The European Discourse of the Turcs in the Latin Poetry of the Renaissance

Basic data for this project

Description

The conceptualisation of the current tensions between Europe and Turkey, with Europe defining itself as a primarily Christian guarantor of an open society on the one hand and Turkey being perceived as a powerful religious as well as political adversary or even sometimes as a cultural antagonist on the other hand, can be traced through history for more than 600 years. Among the discourses which shaped the European intellectual sphere during the Renaissance and the Early Modern Era, it was arguably the discourse of the so-called Turkish threat which had the greatest impact.The debate about the Turkish Empire and the issues associated with it (the "Türkendiskurs") was present in all the media, forms of discourse and literary genres of the Early Modern Era, with Latin texts being the most important vehicle of this discussion up until the early 17th century. An important part of this literature was made up by the "Türkenlieder" (songs or poems about issues associated with the Turkish Empire) which were written throughout the period of Renaissance humanism (1450 to 1620), primarily in Italy and in the German-speaking areas. The project envisaged here aims at analysing this Latin lyric poetry (i.e. encomia, laments, elegies, epistolary poems, poetic prayers, etc.) from a perspective of literary criticism and literary history, investigating the way in which the topic was introduced into the conservative tradition of the Latin poetic langue as well as the adaptation strategies this process required.