Slavic neo-Latin literature and the vernaculars during the first stage of the Slavic Baroqu

Slavic neo-Latin literature has never been investigated as a unified phenomenon. This study examines fundamental attributes of this literature in what Chizhevskij termed the first of the three stages of the Slavic literary Baroque. The focus is on the neo-Latin belles-lettres composed by Polish, Czech, and Croatian authors from roughly 1580 to 1708.;The first chapter reviews the difficulties in the use of the word "Baroque" as a critical and period term particularly when attempting to assign it to 17th-century Latin literature. The development of the Western European bilingual neo-Latin/vernacular literary system in its Italian manifestation is also outlined.;The second chapter examines the mechanisms whereby the Slavs acquired the Western European Latin/vernacular literary system. It describes the features of the system operative at the beginning of the Baroque in Polish, Czech, and Croatian territories.;The third chapter discusses the theory and practice of Polish and Czech Baroque neo-Latin drama. Though modern critics claim this drama is "Senecan" and classical, it is nothing of the sort. Telescoping in the transmission of the classical Latin dramatic tradition to Eastern Europe rendered Slavic Baroque neo-Latin drama a profoundly medieval phenomenon. Despite the superficially classizing structural and linguistic veneer of these plays, they are most easily described using the tools developed for analysis of the medieval Latin cyclical and Passion plays of Western Europe.;The fourth chapter discusses the interactive development of Slavic neo-Latin and vernacular lyric in response to the historical events surrounding the 30 Years War. Based on a l600-year-long tradition and the monolithic educational and cultural infrastructure to support it, Latin lyric reacted much more slowly to the unprecedented events of the 17th century threatening the breakup of that cultural unity than did the less solidly established Slavic vernacular literatures. Consequently, the traditional role of Latin as the primary model for these literatures was reversed, and Slavic Latin poets mined their vernacular literatures with increasing thoroughness for thematic, stylistic, and lexical material to keep their Latin poetry in tune with the current needs of their audience.