Archpoet
Encyclopedia
The Archpoet or (in Latin and German), is the name given to a 12th century
12th century in literature
See also: 12th century in poetry, 11th century in literature, 13th century in literature, list of years in literature.----The 12th century saw an increase in the production of Latin texts and a proliferation of literate clerics from the multiplying cathedral schools...

 anonymous author of ten poems from medieval Latin
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...

 literature, the most famous being his "Confession" found in the manuscript (under CB 191). Along with Hugh Primas of Orléans
Hugh Primas
Hugh Primas of Orléans was a Latin lyric poet of the 12th century, a scholar from Orléans who was jokingly called Primas, "the Primate", by his friends at the University of Paris. He was probably born in the 1090s and may have died about 1160...

 (with whom he has sometimes been confused),Various sources (for example, see Lejay 1913: 33) have erroneously taken "Archipoeta" to be an alias or pen name of Hugh of Orléans while in fact there are numerous indications establishing their being two different individuals. Peter Dronke goes even as far as to call the Archpoet Hugh's "brillante discepolo e successore" (Dronke 2007: 137), brilliant disciple and successor. he is cited as the best exemplar of Goliardic poetry
Goliard
The Goliards were a group of clergy who wrote bibulous, satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries. They were mainly clerical students at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England who protested the growing contradictions within the Church, such as the failure of the...

 and one of the stellar poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

s of the Latin Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

.

Knowledge about him comes from his poems in manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

s: his noble
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 birth in an unspecified Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 region, his respectable and classical education, his association with Archchancellor
Archchancellor
An archchancellor or chief chancellor was a title given to the highest dignitary of the Holy Roman Empire, and also used occasionally during the Middle Ages to denote an official who supervised the work of chancellors or notaries....

 Rainald of Dassel
Rainald of Dassel
Rainald of Dassel was archbishop of Cologne from 1159 to 1167 and archchancellor of Italy. He was preceded as archbishop by Friedrich II of Berg and succeeded by Philip I von Heinsberg....

's court, and his poetic activity linked to it in content and purpose. As such, it has been recently speculated that the bibulous, extravagant personality emanating from the poems could be only serving as a façade despite their apparent autobiographical
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 trend.

Identity and nickname

His existence has been elaborated upon the authorial superscription "" appearing with the poems now ascribed to him in a small number of manuscripts as well as the consistencies in usage and style among certain of the otherwise anonymous poems in the collection. While some recent—and so far inconclusive—attempts have been made to identify the Archpoet as either one of two Rodulfuses from the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa's
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term...

 entourage, his real identity has never been found and is most likely lost for good.

It has been suggested by W. H. T. Jackson and others that his nickname could be a play on his patron
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

 Rainald of Dassel's title of Archchancellor ( in Latin), even if its exact origins are ultimately left open to speculation. Moreover, it is not known how he came to earn the nickname or who bestowed it to him: whether as a mark of esteem from the audiences, other poets, Rainald himself; as a satirical jest on his patron's title; or as an ironical mock self-attribution. There has been report of at least two other clerics as bearers of the "" pseudonym or title around that time: one Nicolaus in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

 around 1219, and Henry of Avranches
Henry of Avranches
Henry of Avranches was a poet of the first half of the 13th century, writing in Latin. He is sometimes assumed to have been born in Avranches, but is otherwise said to be of German birth with a Norman father...

 around 1250, yet both clearly distinct from the "" of Barbarossa's reigning period (1155–1190).

Conjectured life

The Archpoet's living circumstances have been surmised from the indicative content of his poems but mostly from the life of Rainald of Dassel. Because he designates Rainald as Archbishop of Cologne
Archbishopric of Cologne
The Electorate of Cologne was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire and existed from the 10th to the early 19th century. It consisted of the temporal possessions of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne . It was ruled by the Archbishop in his function as prince-elector of...

