Panegyric

In "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty" (1768), Phillis Wheatley commemorated George III thus after the repealing of the Stamp Act:

Your subjects hope, dread Sire—The crown upon your brows may flourish long,And that your arm may in your God be strong!O may your sceptre num'rous nations sway,And all with love and readiness obey!¹

No Nigerian literate in English language would miss the similarities between keywords in this poem and formulaic epithets commonly found in the praise poetry of kings and paramount chiefs.² "The crown upon your brows may flourish long" translates almost word for word the Yorùbá phrase, "kádé pẹ̀ lórí ọba." Wheatley's prayer "may your sceptre num'rous nations sway" is a near exact English language rendition of "ẹ̀rùjẹ̀jẹ̀ ní gbogbo ilẹ̀kílẹ̀." It would be clear as day to Nigerians that the sovereign portrayed in this poem ranks next to the divinities: "alàṣẹ, èkejì òrìṣà." Every other praise epithet in this poem could be paired up with equivalent fragments of praise in South African izibongo or Nigerian oríkì poems, be they in Zulu, Yorùbá, or English. The lines focus on the king's emblematic embodiments of the strength of the state: the crown, the sceptre, the arm, the visage. The obvious direction of the address is upward from a grateful, lowly subject to the deservedly enthroned mighty. The final stress in each line falls, except in the last line, on a monosyllabic word that prays for an enduring tenure for the crown's wearer.

Panegyrics are a type of poetic verbal art whose performance (or reading) positions subjects of praise as exemplary embodiments of the most desirable social ideals. The compositions are defined less by metrical formulas and more by the conventions that specific societies and circumstances expect of the listener (or the reader). A panegyric could be a ballad, a sonnet, a prayer, an elegy, a eulogy, an invective, an anthem, or even a malediction. It could be as full as an epic performance, as brief as an appellation, as disinterested as an ode to the liquid beauty of a leaping duiker in the savannah, or as tendentious as an advertisement. Panegyrics isolate attributes, persons, institutions, ideas, or objects for direct or indirect adulation in order to create in the saluted a disposition for the fulfillment of a wish, which has been sought by the private or social interests for which the praise singer speaks. The typical panegyric will extoll the accomplishment of extraordinary deeds, or of ordinary deeds skillfully executed, as well as the great advantages that such acts have brought to all concerned. The panegyric's goal of persuasion can be pursued with exaggeration, diminution, or even imprecation. While locations of praiseworthy acts may be emphasized, the precise time of their occurrence is rarely specified because timelessness carries more value in a panegyric. Accomplished panegyrists distinguish themselves with the sharpness of the singularity they attach to the subject of praise with striking poetry. In its ideal realization, the response expected from the intended audience—prideful identification, recognition, generous renumeration, and patronage—is usually punctual. Wishes will be granted, ready fighters will rush to battle for the nation, the performer or poet's material needs will be satisfied, a lover will shower affection on the beloved.

In chronicles of English language poetic forms, the panegyric ceased to be important to critical reckoning in the early 1700s, although writers continued to compose occasional poems or praise of personalities. According to J. A. Burrow, "Homer and Pindar were early masters of the poetry of praise, many varieties of which were to flourish throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in panegyrics, hymns, epics, romances, love lyrics, elegies, saints' lives, allegories and the like. Since that time—since the seventeenth century—the poetry of praise has generally been on the retreat in England as elsewhere."³ Burrow's summary concludes that unironic eulogistic writing embarrasses modern poetic tastes. The permanent shift that began in the 1700s is believed to have been caused by "deepseated changes in...