Hodoeporicon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hodoeporicon ( Latin , plural Hodoeporica ; from ancient Greek ὁδοιπόρικος hodoipórikos "belonging to the trip") is a text type of humanistic and neo-Latin literature and denotes a type of travel poetry , but can also be written in prose form . Synonymous terms are iter and itinerarium.

The term is first handed down to the church father Jerome , who uses it in his biography of St. Paula of Rome in the sense of "travel description". As early as the 11th century, Hermann von Reichenau referred to the versus marini of Amalarius as odoporicum , in which he described his journey to Constantinople dressed in verse . In 1506 , Johannes Butzbach also used the title Odeporicon to depict his “ Journey through Life” . From the early 16th century the term was regularly used to describe journeys in the humanistic scholarly republic and developed as an independent literary form.

These educational trips were not only an important part of the humanistic life course, but also one of the constituent elements of the learned republic, the res publica literaria. Traveling from city to city was at the same time traveling from scholar to scholar and, in addition to lively correspondence, established the cohesion of the “republic”. The distinguishing feature and ideal of this new elite, which were committed to education, was the perfect command of the Latin language, which found its highest expression in poetry in particular.

With the drafting of a Hodoeporicon, its author was able to prove this ability and his membership in the circle of humanists. In the beginning, this was based on models from ancient literature, such as Ovid's poems about his journey into exile in Tomis , which he published in the first book of Tristia . The detailed poem De reditu suo by the late antique poet Rutilius Claudius Namatianus , who used the description of his trip to the Gallic homeland to provide general contemporary historical discussions, was also influential. The Mosella of Ausonius should be placed in the same context .

Hodoeporica differ from elegiac descriptions in the tradition of the Amores of Conrad Celtis through their epic, descriptive explanations. They are across countries, to Italy Travel devote as Hodoeporicon Itineris Italici of Georg Sabinus in 1535 or European tours and travel in the Ottoman Empire , such as the Hodoeporicon Byzantinum of Hugo Favoli in three books. Often they were published in summary and made accessible. Towards the end of the 16th century, elements of vernacular travel literature also penetrated the Hodoeporica. They add adventurous aspects to poems aimed at conveying education. Mention should be made here of the travel description of Salomon Cruselius , the son of a farmer from Quenstedt , who traveled to Rome and southern Italy, experienced and described the persecution of Protestants as well as the autodafé of Lutheran Franciscans. A late Hodoeporicon is the Hodoeporicon Malschianum by Johann Caspar Malsch .

literature

  • Hermann Wiegand : Hodoeporica. Studies on Neo-Latin travel poetry in the German cultural area in the 16th century. With a bio-bibliography of the authors and prints (= Saecula spiritalia. Volume 12). Koerner, Baden-Baden 1984.
  • Hermann Wiegand: Hodoeporicon. In: Harald Fricke (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Deutschen Literaturwissenschaft . Volume 2. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, pp. 62-64 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Hieronymus, epistulae 108,8: neque enim hodoeporicon eius disposui scribere ("because I do not intend to write his travelogue").
  2. ↑ Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich : New Functions of Poetry in Humanism? In: Thomas Maissen , Gerrit Walther (Ed.): Functions of Humanism. Studies on the Use of the New in Humanistic Culture. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2006, pp. 49–75, here: p. 55.
  3. ↑ Walther Ludwig : The adventurous journey of Salomon Küsel alias Cruselius and its poetic processing. In: Humanistica Lovaniensia, Journal of Neo-Latin Studies. Volume 53, 2004, pp. 263-298.
  4. ↑ Hermann Wiegand: The Hodoeporicon of Johann Caspar Malsch (1673-1742) - a late piece of neo-Latin travel poetry. In: Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich, Walther Ludwig (Hrsg.): Early modern educational journeys in the mirror of Latin texts. Lectures, held from 13. – 15. October 2005 at the 3rd Erfurt Humanism Congress of the Academy of Charitable Sciences in Erfurt (= Acta Academiae Scientarum. Volume 11; Humanism Studies . Volume 2). Hain, Weimar / Jena 2007, pp. 213–228.