,Keeping in line with the hypothesis that his nickname or pseudonym was inspired by the titles of his patron, it explains why he is sometimes referred to as the "Archpoet of Cologne"; for example, see Whicher 1949: 102-103 and Curtius 1990: 29. it shows that he must have been alive and active for at least some time between 1159 (when Rainald became archbishop) and 1167 (when he died); furthermore, all of his datable poems fall within 1162 and 1164. With the passing of his patron in 1167, no more is heard from the Archpoet. Also, in poem X, Peter Dronke
Peter Dronke
Ernest Peter Michael Dronke FBA is a scholar specialising in Medieval Latin literature. He is one of the 20th century's leading scholars of medieval Latin lyric, and his book The Medieval Lyric is considered the standard introduction to the subject.-Life and career:Dronke was born in Cologne in...

 writes, "he counts himself among the : while technically a can be any age between twenty-one and fifty, it would seem plausible to imagine the Archpoet as thirty or thirty-five at the time of this composition, and to set his birth not too far from 1130."

Several indications concur as to establish that the Archpoet came from a place north of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

,The main evidence being his using the word "" (meaning "which lives or comes from beyond the mountains" in Latin) in line 14 of poem III, when it is made clear that he is writing from within Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and thus south of the Alps.
although no solid claim can be made as to which country, even though Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 has repeatedly and traditionally being taken as his birthplace. He refers to himself as "", of knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

ly birth, and, coming from such a high class, was most certainly well-educated in the liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...

, theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 and the classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

. In poem IV, he states that he chose the pursuit of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 (as symbolized by the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 poet Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

) over a career in the military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

 (as symbolized by the Trojan
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

 warrior Paris
Paris (mythology)
Paris , the son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War...

) like his birth permitted and disposed him to. It has been deduced from the same poem that he first traveled to Salerno
Salerno
Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....

 in order to pursue medical
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 studies but that due to ill health, he had to abandon this project.
It was probably then that he began working in the court of Rainald of Dassel
Rainald of Dassel
Rainald of Dassel was archbishop of Cologne from 1159 to 1167 and archchancellor of Italy. He was preceded as archbishop by Friedrich II of Berg and succeeded by Philip I von Heinsberg....

, the bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 elector
Prince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

 of Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 and Archchancellor to Frederick Barbarossa
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term...

, Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

, about which he wrote, according to Ernst Robert Curtius
Ernst Robert Curtius
Ernst Robert Curtius was a German literary scholar, a philologist and Romance language literary critic....

, "[t]he most brilliant stanzas" among the many written about and/or for him during the 35 years of his reign. His references to Salerno
Salerno
Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....

, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, and Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 in his poems, as well as several details gleaned from the Archchancellor's court displacements, suggest that he did travel around northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...

, Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

, Burgundy, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 during his life. It is known that the Archpoet lived for some time—possibly the last years of his life—at the monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

 of St. Martin
Great St. Martin Church
The Great Saint Martin Church is a Romanesque Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. Its foundations rest on remnants of a Roman chapel, built on what was then an island in the Rhine. The church was later transformed into a Benedictine monastery...

 in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

. As is the case with many medieval and/or anonymous authors, very little else can be said with certainty about his life.

Modern critical reassessment

While it is still commonly assumed that the Archpoet was a follower of the Goliard tradition—writing student drinking song
Drinking song
A drinking song is a song sung while drinking alcohol. Most drinking songs are folk songs, and may be varied from person to person and region to region, in both the lyrics and in the music...

s, parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 critical of the Church and satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

s on the life of itinerant clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

 in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

—, the noted scholar Peter Dronke
Peter Dronke
Ernest Peter Michael Dronke FBA is a scholar specialising in Medieval Latin literature. He is one of the 20th century's leading scholars of medieval Latin lyric, and his book The Medieval Lyric is considered the standard introduction to the subject.-Life and career:Dronke was born in Cologne in...

 proposed a very different portrait in his 1968 book The Medieval Lyric:

This view of the Archpoet and his milieu, severely contrasting with that of the previous generations of researchers and writers such as J. A. Symonds
John Addington Symonds
John Addington Symonds was an English poet and literary critic. Although he married and had a family, he was an early advocate of male love , which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships. He referred to it as l'amour de l'impossible...

 and Helen Waddell
Helen Waddell
Helen Jane Waddell was an Irish poet, translator and playwright.-Biography:She was born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister and missionary who was lecturing in the Imperial University. She spent the first eleven years of her life in Japan before her...

