. With young and full blood vessels / I dry up, I vanish, I shrink, I am going to die.]

Even though the verse appears in a different manuscript than the previous poem, it seems to have been composed by the same mind, or at least, according to the same idea. From the wider context of the world’s transience, we move to the individual experience of someone whose personal calamity suddenly brings them close to death, and who reports the last moments of life as they fade into oblivion. If we now revert to the previous perspective and once again try to derive a universal value from an individual experience of dying, it is possible to see yet another, that is, a third step toward greater defamiliarization of the litanic form. Similarly to time, which can be perceived from two opposite perspectives—as a sequence of moments which add up to our earthly transience and as one of the constant vectors of the space-time—death too can be approached from two different angles. An illustrative example is the three stanzas—thirty-one to thirtythree—which are located within a long verse Les Vers de la mort (The Verses on Death), composed by Helinand of Froidmont toward the end of the twelfth century.205 Each stanza contains twelve lines. The passage quoted below comes from the first half of stanza thirty-two: Morz fait a chascun sa droiture, Morz fait a toz droite mesure, Morz poise tot a juste pois, Morz venge chascun de s’injure,

204 “Vado mori,” in AHMA 46: 351. 205 Cf. Annette Brasseur and Roger Berger, “Avant-propos,” to Robert Le Clerc d’Arras, Les Vers de la mort (Genève: Droz, 2009): 9.

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Morz met orgueil a porreture, Morz fait faillir la guerre as rois,206 [Death effects her right on everyone, / Death sets the right measure for everything, / Death weighs an equal weight for everyone, / Death avenges everyone for their injuries, / Death sets the limits of rottenness, / Death puts an end to the war between kings.]207

The tone of this verse is similar to Serafino of L’Aquila’s poem, which was quoted in the third part of this book. The most significant difference between these two works is that in Helinand of Froidmont’s verse, the line-initial position is occupied by the noun “death” instead of the phrase “over time.” While the content of the Italian sonnet was useful in explaining the concept of time, which was understood as one of the vectors of the litanic space-time in our earlier considerations, we are now persuaded to describe the same vector by means of the word “morz.” However distressing Helinand of Froidmont’s stance is, death is not depicted in his verse as merely a cruel and unscrupulous consequence of earthly transience, but rather as a useful principle suffusing the universe. This aspect of death is emphasized through the consistent use of the three-component scheme, in which the second component enumerates by means of verbs the various actions performed by death, with the third component highlighting the results of these actions in the physical world, and the first component focusing on death as the pivotal point in the space-time. This anaphora, which is loaded with meaning, may be viewed with unease and even surprise by contemporary readers, for the word “death” is not typically expected in a component whose main function is to proclaim the creative primacy of God over the world. Seeing the word “morz” positioned as a central force that governs the space-time, a force that is able to make life and death decisions, it is possible to believe that the author is almost promoting a cult of death. However, to avoid misclassifying the verse of the French Cistercian monk as antiChristian, the three steps discussed above should be considered in more detail. The first step consisted in replacing the concept of time with that of transience; the second in supplanting the concept of transience with that of dying, a concept from which the notion of death emerged in the third step. This sequence of steps permits the understanding that in Helinand’s verse, death is not perceived as the

206 Helinand of Froidmont, Les Vers de la mort, ed. Fredrik Wulff and Emmanuel Walberg (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1905): 29–30. 207 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Helinand of Froidmont, The Verses on Death. Les Vers de la Mort, ed. and trans. Jenny Lind Porter (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1999): 112–113.

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opposite of life, but as an image of the vector of time in the space-time—the vector being one of the factors conditioning existence which thanks to this image becomes perceptible to the human mind. Even though death seems destructive in its individual manifestations, from a universal perspective, its actions prove positive, in that they eliminate the evil that conspires against the divine order of things. The three stanzas of Helinand’s verse mentioned above enumerate these positive actions of death which, and this is not accidental, correspond to the standard list of God’s providential interventions. The surprising image of death presented in the verse quoted above may also be accounted for by referring—on the one hand—to the theological writings of the Cistercian reformer, Bernard of Clairvaux,208 and on the other—to folk culture, in which the belief in death as a condition of life was expressed in, for instance, John 12:24: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” At the same time, in Helinand of Froidmont’s verse, the litany on death may be treated as a relatively early example of the art of dying, which in the late Middle Ages became one of the most important arts. In fact, preparation for death seems an indispensable—albeit paradoxical—aspect of thinking about the litanic space-time. If, in a series of earthly events, the human mind was able to recognize the hand of the Savior, it had to adjust its perception and move from the circumference of the circle to its central dot. In order to reach the level of eternity, men had to use the infinite stream of moments to derive the universal time. In other words, they had to overcome their temporality and even deny their identity, an identity which was a consequence of their particular place in space and time. Moreover, men had to set aside the perspective of their status, epoch and country and to ignore their individual pain in order to walk through the gate of death in a process of spiritual maturity. This cosmic journey, undertaken through symbolic means—within the limits of literary staging and by means of litanic verse—gave hope that progress would result from the art of dying, an art which was to prove useful at the moment of ultimately parting from this world—that is, when passing from the stream of time to the synchrony of eternity.

15.3  Experimenting with the Generic Worldview We believe that the example above demonstrates that it is not an easy task to move beyond the genre of the litany if the syntax of the verse respects the main 208 Cf. Marinus B. Pranger, “Death. A Passage to Paradise: Sermon 26 on the Song of Songs,” in Bernard of Clairvaux and the Shape of Monastic Thought: Broken Dreams (Leiden: Brill, 1994).

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markers of its space-time. The poets may see themselves in the role of sculptors who shape the soft clay of the genre, thus creating without any constraints. In fact, however, the reverse is true: it is the genre that is responsible for the final meaning of the text, even though its verbal material was chosen by the author. By filling the poem with content that is not typical of the litany, the author can only postpone the moment when the generic worldview gains control over the text. The controversial statements, aimed at questioning this worldview, are little more than experiments in showing the consequences of using certain expressions in the anaphoric or refrainic position. A few of these experiments will be discussed in this subchapter, and two are to be seen in the same sonnet by a sixteenth-century French poet, Joachim du Bellay: Je n’escris point d’amour, n’estant point amoureux, Je n’escris de beauté, n’aiant belle maistresse, Je n’escris de douceur, n’esprouvant que rudesse, Je n’escris de plaisir, me trouvant douloureux: Je n’escris de bon heur, me trouvant malheureux, Je n’escris de faveur, ne voyant ma Princesse, Je n’escris de tresors, n’aiant point de richesse, Je n’escris de santé, me sentant langoureux: Je n’escris de la court, estant loing de mon Prince, Je n’escris de la France, en estrange province, Je n’escris de l’honneur, n’en voiant point icy: Je n’escris d’amitié, ne trouvant que feintise, Je n’escris de vertu, n’en trouvant point aussi, Je n’escris de sçavoir, entre les gens d’eglise.209 [I do not write of love, not being in love, / I do not write of beauty, not having a beautiful mistress, / I do not write of gentleness, not knowing rudeness, / I do not write of pleasure, finding myself in pain. // I do not write of happiness, finding myself in misery, / I do not write of favor, not seeing my princess, / I do not write of treasure, not possessing riches, / I do not write of health, feeling languorous. // I do not write of the court, being far from my prince, / I do not write of France, being away from the country, / I do not write of honor, not seeing any here. // I do not write of friendship, finding only treachery, / I do not write of virtue, finding none, / I do not write of knowing—between the people of the Church.]210

209 Joachim du Bellay, Sonnet 79, in Les Regrets…, 150. 210 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. The Regrets: A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans. David R. Slavitt (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2004): 172–173.

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The first such experiment consists of introducing the pronoun I in the anaphoric position. The fact that it is constantly repeated in every line leads to an ostentatious rejection of those aspects of the litanic worldview discussed above, according to which poets have to renounce their own self in order to be united with the divine source of the universe. The authors of the litanies frequently resorted to the device of the apostrophe because—firstly—it drew attention to the you, behind whom ultimately was hidden the superaddressee, and—secondly—it made it possible for the text to become part of an extraverbal dialogue that took place on the level of the genre itself between the only fully authorized speaking voice, that is the church, and the only being who can do complete justice to its speech, that is, God. On the contrary, the sonnet quoted above is not only free from apostrophes, but also creates the impression that the author is trying to situate himself at the very center of the space-time, thus downgrading the importance of the members of the church in the final line. The interpretation of the poem is further complicated by the author’s use of the negative particle “ne” in the same anaphora. Repeated fourteen times, it reaffirms the sequence of I–not, leading the interpretation in two opposite directions. On the one hand, it deprives the author of the position taken so far and leaves room for the hope that the deeper meaning of the poem may move beyond an individual perspective. In other words, the use of the negative particle is not unlike placing a minus sign in front of the I, and in this way, it negates the conclusions which were drawn in the previous subchapter, conclusions concerning the privileged voice of the author. On the other hand, the negative particle which—together with “je”—is part of the first component, also makes a point about the invariable center of the space-time, albeit in a significantly different way. The particle “ne” casts doubt over the constant or recurrent aspects of reality, which are usually emphasized in the first component, implying that they in fact may be infused, contaminated or destabilized by a certain form of nonexistence, and this constitutes the second experiment in this sonnet. These two experiments in a manner of speaking checkmate each other. While “je” seems to imply that it is possible to replace God as the center of the spacetime with man and so reduce the relation between the Creator and the creation to that between the author and his poetic imagery, the negation prevents such a possibility. When, on the other hand, the particle “ne” seems to question the litanic worldview, the personal pronoun reminds us of its existence, becoming a reference point for the negation. In this way, what is questioned is—exclusively— the false claims of the I rather than the general assumptions behind the litanic space-time. In the event, the generic worldview remains unscathed as a result of these experiments. 447

