Liebesklage, Hochzeitsspiel und epithalamium in Lohensteins "Arminius"-Roman: 'Bitter-Suesse Pillen' eines politicus.

Abstract

Based on Bakhtin's theory that the novel speaks in the varied and opposing voices and styles of its era, this study discusses the Petrarchan love poem on the one hand and the wedding play and epithalamium on the other as antithetical genres representing antagonists and protagonists, respectively, within Lohenstein's 17th century courtly novel Arminius. This antithesis serves a double function in that it not only juxtaposes the two opposing parties, i.e., Romans and Germans (the former representing old style feudalistic values, the latter modern, almost enlightened tendencies) but also functions as a forum for Lohenstein's political, social, and ethical teachings. These teachings are manifest in genres, which, by virtue of their connection to the topic of love, are not readily expected to carry didactic elements. The rationale underlying this tactic is the stimulation of critical reasoning--sweetened by an erotic backdrop--in the often young readers of Lohenstein's novel, a major baroque era mirror of princes. For these members of the nobility and bourgeois, learning thus becomes a pleasurable experience. The old mode, taking the form of a generic Petrarchan love poem, is, for the purpose of indicating decadence, sung by the lascivious antagonist, whose forbidden, adulterous love remains unfulfilled. In order to teach baroque dissimulation ethics and ultimately Spanish prudentist theory, these poems are filled with deceptive rhetorical devices to be discovered by the reader between the lines of the typically Petrarchan lament. The new mode, characterized by the operatic wedding play and hymnic epithalamium, is linked to the protagonist, whose love is always fulfilled. The wedding play with its often madrigalic songs--a novelty in Germany--indicates a new style and way of thinking as a representation less of power and raison d'etat, than of world harmony in light of reason and "Diesseitigkeit". The epithalamium, while underscoring these thoughts, celebrates the increasingly popular concept of a Copernican cosmos in hymnic tones thus embodying an early version of the 18th century German cosmological didactic poem. Although Lohenstein still writes in the manneristic style of the Baroque, his ideas and genre developments foreshadow the coming of a new age.