, created a break in modern High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....

 scholarship about the Goliards and, in spite of not creating consensus within the academic community, has since been approved and picked up by many scholars. Summarizing Dronke's view by using English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 writer Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

 as an example of differentiation between actual (historical) self and poetic (fictional) persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...

, Jan Ziolkowski wrote that the Archpoet's shenanigans "may be little more than a stance struck by the poet to entertain his audience; the persona could be as far from the reality as that of Chaucer the character was from Chaucer the poet or man." Dronke further argued that the Archpoet could well have been Hugh Primas
Hugh Primas
Hugh Primas of Orléans was a Latin lyric poet of the 12th century, a scholar from Orléans who was jokingly called Primas, "the Primate", by his friends at the University of Paris. He was probably born in the 1090s and may have died about 1160...

's student in Orléans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...

, getting acquainted through him with various rare Classical
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

 poets and also with his personal style (themes and techniques).

Overview

The Archpoet is known to us today through ten Latin poems or (plural form of carmen
Carmen (verse)
In Ancient Rome, the term "carmen" was generally used to signify a verse; but in its proper sense, it referred to a spell or prayer, form of expiation, execration, etc. Surviving examples include the Carmen Arvale and the Carmen Saliare. -Purposes:...

, Latin equivalent of "song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

" or "chant
Chant
Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...

") found in various manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

s dating back from the 12th and 13th centuries. Listed here are the poems, identified, as is customary, by their incipit
Incipit
Incipit is a Latin word meaning "it begins". The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is the first few words of its opening line. In music, it can also refer to the opening notes of a composition. Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits...

:
  • I: ""
  • II: ""
  • III: ""
  • IV: ""
  • V: ""

  • VI: ""
  • VII: ""
  • VIII: ""
  • IX: ""
  • X: """" is also found as a variant to "" since medieval manuscripts do not always use the same spelling for the same texts. ("Confession")

The works of the Archpoet have been found and preserved in the following manuscripts:
  • Univ. Bibl. Göttingen Codex philol. 170 (12th century): I-VII; first stanza of VIII.
  • Brussels Bibliothèque Royale
    Royal Library of Belgium
    The Royal Library of Belgium is one of the most important cultural institutions in Belgium. The library has a history that goes back to the age of the Dukes of Burgundy...

     2071 (13th century): IX and X; stanzas 1-5 of VII.
  • Codex Buranus
    Carmina Burana
    Carmina Burana , Latin for "Songs from Beuern" , is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces...

    : München Bayer. Staatsbibl. Clm 4660/4660a (13th century): X; 4 stanzas of IV.


The thus contains the 25-stanza "" (X) under the reference number CB 191While CB 191 is sometimes presented as having 30 stanzas, the last 5 (often put under CB 191a) are believed not to be the Archpoet's own work. See Wolff 1995: 529. as well as 4 stanzas from "" (IV) under CB 220,As with the other poem, CB 220a (or sometimes CB 221) is believed to be another anonymous author's work. See Wolff 1995: 533. Both the Bibliotheca Augustana's and David Stampe's (reproducing Bischoff's) versions display these poems of contested origin as 191a and 220a. starting with "" in the collection.

Presentation

Despite being quite dissimilar from one another in terms of tone and intent, the ten poems are all "occasional
Occasional poetry
Occasional poetry is poetry composed for a particular occasion. In the history of literature, it is often studied in connection with orality, performance, and patronage. As a term of literary criticism, "occasional poetry" describes the work's purpose and the poet's relation to subject matter...