However, there is yet another method, which is also illustrated in du Bellay’s poem and which also prevents the litanic genre from becoming destabilized. This method consists in implementing an unexpected concept, for the author asserts fourteen times in his writing that he does not write. This topsy-turvy diction may have been associated by contemporary readers with the Epimenides paradox, whereas modern readers may relate it to the inscription “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”) written under René Magritte’s painting of a pipe. The contradiction between the author’s declaration and the material artefact of the poem, which in actual fact was written by the poet himself, is the first stimulus urging the reader to reverse the positive-negative distinction in all the lines of the poem. Indeed, a careful reading of the poem reveals that it does contain positive information, but it takes longer to reach it, for it has to be retrieved from a twisted yet logical structure. Line twelve, for instance, which reads “Je n’escris d’amitié, ne trouvant que feintise,” is in fact a paraphrase of Ecclesiasticus 6:7: “If thou wouldest get a friend, prove him first and be not hasty to credit him.” Lines nine and ten reveal that the poem was, in fact, composed outside France; the last line in turn contains a delicate hint which, when read carefully, suggests that the author lives in Rome.211 The logical paradox mentioned above encourages us to reverse the positive-negative bias. The process of retrieving positive statements from formally negative ones, however, would be much more difficult were it not for the conventional structure of litanic verse, with the semantic content of its first component situating it within a fixed space-time. Joachim du Bellay was neither the first nor the last poet to use the particle ne in the anaphoric position. In fact, he continued a long and firmly established tradition, reaching back as far as troubadour poetry and verses, such as Peire Cardenal’s song beginning with “Ar me puesc ieu lauzar d’Amór”212 (“Now I can sing my praises of Love”). Since an enumeration with an anaphoric “né” also appeared in one of Petrarch’s sonnets, that is, the sonnet numbered 312 in Canzoniere, an extensive description of the further development of the convention could be presented as was previously undertaken with reference to the poems 211 Cf. Richard A. Katz, The Ordered Text: The Sonnet Sequences of Du Bellay (New York: Peter Lang, 1985): 152; Ullrich Langer, Divine and Poetic Freedom in the Renaissance: Nominalist Theology and Literature in France and Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990): 167. According to Floyd Gray, the repetitiveness in the poems from this period of du Bellay’s life was aimed at rendering his static existence in exile. Cf. Floyd Gray, La Poétique de du Bellay (Paris: Nizet, 1978): 68. 212 Cf. Poésies Complètes du Trubadour Peire Cardenal (1180–1278), ed. René Lavaud (Toulouse: Éduard Privat, 1957): 2–4.

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inspired by his sonnets 61 and 161. It seems enough to say, however, that series of negations are also to be found in the sixteenth-century Italian and French poetry of authors such as Pietro Bembo, Giovanni Andrea Gesulado, Francesco Maria Molza, Pierre de Ronsard, Jean Antoine de Baïf, Olivier de Magny, Mellin de Saint-Gelais, Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement, Gabrielle de Coignard, Flaminio de Birague, Guy de Tours—and indeed, in other poems by Joachim du Bellay.213 Since the author’s decision to preserve the negative mode throughout the entire verse was—from the perspective of poetic technique—precarious and could potentially have led to a disaster in artistic terms, most of the poets mentioned above resorted to a different and less sophisticated method, which treated the series of negative phrases as the first half of a positive statement, with the second half of the statement—which determined the poem’s final meaning and was common to all the previous phrases—appearing at the close of the enumeration, that is in the verse’s final lines. This method was used, among others, by du Bellay himself, but in a different sonnet, partially modeled upon Petrarch:214 Ny par les bois les Driades courantes, Ny par les champs les fiers scadrons armez, Ny par les flotz les grands vaisseaux ramez, Ny sur les fleurs les abeilles errantes,

213 The poems that have the following titles, headings or incipits are meant: Pietro Bembo’s “Nè securo ricetto ad uom che pave”; Giovanni Andrea Gesulado’s “Né di selvaggio cuor feroce sdegno”; Francesco Maria Molza’s “Né mai racemi ne l’estivo ardore”; Pierre de Ronsard’s Sonnets 48, 60 and 176 from Le Premier Livre des Amours as well as the conclusion of his Gayeté 4; Jean Antoine de Baïf ’s “Ny la mer tant de flots à son bord ne conduit,” “Ny m’esloigner du long des plus lointains rivages,” and “Ny ta fierté, gratieuse guerriere”; Olivier de Magny’s Sonnet 122 from Les Souspirs; Mellin de Saint-Gelais’s “Il n’est point tant de barques à Venise”; Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement’s, “Je ne sçay que je veux, je ne sçay que cercher”; Gabrielle de Coignard’s “Ni les désirs d’une jeunesse tendre” and “Ni des vers prez les fleurettes riantes”; Flaminio de Birague’s “Ny de mes yeux les rivières coulantes,” “Ny de ton cueur la rigueur aimantine”; “Je n’écris mes esbas, n’esprouvant que martyre,” and “Ny d’un autre oeil le brandon reluisant”; Guy de Tours’s “Je n’ay point d’yeux pour voir ma rebelle,” “Ni le peu de soucy qu’elle a de mon tourment,” and “Ni par le Ciel les estoilles errantes”; Joachim du Bellay’s, “Ni la fureur de la flamme enragée” and “Je ne commis jamais fraude ni maléfice.” 214 Richard A. Katz, in his charming book about the sonnet sequences of du Bellay, claims that the poet’s anaphoric sonnets were ironic in tone and in fact constituted parodies of “a familiar Petrarchan convention.” While the poem is indeed modeled on Petrarch, it seems, however, that the genre’s memory goes further back and, therefore, there should be a different interpretation of the text. Cf. Katz, The Ordered Text…, 93–103.

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Ny des forestz les tresses verdoyantes, Ny des oiseaux les corps bien emplumez, Ny de la nuit les flambeaux allumez, Ny des rochers les traces ondoyantes, Ny les piliers des sainctz temples dorez, Ny les palais de marbre elabourez, Ny l’or encor’, ny la perle tant clere, Ny tout le beau que possedent les cieulx, Ny le plaisir pouroit plaire à mes yeulx, Ne voyant point le Soleil qui m’eclere.215 [Neither the Dryads running through the woods, / Nor in the fields the squadrons fiercely armed, / Nor among the waves the grand ships rowing, / Nor among the flowers the wandering bees, // Nor the flourishing braids of the forests, / Nor the birds’ bodies splendidly feathered, / Nor the night’s torches lit up, / Nor the rocks’ winding patterns, // Nor the golden pillars of holy temples, / Nor the marble palaces elaborate, / Nor even gold nor pearl so pure, // Nor all the beauty of the skies, / Nor any pleasure can please my eyes, / that do not see the Sun that lights me.]216

“The Sun that lights me,” which marks the closure of the poem, exemplifies the positive second half of the thought, to which all the negative phrases are related. It not only overcomes the negative mode accumulated in the previous lines, but also reduces multiplicity to oneness. In this way, but through different means, it achieves exactly the same objective that lies behind the litanic genre, a genre which almost by definition uses a multiplicity of phenomena to bring readers to the common source of the space-time.217 What is more, by neutralizing with amazing ease the explicit and unequivocal message conveyed through the particle “ny,” it also sheds light on its own litanic form. The first component, it appears, preserves the semantic content that results from the genre, even when the anaphoric position is occupied by a word which seemingly, but only seemingly, contradicts this content. The two sonnets of du Bellay encourage a deeper consideration of the issue of negation, and yet negation was not the only mode through which poets attempted to question the stability of the litanic worldview. In fact, in European literature, there are examples of litanies composed in other modes—the conjunctive, 215 Joachim du Bellay, “96,” in L’Olive, ed. Ernesta Caldarini (Genève: Droz, 2002): 148. 216 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. Selected Poems, mainly from “Les Regrets,” and “L’Olive augmentée,” trans. Tony Kline (2009), http://uploads.worldlibrary.net (accessed December 1, 2016). 217 For more about géométrie mystique in du Bellay’s poetry cf. Gilbert Gadoffre, Du Bellay et le Sacré (Paris: Gallimard, 1978): 21–30.

