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  • The Poetic Works of Helius Eobanus Hessus: Student Years at Erfurt, 1504–1509
  • Charles G. Nauert
Helius Eobanus . The Poetic Works of Helius Eobanus Hessus: Student Years at Erfurt, 1504-1509. Vol. 1. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 215; Renaissance Text Series 18. Ed. and Trans. Harry Vredeveld. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2004. xviii + 616 pp. index. illus. gloss. chron. bibl. n.p. ISBN: 0-86698-257-4.

German humanism about 1500 was primarily a literary movement, defined by enthusiasm for ancient literature and neoclassical Latin style. Although a few humanists had become famous (Reuchlin, Celtis, and Wimpfeling, for example), [End Page 257] most German humanists were young university students and masters of arts who drew inspiration from Quattrocento Italy and especially from ancient Rome. Their goal, best articulated by Konrad Celtis, was to bring about a literary and intellectual renaissance that would make their Germany, rather than Italy, the cultural center of Christendom. Among these young Germans, Helius Eobanus Hessus (Eoban Koch, 1488–1540) was generally recognized, even during his student days at Erfurt, as the most talented German author of Latin poetry. He began his career as a published poet in 1506 with two short publications, his account of the dispersal of the university by plague and his narrative of a town-gown riot. Publication of his collection of eclogues (Bucolica) in 1509, the final text in this edition, confirmed and spread his literary reputation.

The present book provides a critical annotated Latin text (with English translation on facing pages) of Eobanus's publications during these early years at Erfurt. It is the first volume of a projected multivolume series of all of his published works. A substantial apparatus of explanatory and biographical footnotes accompanies the text, and an extensive set of "Supplementary Notes" traces the sources and parallels (mainly classical, but occasionally patristic, biblical, and medieval) of the poems. The value of this volume is enhanced by several indexes: abbreviations, medieval and Neo-Latin words, a glossarial index to the Latin text, and a long general index covering names and subjects. The texts edited here were previously accessible only in rare and sometimes defective sixteenth-century editions. The footnotes include much useful biographical information on a significant population of (mostly young) German humanists who had considerable influence in their own lifetimes but are seldom included in modern reference works. These individuals flit through the pages of specialized articles and monographs on the early German Renaissance but have been difficult even for specialists to identify and trace. Inclusion of the footnotes in the general index means that this useful assemblage of biographical material will be accessible for future researchers.

The editor provides only a brief outline of the career of Eobanus, referring readers to his own recent (1997) biographical article in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Each text included, however, has a historical and bibliographical introduction, accompanied by a reproduction of the title page of the first edition. The volume opens with a sketch of Eobanus's life by his younger friend Joachim Camerarius (Latin text with English translation), which presents an admiring (but not uncritical) account of the poet's career and character. The main texts included are De recessu studentum (1506), concerning the plague; De pugna studentum Erphordiensium (1506), an account of the town-gown riot; De laudibus et praeconiis incliti gymnasii apud Erphordiam (1507), a work in praise of the university; De amantium infoelicitate (1506), a satire on a friend's troubled love-life; and the Bucolicon, a collection of eleven classicizing eclogues, modeled on Theocritus, Virgil, and the contemporary Italian Carmelite poet Baptista Mantuanus. Several of the main sections are accompanied by shorter poems, some of them by Eobanus and some by his friends. The Bucolicon, which the author revised, expanded, and [End Page 258] republished in two later editions, established Eobanus's literary reputation beyond the local scene.

These early poems make obvious the neoclassical inspiration and largely secular mentality of Eobanus and the other Erfurt poets. Although Eobanus does write as a Christian poet (triplex Apollo and verus Apollo are references to Christ, and the Virgin Mary becomes an alternative to the classical Muses in...

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