" in the sense that they have been written for a specific purpose under precise circumstances, whether to celebrate an event or respond to a request; in the Archpoet's case, concerning the court of his patron: eight of them are directed to Rainald of Dussel, while the two others are addressed to Frederick Barbarossa himself. For example, the fourth poem, "", was most probably written as a plaintive answer to what he felt was the unreasonable demand from Rainald that he write within one week an epic
Epic (genre)
An epic is traditionally a genre of poetry, known as epic poetry. However in modern terms, epic is often extended to other art forms, such as novels, plays, films, and video games where the story is centered on heroic characters, and the action takes place on a grand scale, just as in epic poetry...

 recounting the Emperor's campaign in Italy.

The Archpoet's poems are known for appearing "intensely personal": he features in almost all of them, and deals in an outspoken manner with intimate subjects such as his material (e.g. poverty, wandering) and spiritual (e.g. distress, anger, love) condition, his flawed and sinful nature, his wishes and aspirations. Many of his poems, whether panegyric
Panegyric
A panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...

 or not, amount to very elaborate pleas to obtain food, drink, clothing, and money from his powerful patron. Yet far from falling into mere lyricism
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...

 or honest confidence, they are often undermined by subtle sarcasm
Sarcasm
Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter jibe or taunt.” Though irony and understatement is usually the immediate context, most authorities distinguish sarcasm from irony; however, others argue that sarcasm may or often does involve irony or employs...

 and disguised mockery, fitting with the persona the Archpoet seems to have created for himself as a free-spirited, vagabond hedonist
Hedonism
Hedonism is a school of thought which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure .-Etymology:The name derives from the Greek word for "delight" ....

, unrepentant in his propensity to overindulge and unblushing in the judgment of his self-worth. Aside from their recognized technical merits, the poems are imbued with a strong and pervading sense of humor
Humour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...

 manifested in the consummate use and manipulation of classical and biblical sources for parodic, sarcastic and ironic purposes.

"Confession"

Described as "the prototype of the goliardic songs" as well as "the masterpiece of the [Goliardic] school", the best known poem of the Archpoet is his tenth, "", commonly called the Goliardic "Confession" (sometimes "", "" or "Confession of Golias"), a metrical composition of ironical
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...

 tone wherein he confesses his love of women, gambling, and drinking. It is purported to have been written in Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

 around the year 1163 for his patron as a confession
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...

 and defense of his sins after a rival of the Archpoet witnessed and subsequently reported his reprobate behavior. For example, the oft-cited twelfth stanzaThere are numerous and significant variants in the different versions of the Latin text depending on the source manuscripts and the editorial choices of scholars, as is often the case with the bulk of medieval literature. The one chosen here is in no way the sole, authoritative form. goes:
Latin original English literal translation English metrical translation



My purpose is to die in a tavern,
and be wine close to my dying mouth.
Then will sing happily an angels' choir:
"May God be merciful toward this drinker."Note that both English translations have no official, authoritative sources; they are the free work of anonymous editors, and serve only as illustrations of the Latin original.

I am resolved to die in a tavern,
so wine will be close to my dying mouth.
Will sing gaily the angels' choir then:
"May God be merciful to this drunkard."

The parodic and satirical effect is mainly produced by the replacement of ("sinner") by ("drunkard"), a reference to the Scripture
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

: ""(Luke 18:13) The poem relies heavily on ambiguity
Ambiguity
Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...

 for its overall effect: on one hand, the narrator poses as a penitent dissolute, while on the other he is not being apologetic at all.

The "Confession" was very famous in the Archpoet's time: compared to his other poems, which are mostly found in only one manuscript, "" has been copied in more than thirty, and it almost single-handedly accounts for his enduring appeal as the writer of one of the most popular medieval Latin poem.

Interpretation and appraisal

In her influential study The Wandering Scholars of the Middle Ages
The Wandering Scholars
The Wandering Scholars is a non-fiction book by Helen Waddell, first published in 1927 by Constable, London. It deals primarily with medieval Latin lyric poetry and the main part is a study of the goliards...