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subjunctive, as well as the interrogative—none of which are typical of any of the litanic genes. Such poems do not proclaim the diversity of the universe, as the polyonymic gene does, nor do they contain affirmative acclamations, as is the case with the chairetismic gene. Likewise, they are not composed of imperative phrases, which are characteristic of the ektenial gene. Instead, they seem to contextualize their content within a modal frame, a frame which may suggest a lack of certainty with respect to the universe’s ontology. The question arises, therefore, whether they can also question the litanic worldview. To answer this question, two examples from Petrarch’s poetry will be reflected upon. The first poem, numbered 206 in Canzoniere, is composed of six stanzas, appended by a five-line envoi. The structure of the first stanza is as follows: S’i’ ’l dissi mai, ch’i’ vegna in odio a quella del cui amor vivo et senza ’l qual morrei; s’i’ ’l dissi, che’ miei dí sian pochi et rei et di vil signoria l’anima ancella; s’i’ ’l dissi, contra me s’arme ogni stella, et dal mio lato sia Paura et Gelosia, et la nemica mia piú feroce ver’ me sempre et piú bella!218 [If I ever said this, let hatred fall on me from her, / on whose love I live and without which I die, / If I said this, let my days be short of time and full of guilt, / and my soul—a slave in abject servitude, / If I said this, let each star be armed against me, / and on my side let / fear and jealousy be, / and let my enemy / be more cruel to me and more beautiful.]219

The same structure is repeated in the three successive stanzas, which also contain the thrice-repeated anaphora “S’i’ ’1 dissi.” The second poem is a sonnet, which is numbered 299 in Canzoniere: Ov’è la fronte, che con picciol cenno volgea il mio core in questa parte e ’n quella? Ov’è ’l bel ciglio, et l’una et l’altra stella ch’al corso del mio viver lume denno? Ov’è ’l valor, la conoscenza e ’l senno? L’accorta, honesta, humil, dolce favella? Ove son le bellezze accolte in ella, che gran tempo di me lor voglia fenno?

218 Petrarch, Poem 206, in Canzoniere…, 262. 219 Translation by Witold Sadowski and Dominika Ruszkiewicz. For another English translation cf. The Canzoniere…, 296–297.

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Ov’è l’ombra gentil del viso humano ch’òra et riposo dava a l’alma stanca, et là ’ve i miei pensier’ scritti cran tutti? Ov’è colei che mia vita ebbe in mano? Quanto al misero mondo, et quanto manca agli occhi miei che mai non fien asciutti!220 [Where is the brow whose gentlest beckonings led / My raptured heart at will, now here, now there? / Where the twin stars, lights of this lower sphere, / Which o’er my darkling path their radiance shed? // Where is true worth, and wit, and wisdom fled? / The courteous phrase, the melting accent, where? / Where, group’d in one rich form, the beauties rare, / Which long their magic influence o’er me shed? // Where is the shade, within whose sweet recess / My wearied spirit still forgot its sighs, / And all my thoughts their constant record found? // Where, where is she, my life’s sole arbitress?— / Ah, wretched world ! and wretched ye, mine eyes / (Of her pure light bereft) which aye with tears are drown’d.]221

Both poems present challenges for researchers of litanic verse, yet each for a different reason. The first verse appears problematic in that it introduces a sequence of potential events, which—as can be inferred from the text—may have not been borne out in reality. The second verse, in turn, overwhelms the reader with a series of persistent questions, “where is,” thereby casting doubt on whether the virtues of the heroine the poet misses are anywhere. Thus, while the first verse conveys the idea of the hypothetical existence of things, the second gives the impression of their hypothetical nonexistence. Nevertheless, in terms of their ontological status, the realities depicted in both poems are not unlike the literary fiction which has formed the basis of many of the verses examined so far, and indeed even appears in religious verse. It is worth noting in passing that fictional elements are not seen as incompatible with the litanic worldview for two main reasons. First of all, from the perspective of poetics, it is clear that in order to transpose the real world into the world of poetic images, the writers of the litany have to employ various devices typical of literary language. Second, from the point of view of the creative process, fiction—seen as a result and an object of mental operations—fits well with the litanic space-time. For since the litanic space-time can be filled with images of God that are accessible to man or sublime feelings resulting from thoughts of Mary, then the same cosmological vision can also accommodate human dreams, longings, concerns,

220 Petrarch, Sonnet 299, in Canzoniere…, 373. 221 Petrarch, Sonnet 299, trans. Francis Wrangham, in The Sonnets…, 259. For a modern translation cf. The Canzoniere…, 418–419.

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anxieties, doubts and dilemmas, which are the products of human imagination, an imagination presented to man by God. The fact that such transient and elusive phenomena were retrieved from the lowest rungs of the ladder of being and elevated to the level of litanic verse should be seen as being related to the growth of private piety, which appreciated the role of individual experience, as was noted in Chapter 10. Moreover, the series of negations and questions, as well as the conjunctive and subjunctive modes, may have been employed by the poets in order to better convey the ungraspable nature of the cosmological vectors of the world. For what other function could be assigned to the “where is” series in verse 299 with greater probability than that of consistently inquiring about the place within the space-time, the longed-for place that is home to Laura and simultaneously the only place which—despite its ungraspability—paradoxically proves to be the most constant and invariable? If the pronoun “where” evokes anxiety in the reader who begins to suspect that this place does not, in fact, exist, the position it occupies in the line—it is the first component—reaffirms the belief in the single and only point which lies at the foundation of being. From this central light, which was not named in Petrarch’s sonnet but was determined by the genre, the indefinite figure of the poem’s heroine finally emerges. Thus, it is demonstrated that introducing into litanic verse a different mode than that which appears in the key church litanies, instead of questioning the generic worldview, exposes the stereotypes which determine the identification of particular literary genres. Consequently, it is not the space-time that is questioned in this kind of verse, but our superficial knowledge about it. Can we conclude, then, that the authors, with their individual intentions and expectations regarding their own texts, are unable to maintain control of the semantic turn that their texts eventually take as this is determined by the litanic genre? Is it not possible to defy the generic convention by imposing the intended meaning upon the poetic utterance? Is it always the case that within the litanic genre every negation is infused with an affirmative coloring, in a manner similar to the way in which a question always involves an answer and a doubt involves certainty? Before we describe our position regarding this problem, certain reservations should be noted. First of all, the idea that the poet has a power of determination over the genre may result from a naive belief in the ability of humans to completely control language, text, and communication.222 Second, the questions

222 Cf. Roland Barthes, “Theory of the Text,” trans. Ian McLeod, in Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, ed. Robert Young (London: Routledge, 1981): 43.

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that have been asked above are anachronic, in that they exclude the perspective of the reader who needs to situate the text in the context of a particular generic convention in order to understand and interpret it.223 If, however, we disregard these serious reservations and attempt, nevertheless, to answer the questions posed above, bearing in mind the arguments from the earlier parts of the book, the answer is as follows. It is possible to move beyond the semantic boundaries delineated by the litanic genre, but only on the condition that the concentric system of reference is rejected in favor of a different way of ordering reality. Examples of alternative space-times, as represented by enumerative poetry, were provided in the third part of the book. It has already been noted that poetry based on epiploce cannot be classified as an example of litanic verse and the same applies to verse which presents the world in terms of binary opposites. If, however, the rhythmic structure of the verse clearly aims toward a single point, the basic tenets of the theocentric space-time still hold. Having said that, this does not mean that an author’s poetic operations which question these semantic tenets have no bearing on the litanic genre in general and on the examples examined above in particular. Even though it is true to say that all the interpretations, reinterpretations and experiments discussed in this chapter did not have an impact on the main tenets of the litanic verse, they extended the readers’ understanding of the content of the litanic worldview. The vision of the divine center, which also manifests itself in its negations and also governs the potential beings, would never reach our imagination with such clarity and would not break down our stereotypes concerning the litanic genre, had it not been subject to experiments, experiments which were present in poems either composed of a series of negations or questions, or recounted in the conjunctive or subjunctive mode. Indeed, the more determined the genre is to defend its tenets concerning the space-time, the more surprising the outcome is, for these tenets were never recorded, and the genre is the only means of revealing them. In Early Modernity, the art of using the genre did not entail breaking down its limits yet required an appropriate recognition of its capacity. Different attempts in this direction have been made primarily and almost exclusively within the poetic branch of the litany, which shaped the distinctness of the literary approach to tradition by partially drawing upon various resources other than the church litany. 223 Cf. Michał Głowiński, “Gatunek literacki i problemy poetyki historycznej” [A Literary Genre and the Problems of Historical Poetics], in Powieść młodopolska: Studium z poetyki historycznej [The Novel of Young Poland: A Study on Historical Poetics] (Kraków: Universitas, 1997): 51.

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This proves the final Bakhtinian idea that we wish to evoke in this book, namely that the history of the genre is not unlike the process of Platonic anamnesis224 and it may, therefore, be compared to a dark cellar. At first, the cellar is filled with complete darkness. As more and more candles are brought in, the interior becomes ever lighter, but the cellar—as is clear—is neither enlarged nor reconstructed. Its construction was completed before the first candle was brought in. What is enlarged and improved is our knowledge of its secret corners. Thus, it can be said that the outstanding poets are those who bring the most light into the litanic genre.

224 Cf. Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, trans. Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984): 121–122.

