HUNGARIAN STUDIES 8. No. 1. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [1993]

Laura M. Dolby: Janus Pannonius: The Poetics of the Grotesque

JANUS PANNONIUS: THE POETICS OF THE GROTESQUE LAURA M. DOLBY University of Minnesota, Minneapolis USA The erotic epigrams of Janus Pannonius have historically been the focus of scholarly debate regarding both their authenticity and their possible bio­graphical implications for the future bishop of Pécs.1 Now, however, it is generally agreed that the poems were written by Janus and composed for the most part during his years in Ferrara at Guarino da Verona's school.2 Janus' studies in Ferrara were financed by his uncle János Vitéz, Cardinal Archbishop of Esztergom, a powerful figure in the development of the intellectual life of the Hungarian Renaissance who contributed to the reestablishment of a university in Hungary.3 Pier Paolo Vergerio, a friend of Guarino, also played a role in the Hungarian Humanist movement through his influence over Vitéz and his ties to the intellectual currents of Italy.4 Thus Janus' intellectual interests were fostered by this fortunate configuration of power and scholar­ship, which resulted in a curious mixture of political success coupled with eventual accusations of treason and an early death in 1472, at the age of thirty-eight.5 Marianna Birnbaum, in the most recent book dealing with Janus' life, mentions that at Guarino's school Janus was not only provided with a humanist education in Greek and Latin, but was also exposed to the erotic poetry of Beccadelli as Guarino himself was an admirer of the Hermaphro­dites.6 Nevertheless, the purpose of this paper is not to discuss the biography of Janus Pannonius since this has been done by other scholars, but to provide a preliminary analysis of the poems that have frequently been put into the categories of erotic or pornographic literature. The need to insert these poems into established categories such as the erotic or the pornographic, speaks more to the critic's inability to deal with the sexual aspect as it approaches the borders of the poetic than it contributes to any reading of the poems. These poems themselves carry a history of academic modesty and prudery that has resulted in their absence from certain editions of Janus' poems. In fact, the Teleki edition, widely acknowledged for its accuracy, includes the erotic epigrams but encodes the obscene words of certain poems, apparently duplicating the way they appear in the Codex Hungarian Studies 8(1 (1993) Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

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