, Helen Waddell
Helen Waddell
Helen Jane Waddell was an Irish poet, translator and playwright.-Biography:She was born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister and missionary who was lecturing in the Imperial University. She spent the first eleven years of her life in Japan before her...

 laudingly writes of the poem, stating that "Confessio Goliae is something more that the arch-type of a generation of vagabond scholars, or the greatest drinking song in the world: it is the first defiance by the artist of that society which it is his thankless business to amuse: the first cry from the House of the Potter, "Why hast thou made me thus?"."

Reading the medieval "Confession" with the perspective of a modern cultural critic, philosopher Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...

 wrote of the Archpoet's artistic posture and keen sense of his particular situation: "Archipoeta is perhaps the first artist with the artist's genuine awareness of himself, who comprehended and openly emphasized that his vagabond life and his opposition to the surrounding world were an artistic necessity... The splendid strophes of his vagabond's confession resonate with the elevated consciousness of the authentic lifestyle of the freelance artist".

In popular culture

  • A section of the "Confession" supplies the text for the aria
    Aria
    An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

      ("Burning with inner rage") that was set to music by Carl Orff
    Carl Orff
    Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...

     in his 1935
    1935 in music
    -Events:*February 26 - Georges Bizet's Symphony in C is performed for the first time, under Felix Weingartner, in Basel, Switzerland*April 8 - Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 5 is premiered in Washington, D.C....

    -1936
    1936 in music
    -Events:*January 4 – Billboard magazine publishes its first music hit parade*March 28 – Inaugurational concert of the São Paulo City Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ernst Mehlich...

     Carmina Burana
    Carmina Burana (Orff)
    Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...

    cantata
    Cantata
    A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

    .
  • John Myers Myers
    John Myers Myers
    John Myers Myers was an American writer, best known for his literary fantasy novel Silverlock.-Life:Myers was born in Northport, Long Island on January 11, 1906 to John Caldwell Myers and Alice MacCorry Myers and grew up in various places in New York, including New Paltz and NYC. He knew from the...

    's 1949
    1949 in literature
    The year 1949 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Arthur C. Clarke becomes Assistant Editor of Science Abstracts.*Bertrand Russell receives the Order of Merit....

     novel Silverlock
    Silverlock
    Silverlock is a novel by John Myers Myers published in 1949. The novel's settings and characters, aside from the protagonist, are all drawn from history, mythology, and other works of literature....

    features Golias, the mythical patron saint
    Patron saint
    A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...

     of the Goliardic , as one of the main characters, drawing heavily on the Archpoet's "Confession" for his portrayal.
  • An old commercium song
    Commercium song
    Commercium songs are traditional academic songs that are sung during academic feasts: commerciums and tablerounds.Some very old commercium songs are in Latin, like Meum est propositum or Gaudeamus igitur....

     titled "" is composed from stanzas 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 18 of the "Confession".The song has been published in the German (152nd edition, 1956, p. 381).
  • The Archpoet is a character in Italian
    Italy
    Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

     writer
    Writer
    A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

     Umberto Eco
    Umberto Eco
    Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

    's 2000
    2000 in literature
    The year 2000 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 13 - Final original Peanuts comic strip is published...

     novel Baudolino
    Baudolino
    Baudolino is a 2000 novel by Umberto Eco about the adventures of a young man named Baudolino in the known and mythical Christian world of the 12th century.Baudolino was translated into English in 2001 by William Weaver...

    .
  • Mystics, Spirit, Voices, the 2000
    2000 in music
    See also:* 2000 in music Record labels established in 2000-Events:*January – Gary Glitter is released from jail, two months before his sentence for sexual offences ends.*January 1**John Tavener is knighted in the New Year's Honours List....

     debut album of the German musical project Lesiëm
    Lesiëm
    Lesiëm is a German musical project created in 1999 by the producers Sven Meisel and Alex Wende. The project's music combines elements of rock, pop, electronica, New Age, enigmatic and ambient music, as well as Gregorian chant and other choral music. It is frequently compared to French project Era...