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Conclusions The concluding chapters of this book have been devoted to the development of litanic verse in Early Modernity. If the litany was one of the most significant poetic forms in the Middle Ages, in the early modern period—stretching from Petrarch to Lamartine—it showed its propensity to function in a changing cultural context. In some languages, such as English, French, and Italian, the popularity of litanic verse remained unchanged. In other languages, its popularity was minimal or even almost non-existent, as in the case of the Scandinavian countries. Yet, litanic verse never disappeared completely from the repertoire of literary forms. Our final remarks will not recapitulate the numerous, very complex and subtle observations which have been made in the book concerning the shaping of the Pan-European litanic form. We will not, therefore, recall the origins of the untypical litanic versification. Nor will we reconsider the eclectic structure of the genre, the history of its genes, or the content of the form as assigned at the level of genes and genre. Likewise, we will not re-evoke the device of antonomasia, so characteristic of litanic verse, or the reason for the division into the church and poetic branches of the litany. These concerns were discussed in detail in the different parts of the book. We will, however, list those phenomena which contributed to the long-lasting popularity and durability of the litanic form. The key factor in the tradition of litanic verse seems to lie in the generic worldview which results from a coherent vision of the litanic space-time. The form of the litany alone provides a useful matrix for thinking about the world, a matrix to which almost any thematic content concerning theological, ontological, epistemological, and axiological issues can be anchored. The concentric space-time is also useful in determining the correct hierarchical relations between various aspects of internal and external reality. By virtue of this, the convention which was originally intended for religious purposes proved an equally apt vehicle for philosophical and reflexive poetry and was well suited to conveying amorous and patriotic sentiments. Within the litanic genre, such concerns were always situated against a background of religious assumptions and beliefs, even if the issue of religion was not directly addressed in a certain work. The second factor refers to the genre’s apparent propensity to disregard the boundaries of various religious denominations. Since the main Christian churches adopted different attitudes toward the litany, it was often the dominant church that determined the frequency of the appearance of litanic verse in the literature 457

of a given region. The poetic branch of the litany, however, managed to gain its independence from any denominational affiliations, and litanic verses began to spread freely through literary rather than Church channels. Consequently, as has already been noted in the Introduction, the litany became a kind of lingua franca in Europe, which, although facing unresolved dogmatic issues and controversies, nevertheless acknowledged the litanic space-time with its central place allocated to God and used it as a framework for examining the universal problems of man. The third factor which contributed to the popularity of litanic verse was the three-gene model of the generic structure, a structure which proved very commodious and able to accommodate a wide range of human attitudes toward God and the world. Litanic verse, which still operates within the same space-time, is equally well suited to expressing joy or anxiety as it is to conveying gratitude or repentance. It is a vehicle through which we pray to God, but also admire a beloved individual or the beauty of nature. What happened in the history of European poetry was that each of the litanic genes absorbed the corresponding traditions of folk poetry. Consequently, the litanic form soon surpassed other regional genres, appropriating and sustaining them within its frame. The fourth expedient aspect of the litanic verse is that its main prototype and point of reference is to be located—amongst other texts—in the Bible and the Akathist Hymn. The existence of such authoritative texts toward which litanic verse gravitates—either directly or indirectly—had a community-forming function. It also promoted an individualized approach toward the poetic techniques, an approach which permitted various experiments in form, some of them somewhat improbable. This was made possible because the stability of the genre was never safeguarded by a rigorous norm that would prevent any attempts to disregard its boundaries. In fact, the genre’s identity remained unquestioned, owing to the space-time inscribed into it, as well as to the authoritative status of its prototypes. Consequently, the litanic genre was predisposed both to contact with other genres—for there was no risk of its being dominated by them—and to adopting new themes. The fifth factor contributing to the spread of litanic verse was its versification structure, which differed markedly from standard national verse systems. As is well known, what often prevents the popularization of poetic forms are the phonetic differences between languages. Two languages may belong to the same family, as in the case of Czech and Polish, and may in fact be so similar that their speakers have no difficulties in understanding each other in everyday situations, but the same does not apply to their poetry, for in poetry phonetic differences become magnified. Since litanic verse is based on a syntactic rather 458

than a phonetic structure, its translation is not particularly problematic. In fact, certain litanic verses, which are more schematic than others, can be translated almost directly, word for word, which makes their reception easier for those who speak a different language. Finally, the sixth factor accounting for the popularity of litanic verse was that it was employed by eminent, indeed not infrequently the most eminent, poets of a given country. This was the case with the following vernacular literatures: Castilian (Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca), Czech (Karel Hynek Mácha), English (John Donne, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Samuel Taylor Coleridge), French (Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Alphonse de Lamartine), German (Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock), Italian (Jacopone da Todi, Petrarch, Ludovico Ariosto), Occitan (Peire Cardenal), Polish (Adam Mickiewicz), Portuguese (Luis de Camões), Scottish (William Dunbar), and Silesian (Angelus Silesius). The works of the majority of the poets mentioned above belong to the canon of world literature. In the period of Classical Modernity, the tradition of litanic verse was still continued by the most notable European writers, among them are Charles Baudelaire, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Aleksandr Blok, Hristo Botev, T.S. Eliot, Fe­ derico García Lorca, Stefan George, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Laza Kostić, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Fernando Pessoa, Georges Rodenbach, Saint-Pol-Roux, Edith Södergran, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Miguel de Unamuno, Jacint Verdaguer i Santaló, and many others. Their poetic achievements were analyzed in the four previous volumes of the Litanic Verse series. Having said that, a comprehensive examination of litanic poetics in the period from Classical Modernity until the present day is yet to be undertaken. Poems written in this period were shaped by entirely new circumstances, even though these circumstances were again common to the whole of Europe. This novel approach was the result of both the ideological changes, which were far-reaching, and the academic revolution, which occurred in equal measure within the sciences and the humanities. Another important change came with the appearance of new poetic forms, which were a direct consequence of the introduction of new means of literary communication. Thus, as we conclude this book, it could be said that a certain stage in the development of litanic verse has ended, but that litanic poetics lives on. How litanic verse developed further in subsequent years remains to be examined in a separate volume, and so the story breaks off, but does not end.

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Selected General Bibliography Most references are provided in footnotes. The following is a list of general works on the entire subject, or essential aspects of it. Cyrillic publications are listed last. Akehurst, Frank Ronald Powell, and Judith M. Davis, eds. A Handbook of the Troubadours. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Aldrete, Gregory S. Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Alexiou, Margaret. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1974. Alonso Schökel, Luis. A Manual of Hebrew Poetics. Trans. by Idem and Adrian Graffy. Roma: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 2000. Anderson, Jeff S. The Blessing and the Curse: Trajectories in the Theology of the Old Testament. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2014. Assmann, Jan. Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Aubrey, Elizabeth. The Music of the Troubadours. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Avishur, Yitsḥaḳ. Stylistic Studies of Word-Pairs in Biblical and Ancient Semitic Literature. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1984. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Trans. by Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Trans. by Vern W.  McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. Baldovin, John F. The Urban Character of Christian Worship. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987. Baumstark, Anton. “Chairetismos.” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. Ed. by Theodor Klauser. Vol. 2. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1954. Baumstark, Anton. “Eine syrisch-melchitische Allerheiligenlitanei.” Oriens Christianus 4 (1904). Bazak, Jacob. “Numerical Devices in Biblical Poetry.” Vetus Testamentum 38 (1988), no. 3.

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Beare, William. Latin Verse and European Song: A Study in Accent and Rhythm. London: Methuen, 1957. Bertrami, Pietro G. La metrica italiana. Bologna: II Mulino, 2011. Betz, Hans Dieter. The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3–7:27 and Luke 6:20–49). Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. Bishop, Edmund. Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918. Boval, Marcel. Les Litanies de Lorette. Histoire, symbolisme, richesses doctrinales. Paris: Dupuis, 1946. Brock, Sebastian. “From Ephrem to Romanos.” Studia Patristica 20 (1989). Brock, Sebastian. “Syriac and Greek Hymnography: Problems of Origin.” Studia Patristica 16 (1985). Brockett, Clyde W. Letania and Preces: Music for Lenten and Rogations Litanies. Ottawa: Institute of Mediæval Music, 2006. Brunetière, Ferdinand. Évolution des genres dans l’histoire de la littérature. Vol. 1. Paris: Hachette, 1890. Cabrol, Fernand. “Litanies.” Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie. Ed. by Idem et al. Vol. IX 2. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1930. Calabuig, Ignacio. “Les Litanies de la Sainte Vierge.” Cahiers Marials 142–143 (1984). Carey, John. King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000. Caro, Roberto. La Homiletica Mariana Griega en el Siglo V. Vol. 3. Dayton: University of Dayton Press, 1973. Chadwick, Hector Munro, and Nora Kershaw Chadwick. The Growth of Literature. Vols. 1–2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Chambers, Frank M. An Introduction to Old Provençal Versification. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1985. Coens, Maurice. “Anciennes litanies des saints.” Analecta Bollandiana 54 (1936). Collins, Terence. Line-Forms in Hebrew Poetry: A grammatical approach to the stylistic study of the Hebrew Prophets. Roma: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1978. Coste, René. Le grand Secret des Béatitudes: Une spiritualité unifiée et créative pour notre temps. Paris: Éditions de l’Emmanuel, 2004. Culley, Robert C. Oral Formulaic Language in the Biblical Psalms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967. Cuming, Geoffrey J. A History of Anglican Liturgy. London: Macmillan, 1984. 462

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473

Index of Subjects A acclamation  41, 46–47, 49, 51–52, 117, 175, 184–186, 451 acrostic  55, 72–73 Agnus Dei  194–195, 197, 348, 433 akathist  21, 67–69, 89–90, 99–101, 113, 118, 120, 125, 129–130, 133–136, 149, 172, 177–185, 187–188, 192, 224–225, 231, 260, 320–322, 349, 354–355, 412, 458 alexandrine  42, 389 alliteration 72–73 anaphora  16, 18, 21, 24, 36, 47, 48, 50, 53, 54, 58, 62, 64, 69, 72, 75–78, 104, 106, 112–114, 116, 139, 142, 149–151, 154, 156–158, 161, 163, 168, 169, 173, 175–176, 194, 200, 204, 208, 217, 219, 221, 225, 259–261, 263, 267–268, 284, 286–290, 293, 325–326, 334–335, 337, 339–341, 351, 355–356, 358–359, 363, 365, 367–368, 370–377, 379–382, 392, 398–400, 408–410, 412, 415, 417, 419–421, 429, 432–444, 446–451 antonomasia  22, 28, 34, 35, 46, 48, 54, 113, 125, 135, 136, 142–143, 154, 159, 161, 176–177, 183, 186, 190, 200, 204, 225, 227, 256, 297–345, 367, 379–383, 389, 390, 393, 395–396, 403–406, 422, 457 apostrophe  47–50, 105, 107–109, 113–117, 119–120, 122, 124, 126, 129–130, 132–134, 136–137, 142, 147, 154, 155, 157, 161, 172, 173, 175, 177–180, 186, 191, 193–194, 211, 221, 227, 265, 267, 279–281, 284–286, 290, 298, 308,

