NURTURING THE SENTIENT MAN IN LATIN POETRY The Popularisation of Mythical Themes at the Turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Abstract

On the one hand, the title chosen refers broadly to the fact that mythological subjects of the litterae, such as Pallas, who promotes education, or Hercules, who represents the power of reason, which both will be discussed, were often used by poets to convey new meanings. On the other hand, these mythological figures were used at the turn of the nineteenth century, not merely to promote the idea of ingenuity and insight (argutia), but to promote the new human ideal, which was to be achieved through the cultivation of the lower senses: imagination and taste. In this respect, it is significant that in the parable-like version of feudal poetry, based on ideological and historical parallels, the memory of the humanist court of Matthias Korvin was given a prominent place. Maria Theresa, who hosted the Jesuit University of Nagyszombat in the renovated royal palace of Buda, was celebrated by the Hungarusintelligentsia as the renewer of the lost glory of Matthias. In the poems, the figurative identification of the mythical figure of the monarch with Pallas or the depictions of the Estates with Hercules can be justified on ideological grounds. Both Pallas and Hercules were political symbols of King Matthias’ humanist court. In the light of all this, it appears that the figures of Hercules and Pallas were used by the Latin poets at the turn of the century in a cult of taste that sought to mobilise the Estates and the intellectual for the common good. In these texts, Pallas is not simply identified with culture, but with the continuing glory of a nation by virtue of its power to create and perpetuate culture. Nor is Hercules simply a brute physical or intellectual force, but a moral conduct representing the integrity of a man of taste.