    , features a song titled "" which contains a fragment of the "Confession".
  • The German
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

     darkwave
    Darkwave
    Dark Wave or darkwave is a music genre that began in the late 1970s, coinciding with the popularity of New Wave and post-punk. Building on those basic principles, dark wave added dark, introspective lyrics and an undertone of sorrow for some bands...

     band Helium Vola
    Helium Vola
    Helium Vola is a German Darkwave or "Electro-Medieval" band founded in 2001 by Ernst Horn, who was also one of the founding members of Qntal. In the contract with Chrom Records Horn insisted on Helium Vola not being seen as a successor of Qntal nor being marketed as such...

     recorded versions of "" (II) on their 2001
    2001 in music
    See also:* 2001 in music Record labels established in 2001-Events:*January 1**Comeback of Guns N' Roses in House of Blues**Hum disbands.*January 17 – Bass player Jason Newsted leaves Metallica after 14 years with the band....

     studio album Helium Vola (track 7, ""), and of "" (X) on their 2004
    2004 in music
    See also:* 2004 in music Record labels established in 2004-January:*January 1**The Vienna New Year's Concert is conducted by Riccardo Muti.**Kurt Nilsen wins World Idol....

     studio album Liod (track 10, "").

Primary sources

(Preview available on Google Books)
    • Re-edition: (Preview available on Google Books)" |ref=Dronke5 |laysummary=http://www.jstor.org/pss/405599 |laydate=January 1982}} |volume=164 |year=1984 |publisher= |location=Rome |language=English and French |ref=Dronke2}} (Preview available on Google Books)
    • Re-edition: (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books and Questia) (Preview available on Google Books) as Revealed by his Imagery |ref=Jackson |laysummary=http://www.jstor.org/pss/2860330 |laydate=Spring 1978}} (Preview available on Google Books) |volume=40 |pages=235–250 |publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press |location=Copenhagen S |issn=0106-5815 |ref=Pucci}} (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books)
    • Re-edition:

Secondary sources

|volume=243 |year=2007 |month=July |publisher= |location=Rome |language=Italian |isbn=978-88-8498-371-8 |pages=129–144 |chapter= |ref=Dronke6}} (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books) (Summary of the article at BookRags.com) (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books) (Preview available on Google Books), coll. |location=Paris |language=French |isbn=2-7433-0000-0 |ref=Wolff}}

External links

  • Transcription of the article "The Archpoet" from the Dictionary of Literary Biography
    Dictionary of Literary Biography
    The Dictionary of Literary Biography is a specialist encyclopedia dedicated to literature. Published by Gale, the 375-volumes set covers a wide variety of literary topics, periods, and genres, with a focus on American and British literature....

    .
  • J. A. Symonds' English translation of "The Confession of Golias" at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
  • Helen Waddell's English translation of "His Confession" at TheHyperTexts.
  • F. J. E. Raby's English translation of "" posted on the FETUSVENERIS blog. The ten known poems of the Archpoet at The Latin Library
    The Latin Library
    The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain. Others have been downloaded from various sites on the Internet . Most of the recent texts have been...

    . The Archpoet's page at the Bibliotheca Augustana. The Archpoet's "" (CB 191) in the at the Bibliotheca Augustana. The Archpoet's "" (CB 220) in the at the Bibliotheca Augustana. The Archpoet's "" with some notes at Western Michigan University
    Western Michigan University
    Western Michigan University is a public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo, and as of the Fall 2010 semester, its enrollment is 25,045....

     by Professor Rand Johnson. The complete collection at (retired) University of Hawaii at Manoa
    University of Hawaii at Manoa
    The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a public, co-educational university and is the flagship campus of the greater University of Hawaii system...

    Associate Professor David Stampe's website.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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