312, 325–328, 331, 332–334, 337, 344, 350, 355, 356, 365–366, 388, 390, 393, 398, 427–428, 431–434, 439–441, 447 Asianic style  64–69, 106 Ave Maria, Angelic Salutation  74–76, 308, 331, 355–359, 366, 381–382, 399 B ballad  413, 419, 435 benediction, blessing, beatitude  38, 50, 52–53, 58, 69, 145–158, 161–163, 165–175, 177–180, 183, 185, 187, 194, 197, 215, 218–219, 227, 248, 252, 281, 312, 342–343, 363, 365–378, 395, 414, 416, 417, 430, 432, 438, 440–442 Bible Acts of the Apostles  128, 216 Baruch 147 2 Chronicles  312 Colossians 249 1 Corinthians  247, 282, 434 2 Corinthians  129, 163, 217, 249, 277 Daniel  38, 150–158, 163, 166 Deuteronomy  148, 176 Ecclesiastes  40, 167, 171, 172, 292–293, 408, 441 Ecclesiasticus  147, 148, 448 Ephesians  216, 245 Ezekiel 251 Ezra  151, 312 Galatians  163, 427 Genesis 40 Habakkuk 147 Hebrews 48 475

Isaiah  46, 126, 147, 171, 249, 307, 343 Jeremiah 148 Joel  126–128, 171 John  57, 58, 163, 243–245, 247, 445 Joshua 148 Judges 307 1 Kings  312 2 Kings  312 Luke  58, 113, 116, 124, 127–128, 147, 168, 171–172, 174, 176, 177, 179, 247, 284, 357, 437 Malachi 148 Mark  57–60, 85, 244 Matthew  49, 57–58, 106, 147, 149, 161, 166–176, 179–180, 194, 247, 276, 279, 315, 367, 374, 376, 428 Micah 148 Nehemiah  148, 151 Numbers  147–148, 427 Psalms  38, 40, 41, 46, 60, 108–109, 147–149, 157–163, 165–168, 171–172, 174–175, 179, 181, 183, 193, 216–217, 307, 336 Revelation  49, 171, 207, 307 Romans 163 1 Samuel  147 1 Timothy  100, 103–106, 112, 191, 197 Wisdom of Solomon  309 Zechariah  126, 128, 171, 427 Zephaniah  126, 128, 171 Book of Common Prayer  16, 350, 398, 433 C catalog  24, 71, 137, 139, 143, 144, 154, 181, 198, 200, 201, 204–205, 273, 275, 281, 309–310, 316, 323–324, 350 476

cataloging charm  212–219, 223, 365–367, 413, 417, 431 chairetismic gene  21, 67–68, 100–103, 113–136, 142, 171, 172, 176–183, 187–188, 192, 224–228, 231, 252–253, 272, 325, 349, 353–361, 363, 388, 412, 422, 428–434, 437–438, 441, 451 chaire, ave, salve, hail, rejoice  66–68, 74, 78–79, 113, 115–117, 119–134, 136, 169, 170–172, 177–182, 185, 194, 225, 260–264, 284–285, 325, 344, 355–356, 359–360, 381–384, 388, 389, 402, 412, 428, 433–434, 437–438, 441, 442 choir  45, 51, 112, 227, 280, 282, 421 commentary  54, 280, 387, 391–408, 411–412, 415–416, 418, 425, 431 cosmology  37, 155, 158, 164–166, 176, 180–181, 193–194, 211, 218, 225, 250, 260–261, 272, 281, 297, 312, 316, 343, 415, 441, 452–453 deprecation  48, 226, 350, 361, 363, 397 D Deutsche Litanei  21, 88, 101, 349–350, 353 dialogue  50, 54, 57, 85–88, 90–91, 108, 112, 147, 279, 281, 284–286, 290–291, 355–356, 368, 378, 421, 447 drama  34–35, 108, 199, 400 E ektene  89–90, 99–100, 107–112, 176 ektenial gene  21, 99–112, 176–177, 188–189, 191–192, 194, 195, 197–198, 220, 223–228, 231, 252–253, 272, 277, 349, 353–354, 360, 361, 363, 393, 412, 420, 424, 432–433, 451

elegy  89, 425 enueg 414–417 enumeration  16, 18, 20, 21, 24, 34–35, 37–38, 55, 58–63, 69, 71–73, 76, 86–89, 91–93, 95–96, 100–101, 104–106, 112, 115–117, 123, 132, 136, 137, 139, 143, 144, 149, 151–159, 163–167, 170, 172–173, 176–185, 193–194, 196–198, 200–201, 203–215, 217–226, 249, 252–255, 258–259, 262, 264–266, 269–271, 273–279, 281, 283–284, 287, 290, 293, 294, 297, 302–303, 310, 316–317, 319, 320, 322–325, 330–335, 341–343, 350, 360, 363, 366–368, 370–374, 377, 387, 403–407, 410–417, 420, 422, 427, 431, 434, 436, 440, 444–445, 448–449, 454 epiphora  16, 24, 75–76, 149, 200, 219 epiploce  274, 454 epithet  35, 123, 137, 183, 184, 256, 262, 269, 297–300, 308–311, 314, 320, 322, 324, 327–329, 341–345, 366, 404–405, 431–432 F formula  39–42, 46–47, 49–52, 89, 106–112, 117, 119–120, 122, 126–129, 136, 137, 144, 146–148, 150–151, 153, 156–157, 159, 162, 166–167, 169–175, 177, 184–186, 190–192, 194–195, 199, 204–205, 206, 222–223, 225, 227, 253, 256, 278–282, 305–308, 322–323, 330–331, 348, 353, 355, 362, 363–366, 369, 371, 374–376, 379–381, 389–395, 399–400, 403–407, 412–414, 420, 431, 433, 440

funeral poetry  120–125, 136, 176, 228, 314, 335–337, 422, 437–440, 442–445 G gens (definition)  100–103 H Homeric Hymns  116–117, 119–120, 123, 126, 129 I imperative  116, 120, 150, 156, 169–171, 433, 439–440, 451 invocation  34, 221, 283, 397 K Kyrie eleison, miserere nobis, have mercy  49, 89, 106–112, 191–192, 194, 278–279, 348, 353, 393–394, 400, 405, 412, 420, 433 L ladder of being  104, 153, 155, 163–164, 180, 211, 225, 249–251, 257, 271–272, 279, 312, 316, 320, 350, 415, 453 lament, lamentation, complaint  24, 47–48, 92–93, 120–124, 127, 136, 165, 176–178, 228, 337–338, 420, 422–424, 438–442 lauda  364, 412, 419, 422, 424, 429, 434–435 list of maxims  24, 201–205, 413, 414, 417 list of heroes  137, 206–212, 223, 413, 417 Listenwissenschaft  138–139, 149, 176, 184, 200, 203 Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus  101, 226, 349, 351–352 477

Litany of Loreto  21, 88–89, 101, 224–227, 231, 251, 265–270, 272, 305–308, 319, 322, 331, 349, 354–355, 360, 363, 379, 389–390, 399–401 Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus  101, 226, 355 Litany of the Saints  21, 27–30, 47, 63, 71–72, 88–89, 101, 148–149, 168, 180, 186, 188–201, 205, 208–212, 219–227, 231, 253, 255, 257–258, 260, 266, 270, 273, 278, 280–282, 286–287, 294, 341, 349–350, 376, 381, 387–390, 392, 394–398, 401, 412–413 lorica  212, 215–217, 221–222 love poetry  16, 120–127, 228, 271–272, 274–275, 277, 288–289, 293–294, 332–333, 342–343, 368–376, 413, 424, 429–432, 434–436, 438, 448–453 M malediction, curse  146–149, 175–176, 414, 417, 427, 438 mediation, intercession  103, 107, 112, 195, 211, 271, 283, 286–291, 363, 397 music  16, 19, 24, 34–35, 42, 45–47, 51–52, 54, 57, 58, 76, 79, 215, 347–348, 368, 380, 412–413 mythical figures  108, 117, 122, 124, 141–143, 196–197, 202, 204, 207, 210, 285, 289 N names of God  40, 54, 71, 109, 141–142, 152–153, 155, 158–161, 193, 198, 200, 218, 245, 247, 255–256, 259, 272, 277, 278, 284, 297, 306–307, 312–324, 326–327, 332–338, 352, 361, 395–396 478

