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4 Acrostics, Carmina Figurata, and Other Poetic Devices
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FOUR a ACROSTICS, CARMINA FIGURATA, AND OTHER POETIC DEVICES The Middle Ages inherited from late antiquity its taste for metrical devices .1 In this chapter I am going to give a quick, general survey of the most standard and the most striking. One of the most common devices is the practice of making what is called an acrostic with the first letters of each verse or of each strophe. Quite frequently in epitaphs the name of the deceased is given in this way and, in liturgical poetry, the name of the saint whose feast was celebrated. Often an author preserved for posterity his own name by slipping it into his poem in this way.2 All writers were not as verbose as the Visigothic poet who succeeded in introducing the words Aeximinus hoc misellus scribsit era nonagentesima septuagesima, cursu nono decimo, kalende aprili,3 or even Johannes Franco , who announces to us in his lengthy song on Mary, I. Franco, scolaster Meschedensis, servitor alme virginis Marie humilis et devotus ista collegit et ea domino Iohanni pape XXII misit.4 In these cases and in some others too the use of the acrostic gives us invaluable assistance in determining the name of the author. In some other cases where the author is named quite simply Iohannes or Petrus, it can be impossible or difficult to identify him. But a systematic study of these acrostics and the clues they provide still can reveal to us quite a few facts about the history of Latin literature in the Middle Ages which have not yet been uncovered.5 . Müller gives, –, a general survey of poetic devices that were used toward the end of antiquity. . One finds many examples in the Carmina Latina Epigraphica of Bücheler and in PLAC. Blume has gathered together the most important examples of liturgical poetry in the preface to AH, . I have shown that one can still make some finds, La poésie latine rythmique, . . Revue bénédictine (): . . AH, :–. . See, for example, p. below, where I have been able, through the discovery of the One could, of course, also use the acrostic for other purposes. Thus, in his short riddles in hexameters, St. Boniface uses the first letters of the verses to give the riddle’s answer. Sometimes acrostics are found which spell Ave Maria or other prayers; and at other times the acrostics themselves have a metrical form.6 It is not always easy to recognize an acrostic. Occasionally, as in the work of Walafrid Strabo in Visio Wettini,7 the acrostic is mixed into the verse in some unexpected places. In this respect, the acrostics of rhymed offices studied by Blume in Analecta Hymnica, :–, present some special difficulties. Furthermore, the acrostic is not confined to the first letter of a verse; it can comprise two or more of the initial letters and even go as far as the second or third word of the verse, or farther. The words carnem datam vermibus form in this way the acrostic ca-da-ver; we find the name Maria in the two verses, Mater Alma Redemptoris Iubar Aurei viroris.8 A special device consisted of making the acrostic double or multiple. In the poem, Mater mirabilis, Maria, nomine Multum lucidior quocumque lumine, Muni me miserum mortis in limine, Malignis obvians, tuo iuvamine,9 each verse of the first strophe begins with an m; those of the second strophe begin with an a; those of the third, with an r; of the fourth, with an i; and of the last, with an a. It was even more refined to begin all the words of the strophe with the same letter, as in the poem, Acrostics, Carmina Figurata, and Other Poetic Devices / acrostic Suintharic, to attribute one of the Mozarabic Preces to the seventh century. According to Meyer, the editor, they come from the Carolingian period, but see I. Pope, “Medieval Latin Background of the Thirteenth-Century Galician Lyric,” Speculum (): . . See, for example, AH, : no. ; : no. ; : nos. , , , etc., and what Blume says in the preface, AH, . . PLAC, :–. . See Faral, Les arts poétiques, , and AH, : no. . William of Deguilleville (d. after ) composed some poems where the acrostic comprises all the words of the verse, AH, : nos. and . . AH, : no. . [23.22.236.90] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:46 GMT) Margarita mundans mentes, Aula agni, Abel ara, Mater mitigans maerentes, Arbor auferens amara, nnMel misericordiae, nnAles alimoniae, and so on,10 where the versi...