Charakteristika zanru latisnkych oslavnych basni na panovniky v dobe kolem Bile Horz (1612-1632)
Characteristics of theGenre of Latin Panegyric Poems on Monarchs in the Period around the Battle of White Mountain (1612–1632)

Summary/Abstract: The study analyses the ways in which occasional poetry written in Latin reflected contemporary conflicts, especially in the turbulent period between the ascension of Frederick V, Elector Palatine to the Bohemian throne (1619) and the issue of the Renewed Land Constitution (1627). This poetic genre enables a relatively immediate reaction to contemporary events. The present study focuses on one specific variety of Latin panegyric, namely the orations of monarchs, whose ascensions to the throne or deaths (that is, the occasions when most laudations were written) were crucial for the political situation in the country. The study asks the question of whether the traditional, fruitful genre of panegyric (laudation), a key form of occasional poetry, was modified with the monarch as the subject of its interest. The paper also focuses on the function which this genre variety fulfilled in the discourse of the time. On the basis of an analysis of several texts (by Jan Èernovický, Jan Campanus, Václav Clemens ebrácký and Jakub Vèelín), the author of this study has reached the conclusion that, in the time of political and religious shocks, occasional poetry predominantly served a function which we would nowadays call journalistic. It informed about current political affairs and offered their interpretation. The person of the monarch himself is a mere symbol, an embodiment of certain ideals, hopes or disappointment, political and religious stands and their power and domination. The monarch as a real-life person is fully eclipsed and suppressed by this discourse of symbols. It is, nevertheless, possible to say that laudations of monarchs in Latin humanistic poetry represent a specific realisation of the genre of laudatio or laus. These texts deserve further analysis since they can be of a great interest both for general and literary historians, especially in the examination of an influence of religious and political ideologies upon literary works.

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