narration  42, 48, 58–60, 159, 237, 287, 306, 331–341, 393 O O!  75, 328, 355, 382, 427–434, 436 ode 425 ora pro nobis, pray for us  49, 190–191, 193–194, 199, 225, 227, 253, 279–282, 305, 308, 330–331, 379–380, 393, 399 P pantheon list  149–150, 153, 166, 272, 316 paradox  18, 53, 115, 130, 181, 183, 241–253, 272, 280, 283–284, 292, 295, 307, 315–316, 337, 376, 440, 445, 448, 453 paraphrase  35, 85, 129, 292, 331, 357, 364–365, 370–376, 388, 392, 408, 436, 448 parallelism  16, 18, 21, 24, 35, 36, 39, 45, 48, 50, 58–59, 62, 64, 69, 72–74, 78–79, 106, 137, 139, 144, 148, 149, 159, 168, 170, 175, 178, 180, 200, 203, 248, 267, 269, 276, 330, 331, 339, 341, 365, 379, 387, 400, 408 parody  67, 83, 108, 422–423, 449 Pietism  94, 101, 350, 352, 420 plazer 414–417 polyonymic gene  21, 100–103, 118, 136–198, 200, 203, 208–212, 214–215, 217–228, 231, 252–253, 272–273, 297, 312, 315–323, 336, 349, 353–355, 360–361, 363–378, 412–417, 420–421, 424–425, 429–436, 438–453 prepositions  104, 191–192, 209–210, 220–221, 286–291, 341 procession  85–88, 91, 106, 110–112, 125, 163, 180

psalm (metrical)  360, 419–420, 422, 424 R refrain  16, 18, 21, 45–46, 48–54, 57, 68, 108, 111, 112, 134, 139, 165, 174–176, 194, 225, 281, 320, 336–338, 350, 355, 359, 391, 399, 414, 420–421, 423, 434–436, 439, 446 responsory  16, 24, 38, 45, 48–51, 106–112, 174–175, 191–194, 206, 210–211, 227, 253, 279–282, 308, 337, 379–381, 414 requests  92, 104–105, 111, 116, 120, 195, 197, 211, 213, 219, 221, 223, 227, 281, 283, 287, 290–291 rhyme  30, 57, 70, 72, 73, 75, 78, 160, 357, 358, 367–368, 373, 383, 410 S saints, veneration of the  129, 132, 188–199, 207, 210–211, 219, 221–225, 248, 250–255, 257–258, 271, 273, 277–283, 286–287, 297–298, 300, 311, 319, 321, 326, 332, 349–350, 355, 387–393, 396–398, 415 segmentation  20, 36, 42, 45, 58–59, 71–76, 112, 142, 175, 192, 217, 253–277, 280–281, 283–285, 325–327, 337, 344–345, 348, 356, 358–359, 367, 373, 379–385, 391, 405, 410, 444, 447–450, 453 sonnet  265, 269, 275, 276, 284, 285, 289, 290, 292–294, 334, 341–343, 352, 367–377, 407–413, 415–418, 424, 429–432, 435, 438, 444, 446–453 space-time, chronotope  17–18, 21, 162, 164, 183, 238–295, 297,

316, 343, 369, 424, 425, 427, 438, 441–454, 457–458 supplication  48, 58, 85, 88–91, 94, 103–105, 107, 111–112, 194–196, 226–227, 277, 283, 289–290, 353, 357, 363, 403, 419, 424, 428 stanza  37, 46, 50–55, 57, 68, 72–79, 112, 224–225, 382–384, 391–394, 407 couplet, elegiac distich  36, 72, 189–190, 221–222, 260–263, 337–338, 358–359, 373–374, 382–383, 387–388, 442–443 3-line stanza, terza rima  72–73, 333–334, 357, 364, 423 4-line stanza, quatrain  74–76, 206–208, 332, 334, 340, 355, 357, 376–377, 389–390, 438–441, 451–452 5-line stanza  325 6-line stanza  256, 326, 356–357, 364, 377, 383, 388, 400, 432, 433 7-line stanza  115, 421 8-line stanza, ottava rima  293–294, 357–359, 367, 372, 383–384, 403–405, 435 9-line stanza  366, 394–399, 451 10-line stanza  283, 364, 402–403 12-line stanza  68, 72–74, 133–134, 260–263, 367, 443–445 13-line stanza  372 14-line stanza  366 T trope (genre)  412, 417–418 V valediction  124, 225, 437–438 Venetian Litany  58, 188, 226, 379–381, 393 verse  accentual  21, 24, 35, 39, 380 479

accentual-syllabic  21, 28, 65, 67, 70, 185 alliterative  28, 219–220 syllabic  21, 27–29, 38, 42, 55, 57, 70, 72, 76–79, 260–263, 268, 331, 367–368, 380–383, 391, 415 quantitative  28, 33–37, 57, 58, 69–70, 114–116, 380–382, 384 visual arts  122, 124–125, 247–252, 257–258, 263, 271, 291, 347 vocative 337

480

W worldview  21, 24–25, 28, 90, 96–97, 102, 138–141, 146, 180, 210, 217, 223, 224, 229, 231–253, 272, 278, 279–280, 284, 291, 297, 304–306, 311–312, 315–316, 322, 325, 351, 369, 424, 425, 427, 436, 437, 445–447, 450–454, 457

Index of Names A Aarestrup Emil  424 Aelia Pulcheria, empress  184 Aelius Aristides  65 Aengus the Culdee  222 Aeschylus 108, 428 Alain of Lille  402 Aland Barbara  13 Aland Kurt  13 Alary Jean  342 Alcuin of York  222 Aldhelm of Sherborne  29 Aldfrith, king of Northumbria  205 Alphanus of Salerno  36 Ancona Alessandro d’  366 Anderson Gary  127 Andrew of Crete  28 Angelus Silesius  256, 326, 352, 433, 459 Aretino Pietro  294 Arezzo Giuttone d’  415 Ariosto Ludovico  274, 275, 371, 430, 459 Aristophanes 108 Aristotle 102, 127, 304 Assmann Jan  141 Athanasius the Great  114 Augustine of Hippo  55, 69, 70, 104, 186, 258, 306, 417 Aurelianus of Arles  364 B Baïf Jean Antoine de  370, 413, 431, 432, 435, 449 Bakhtin Mikhail  109, 228, 238–240, 279, 291, 292 Baldovin John F.  107, 111

Balmont Konstantin  330 Balthasar Hans Urs von  108 Barsaba Simeon  53, 54 Basil the Great  45, 317 Baudelaire Charles  83, 84, 459 Baumstark Anton  67, 116–119, 136, 137, 188, 190–192, 194, 196, 212 Bazak Jacob  40 Beare William  29, 30 Bede the Venerable  29 Bellay Joachim du  334, 370, 375, 377, 409, 431, 432, 446, 448–450, 459 Bembo Pietro  374, 449 Benik Wawrzyniec  337, 339 Bernard of Clairvaux  445 Bèze Théodore de  264, 269, 422 Bion of Smyrna  121, 439 Birague Flaminio de  430, 449 Bishop Edmund  188, 194–196, 198, 199 Bjørnson Bjørnstjerne 459 Blok Aleksandr  459 Blume Clemens  11 Boccaccio Giovanni  265, 269, 372, 429 Bonichi Bindo  416 Born Bertran de  415 Boscán Juan  374, 375 Botev Hristo  459 Botticelli Sandro  258 Botticini Francesco  257, 258 Bridget of Sweden  365 Brive Martial de  364 Brock Sebastian  51 Brorson Hans Adolph  352, 420 Browning Elizabeth Barrett  370

481

Brunetière Ferdinand  100, 229 Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz Tamara 291, 436 Bundy Elroy L.  119, 120 Bunić Ivan  373 Burchiello (Domenico di Giovanni) 416 C Cabrol Fernand  105, 106, 188, 193 Caesarius of Arles  364 Calderón de la Barca Pedro  459 Camões Luís de  435, 459 Cardenal Peire  276, 448, 459 Carey John  218 Carmichael Alexander  215 Cassuto Umberto  40 Celsus, philosopher  315 Chantelouve François de  370 Charles of Orléans  283, 284 Charlotte Augusta, Princess of Wales 440 Chastellain George  366 Chiaro Davanzati  416 Christopher, bishop of Venice  188 Chrulska Elżbieta  35 Chudleigh Mary  364 Ciarán of Clonmacnoise  219, 222 Cináed ua hArtacáin  206 Claudian (Claudius Claudianus) 124 Clement of Alexandria  33, 51 Clement of Ohrid  219, 326, 327 Coens Maurice  196 Coignard Gabrielle de  284, 285, 423, 432, 449 Coleridge Samuel Taylor  360, 440, 441, 459 Colgan of Clonmacnoise  222 Columba, Apostle of the Northern Picts 77, 78, 222, 259

482

Condé Baudouin de  357 Condé Jean de  357 Condillac Étienne Bonnot de  300 Constantine II, emperor  184, 186 Conti Giusto de’  374 Copernicus Nicolaus  17, 18 Corbière Tristan  84 Corneille Pierre  459 Cranmer Thomas  231, 433 Crivelli Carlo  124 Cruz Agostinho da  435 Cummian the Tall  222 Cymbrykiewicz Joanna  87, 352, 420 Cyril of Alexandria  66, 114 Czarnowus Anna  222, 360, 413 Czövek Ágnes 87, 413 D Dacre Barbarina  371 Dante Alighieri  291, 292 Derrida Jacques  301–303, 305, 311 Des Autels Guillaume  371 Deschamps Eustache  287, 417, 438 Desportes Philippe  430 Dilthey Wilhelm  235–237 Donaldson James  11 Donne John  83, 394, 397–399, 401, 403, 459 Dracontius of Carthage  35 Dreves Guido Maria  11, 358 Drummond William  259, 271 Držić Marin  370 Duchesne Louis  188 Dumarsais César Chesneau  299, 300, 304 Dunbar William  359, 459 E Einstein Albert  17, 18, 295 Eliot Thomas Stearns  459 Ennodius, Magnus Felix  35

Enzo, King of Sardinia  292, 293, 407, 411 Ephrem the Syrian  50, 52, 149, 162, 163, 183, 187, 367 Epiphanius of Salamis  65 Estaço Baltasar  411, 435 Euclid of Alexandria  18 F Fališevac Dunja  373 Fedotov Oleg  70, 71 Fernández de Moratín Nicolás  374, 375 Ferrara Antonio da  370 Ferri Giovanni  419 Fontanier Pierre  299 Förster Karl  370 France Richard Thomas  167 Froissart Jean  435 G Gallo Filenio  294 García Lorca Federico  459 Gasparov Mikhail  71 Gautier de Coincy  355 Genet Jean  302, 303 Genette Gérard  99 George IV, King of Great Britain 440 George Stefan  330, 459 Gestrinius Ernest  424 Gesualdo Giovanni Andrea  430 Ghirlandaio Domenico  258 Gildas the Wise  222 Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco) 294 Gipper Helmut  233 Giustiniani Leonardo  367 Głażewski Jacek  330 Godeau Antoine  364 Gonda Jan  276

Goodnick Westenholz Joan  137 Gothard David  128 Gothus Laurentius Petri  420 Goulder Michael D.  166, 167, 367 Gray Floyd  448 Gray George Buchanan  39 Green H. Benedict  169 Gregory I, Pope  195 Gregory of Nazianzus  65, 66 Gregory of Nyssa  317, 318, 320 Gregory Thaumaturgus  114 H Hägg Henny Fiskå  319 Hahn-Hahn Ida  83, 399, 401, 403 Halevi Judah  439, 440 Hamann Johann Georg  300 Hannay Margaret P.  333 Hegel Georg W.F.  235, 292 Heidegger Martin  243 Heinemann Joseph  104 Helinand of Froidmont  335, 443–445 Herbert George  96, 423, 432, 434 Herder Johann Gottfried  42, 234, 237, 300 Hermogenes of Tarsus  28 Herrick Robert  273, 352 Hersch Karen K.  121, 122 Hesiod 201, 203 Hesteau de Nuysement Clovis  268, 430, 449 Hierocles of Alexandria  241 Hilary of Poitiers  55, 70 Hildebert of Lavardin  335 Hill Raymond Thompson  415–417 Holland Richard  359 Homer 201, 203 Honorius, emperor  124 Hörandner Wolfram  65 Hrabanus Maurus  189, 190, 388 Hull Eleanor  215

483

Human Dirk J.  158 Humboldt Wilhelm von  233 Hurwitz Hyman  440, 441 I Iamblichus of Apamea  28, 241–243, 317 Isaac of Antioch  47 Isidore of Seville  193, 198, 323, 364 Izmirlieva Valentina  316–318 J Jakobson Roman  22, 406 Jameson Fredric  239 Janowitz Naomi  315 Javorsky Stephan  285 Jaworska Katarzyna  87 Jeremias Jorg  161 Jerome of Stridon  35, 258, 323, 436 Jiménez Juan Ramón  459 John Chrysostom  28, 67, 104, 111 John, Doge of Venice  187 Johnston Edward  50, 52, 165 Jones Samuel  360 Jost François 409, 410 Julian of Norwich  365 Justinian, emperor  135 K Kant Immanuel  18 Kantorowicz Ernst  186 Katz Richard A.  449 King Martin Luther  16, 103, 349 Klopstock Friedrich Gottlieb  83, 420, 459 Kostić Laza  459 Kowalska Magdalena  9, 11, 283, 366, 388, 389, 391, 392, 413, 415, 429 Kubas Magdalena Maria  9, 11, 407, 418, 419, 425, 435

484

L La Ceppède Jean de  290, 341, 352, 432 Labé Louise  431, 432 Labuschagne Casper  40 Lamartine Alphonse de  334, 335, 405, 457, 459 Lange Johann Christian  420 Långfors Arthur  388 Lapidge Michael  11, 29, 188, 195–197, 205, 224 Lausberg Heinrich  304 Lauxtermann Marc D.  65 León Luis de  430, 432 Lewalski Barbara Kiefer  397 Libicki Jan  268, 269 Liddell Henry George  428 Limberis Vasiliki  184 Lippi Filippo  124 Little Lester K.  204 Llull Ramon  198 Lope de Vega y Carpio Félix  459 Lotman Yury  300, 301, 353 Louder David K.  58, 59 Lowth Robert  38 Lugt Pieter van der  41 Luther Martin  16, 103, 231, 349, 350 M Maas Paul  185 Mácha Karel Hynek  459 Magny de Olivier  276, 285, 371, 431, 432, 449 Magritte René  448 Maldeghem Philippe de  370 Malinverni Massimo  294 March Pere  416 Maria, empress  124 Marino Giambattista  275 Marot Clément  276, 430, 431 Marquets Anne de  376, 377 Martin Richard P.  201

Meersseman, Gilles Gèrard  11, 187, 188, 224–226, 260, 288, 355, 356, 365, 379, 382, 390, 437 Melito of Sardis  60, 65 Memling Hans  124 Menčetić Šiško 373 Merrick James  364 Michael O’Connor  59 Mickiewicz Adam  83, 371, 459 Migne Jacques-Paul  11, 114 Mikhail Bakhtin  109, 228, 238–240, 279, 291, 292 Moczulska Monika  87 Moiliens Renclus de  428, 429 Molza Francesco Maria  432, 449 Monge de Montaudon → Vic Pèire de 415 Mortley Raoul  51 Moschi Lorenzo  370 Moschus of Syracuse  439, 440 Muzzarelli Giovanni  430 N Nagy Gregory  123 Navarre Marguerite de  421 Nestle Eberhard  13 Nestle Erwin  13 Newton Isaac  17, 18 Nicholas of Cusa  241 Nicholas of Tournai  402 Norden Eduard  69 Norwich John Julius  365 Norwid Cyprian Kamil  459 Norwood Marvin Bascom  33, 34 Nycz Ryszard  140 O O’Connor Ralph  204 Ödman Samuel.  420 Orbison Roy  16 Origen 315 Otwinowski Erazm  352

P Pärli Ülle 300, 301 Parny Évariste de  275 Pasquier Étienne  431 Patécchio Girardo (Girard Pateg) 415 Patrick, Apostle of Ireland  198, 215, 218, 222, 287, 365 Paulinus of Nola  35 Pedersøn Bertel  351, 420 Peirce Charles Sanders  140 Peltomaa Leena Mari  135 Perler Othmar  61 Pessoa Fernando  459 Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca)  96, 328, 342, 343, 367–370, 372–375, 416, 429, 430, 432, 448, 449, 451, 453, 457, 459 Petrucci Giovanni Antonio de  293 Petuchowski Jakob J.  104 Philieul Vasquin  371 Philippe le Fortuné  311 Philostratus, Lucius Flavius  65 Piankoff Alexandre  142 Pietras Wojciech  87 Piłat-Zuzankiewicz Marta  328 Pistoia Cino da  438 Plato 119, 241 Plotinus 241, 243, 318 Plummer Charles  219 Prałat Emilian  219, 326, 327 Presley Elvis  16 Proclus the Successor  115–118, 129–131, 184, 186, 241, 243, 246, 247, 253, 319 Proclus, Archbishop of Constantinople 67, 114 Propp Vladimir  228, 235–238, 283 Przetocki Jacynt  438–441 Psellos Michael  241 Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite  28, 249, 257, 258, 271, 279, 281, 282 485

Pucci Antonio  416 Pulcheria → Aelia Pulcheria Puttenham George  169 Q Quevedo y Villegas Francisco de 409 Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus) 298, 299, 308 R Racine Jean  459 Rahlfs Alfred  13 Ranjina Dinko  430 Reginald of Canterbury  333 Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn 122 Riffaterre Michael  140 Roberts Alexander  11 Rodenbach Georges  459 Roman the Melodist  28, 65, 67, 68, 113, 135, 179 Romea Julián  370 Romieu Jacques de  370 Ronsard Pierre de  96, 276, 341, 413, 430, 435, 449, 459 Roux Paul-Pierre → Saint-Pol-Roux Rudakovskaja Eleonora  300, 301 Rufinus of Aquileia  363 Ruszkiewicz Dominika  10, 268, 285, 338, 340, 359, 395, 403, 404, 424, 439 Rutebeuf, trouvère  357, 422 S Sacchetti Franco  372, 373 Sadowski Witold  9, 11, 13, 285, 293, 340, 403 Saint-Amant Marc-Antoine Girard de 289

486

Sainte-Beuve Charles-Augustin  362 Saint-Gelais Mellin de  409, 449 Saint-Pol-Roux 459 Sannazaro Iacobo  430 Sant Jordi Jordi de  416 Sappho 121, 122 Sasso Panfilo  293, 370, 430 Schaff Philip  11 Schermann Theodor  188 Schmidt-Biggemann Wilhelm  246 Schniewind Julius  166 Scott Robert  428 Selve Lazare de  276, 432 Serafino of L’Aquila  293, 294, 444 Sergius I, Pope  194, 195 Shakespeare William  409–411, 417 Shaw Brent D.  186 Shelley Percy Bysshe  360 Sibinga Joost Smit  61 Sidney Philip  285, 332, 430, 432, 459 Siena Bianco da  364, 419, 429, 435 Silesius Angleus  96, 256, 259, 326, 352, 433, 459 Simeon Barsaba  53, 54 Sławiński Janusz  99, 135 Smart Christopher  359, 377 Sobolczyk Piotr  239 Södergran Edith  459 Sourvinou-Inwood Christiane  120, 121, 123 Sozomen 111 Spenser Edmund  96, 459 Stampa Gaspara  374 Sthen Hans Christensen  420 Sumarokov Alexander  435 Surin Jean-Joseph  255, 259, 376, 377 Swinburne Algernon Charles  84, 459 Synesius of Cyrene  114 Syrianus of Alexandria  241

T Taft Robert F.  363, 364 Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus)  69, 104, 106 Thaumaturgus Gregory  114 Theocritus 121, 122 Theodore of Tarsus  29, 195, 196, 198, 201 Theodotus of Ancyra  67, 114 Thierry of Chartres  241 Thomson James  360 Tiele Cornelis Petrus  141 Tigri Giuseppe  366 Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)  122 Toboła Łukasz  159 Todi Jacopone da  96, 419, 429, 434, 459 Todorov Tzvetan  138 Toporov Vladimir  213, 301 Torquatus Titus Manlius  309 Tours Guy de  288, 413, 431, 432, 449 Trabant Jürgen  233 Tronchet Estienne du  370 Tryphon of Alexandria  298, 306 Twardowski Jan  313 Tyard Pontus de  371 U Unamuno Miguel de  459 Urfé Anne d’  374 Uspensky Boris  300, 301 V Valéry Paul  348 Valiavitcharska Vessela  65 Vaughan Henry  273 Venantius Fortunatus  55 Vendler Helen  409 Verdaguer i Santaló Jacint  459

Verini Giovanni Battista  367 Veronese Paolo  122 Veselovsky Alexander  347, 348 Vetranović Mavro  373, 374 Vic Pèire de  415 Vico Giambattista  300 Vion d’Alibray Charles de  370 Vossius Gerardus  299 W Wallis Budge Ernest Alfred  141 Wantuch Ewa  329 Warren Frederick-Edward  193 Watson Thomas  271–273, 436 Weber Wilhelm  166 Weisgerber Leo  233 Wellesz Egon  135 Werthing Friedrich  374, 375 Wesley Charles  360 Wesley John  360 Weyden Rogier van der  124 Wilkins Ernest H.  416 Wilkus Aleksandra  352, 420 Wilson Stephen  309 Wiseman Andrew  214 Wolfram Hörandner  65 Wrangham Francis  370 Wright Addison G.  40 Wright Charles D.  200 Y Yannai, Rabbi  212 Z Zańko Aldona  352, 420 Żerańska-Kominek Sławomira  121 Zimorowic Józef Bartłomiej  403, 404 Żmuda-Trzebiatowska Magdalena 420, 424

487

Literary and Cultural Theory General editor: Wojciech H. Kalaga Vol. 1 Wojciech H. Kalaga: Nebulae of Discourse. Interpretation, Textuality, and the Subject. 1997. Vol.

2 Wojciech H. Kalaga / Tadeusz Rachwał (eds.): Memory – Remembering – Forgetting. 1999.

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3 Piotr Fast: Ideology, Aesthetics, Literary History. Socialist Realism and its Others. 1999.

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4 Ewa Rewers: Language and Space: The Poststructuralist Turn in the Philosophy of Culture. 1999.

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5 Floyd Merrell: Tasking Textuality. 2000.

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7 Wojciech H. Kalaga / Tadeusz Rachwał: Signs of Culture: Simulacra and the Real. 2000.

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9 Rita Wilson / Carlotta von Maltzan (eds.): Spaces and Crossings. Essays on Literature and Culture in Africa and Beyond. 2001.

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10 Leszek Drong: Masks and Icons. Subjectivity in Post-Nietzschean Autobiography. 2001.

Vol. 11 Wojciech H. Kalaga / Tadeusz Rachwał (eds.): Exile. Displacements and Misplacements. 2001. Vol.  12 Marta Zajac: The Feminine of Difference. Gilles Deleuze, Hélène Cixous and Contemporary Critique of the Marquis de Sade. 2002. Vol. 13 Zbigniew Bialas / Krzysztof Kowalczyk-Twarowski (eds.): Alchemization of the Mind. Literature and Dissociation. 2003. Vol. 14 Tadeusz Slawek: Revelations of Gloucester. Charles Olsen, Fitz Hugh Lane, and Writing of the Place. 2003. Vol. 15 Carlotta von Maltzan (ed.): Africa and Europe: En/Countering Myths. Essays on Literature and Cultural Politics. 2003. Vol. 16 Marzena Kubisz: Strategies of Resistance. Body, Identity and Representation in Western Culture. 2003. Vol. 17 Ewa Rychter: (Un)Saying the Other. Allegory and Irony in Emmanuel Levinas’s Ethical Language. 2004. Vol. 18 Ewa Borkowska: At the Threshold of Mystery: Poetic Encounters with Oth­ er(ness). 2005. Vol. 19 Wojciech H. Kalaga / Tadeusz Rachwał (eds.): Feeding Culture: The Pleasures and Perils of Appetite. 2005. Vol. 20 Wojciech H. Kalaga / Tadeusz Rachwał (eds.): Spoiling the Cannibals’ Fun? Cannibalism and Cannibalisation in Culture and Elsewhere. 2005.

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21 Katarzyna Ancuta: Where Angels Fear to Hover. Between the Gothic Disease and the Meataphysics of Horror. 2005.

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23 Krzysztof Kowalczyk-Twarowski: Glebae Adscripti. Troping Place, Region and Nature in America. 2005.

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24 Zbigniew Białas: The Body Wall. Somatics of Travelling and Discursive Practices. 2006.

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26 Leszek Drong: Disciplining the New Pragmatism. Theory, Rhetoric, and the Ends of Literary Study. 2007.

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27 Katarzyna Smyczyńska: The World According to Bridget Jones. Discourses of Identity in Chicklit Fictions. 2007.

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31 Sonia Front: Transgressing Boundaries in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction. 2009.

Vol. 32 Wojciech Kalaga / Jacek Mydla / Katarzyna Ancuta (eds.): Political Correctness. Mouth Wide Shut? 2009. Vol. 33  Paweł Marcinkiewicz: The Rhetoric of the City: Robinson Jeffers and A. R. Ammons. 2009. Vol. 34 Wojciech Małecki: Embodying Pragmatism. Richard Shusterman’s Philosophy and Literary Theory. 2010. Vol. 35 Wojciech Kalaga / Marzena Kubisz (eds.): Cartographies of Culture. Memory, Space, Representation. 2010. Vol.

36 Bożena Shallcross / Ryszard Nycz (eds.): The Effect of Pamplisest. Culture, Literature, History. 2011.

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37 Wojciech Kalaga / Marzena Kubisz / Jacek Mydla (eds.): A Culture of Recycling / Recycling Culture? 2011.

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38 Anna Chromik: Disruptive Fluidity. The Poetics of the Pop Cogito. 2012.

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39 Paweł Wojtas: Translating Gombrowicz´s Liminal Aesthetics. 2014.

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40 Marcin Mazurek: A Sense of Apocalypse. Technology, Textuality, Identity. 2014.

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41 Charles Russell / Arne Melberg / Jarosław Płuciennik / Michał Wróblewski (eds.): Critical Theory and Critical Genres. Contemporary Perspectives from Poland. 2014.

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42 Marzena Kubisz: Resistance in the Deceleration Lane. Velocentrism, Slow Culture and Everyday Practice. 2014.

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43 Bohumil Fořt: An Introduction to Fictional Worlds Theory. 2016.

Vol. 44 Agata Wilczek: Beyond the Limits of Language. Apophasis and Transgression in Contemporary Theoretical Discourse. 2016. Vol.

45 Witold Sadowski / Magdalena Kowalska / Magdalena Maria Kubas (eds.): Litanic Verse I. Origines, Iberia, Slavia et Europa Media. 2016.

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46 Witold Sadowski / Magdalena Kowalska / Magdalena Maria Kubas (eds.): Litanic Verse II. Britannia, Germania et Scandinavia. 2016.

Vol. 47 Julia Szołtysek: A Mosaic of Misunderstanding: Occident, Orient, and Facets of Mutual Misconstrual. 2016. Vol.

48 Manyaka Toko Djockoua: Cross-Cultural Affinities. Emersonian Transcendentalism and Senghorian Negritude. 2016.

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49 Ryszard Nycz: The Language of Polish Modernism. Translated by Tul’si Bhambry. 2017.

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50 Alina Silvana Felea: Aspects of Reference in Literary Theory. Poetics, Rhetoric and Literary History. 2017.

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51 Jerry Xie: Mo Yan Thought. Six Critiques of Hallucinatory Realism. 2017.

Vol. 52 Paweł Stachura / Piotr Śniedziewski / Krzysztof Trybuś (eds.): Approaches to Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project. 2017. Vol. 53 Ricardo Namora: Before the Trenches. A Mapping of Problems in Literary Interpretation. 2017. Vol.

54 Kerstin Eksell / Gunilla Lindberg-Wada (eds.): Studies of Imagery in Early Mediterranean and East Asian Poetry. 2017.

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