Pasquinade

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Roman pasquinades beside the Pasquino statue in 2017. Postering on the statue is prohibited, and "pasquinades" must be placed on a side board. 1-pasquino.jpg
Roman pasquinades beside the Pasquino statue in 2017. Postering on the statue is prohibited, and "pasquinades" must be placed on a side board.

A pasquinade or pasquil is a form of satire, usually an anonymous brief lampoon in verse or prose, [1] [2] and can also be seen as a form of literary caricature. [3] The genre became popular in early modern Europe, in the 16th century, [4] though the term had been used at least as early as the 4th century, as seen in Augustine's City of God .[ citation needed ] Pasquinades can take a number of literary forms, including song, epigram, and satire. [3] Compared with other kinds of satire, the pasquinade tends to be less didactic and more aggressive, and is more often critical of specific persons or groups. [3]

Contents

The name "pasquinade" comes from Pasquino , the nickname of a Hellenistic statue, the remains of a type now known as a Pasquino Group , found in the River Tiber in Rome in 1501 – the first of a number of "talking statues of Rome" [4] [5] which have been used since the 16th century by locals to post anonymous political commentary. [6]

The verse pasquinade has a classical source in the satirical epigrams of ancient Roman and Greek writers such as Martial, Callimachus, Lucillius, and Catullus. [1] [3] The Menippean satire has been classed as a type of pasquinade. [3] During the Roman Empire, statues would be decorated with anonymous brief verses or criticisms. [5]

History

Pasquino in 1550 by Nicolas Beatrizet Statue of Pasquin in the House of Cardinal Ursino MET DP870228.jpg
Pasquino in 1550 by Nicolas Béatrizet

The term became used in late medieval Italian literature, based on a literary character of that name. Most influential was the tome Carmina Apposita Pasquino (1512) of Giacomo Mazzocchi. [3] [7] [8] As they became more pointed, the place of publication of Pasquillorum Tomi Duo (1544) was shifted to Basel, [9] less squarely under papal control, disguised on the titlepage as Eleutheropolis, "freedom city". [10]

The term has also been used in various literary satirical lampoons across Europe, [3] and appears in Italian works (Pietro Aretino, Mazzocchi), French (Clément Marot, Mellin de Saint-Gelais), German, Dutch, Polish (Stanisław Ciołek  [ pl ], Andrzej Krzycki, Stanisław Orzechowski, Andrzej Trzecieski  [ pl ]), and others. [3] The genre also existed in English, with Thomas Elyot's Pasquill the Playne (1532) being referred to as "probably the first English pasquinade." [5] They have been relatively less common in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. [11] Most of the known pasquinades are anonymous, [3] distinguishing them from longer and more formal literary satires such as William Langland's Piers Plowman.

Most pasquinades were created as a form of political satire, reacting to contemporary developments, and are generally more concerned with amusing or shocking the readers, and defaming their targets, than with literary qualities. As such, they are rarely considered to be particularly valuable from a literary standpoint; many have not been reprinted and are therefore considered lost. [3] They have, however, historical value, and were seen by their contemporaries as a source of news and opinions, in lieu of non-existent or rare press and other media. [3] Some have been known to be a series of polemics, with multiple pasquinades written in dialogue with another. [3] Some authorities, including royalty and clergy, unsuccessfully attempted to ban or restrict the writing and spread of pasquinades, [3] in comparison to the tolerated "lighter" and more playful parodic texts and fabliaux performed during festivals. [12]

The name as a pseudonym or title

In 1589 one of the contributors to the Marprelate Controversy, a pamphlet war between the Established Church of England and its puritan opponents, adopted the pseudonym Pasquill. At the end of his second pamphlet The Return of Pasquill (published in October 1589), Pasquill invites critics of his opponent Martin Marprelate to write out their complaints and post them up on London Stone, an ancient stone landmark in the City of London which still survives.

Pasquin is the name of a play by Henry Fielding from 1736. It was a pasquinade in that it was an explicit and personalized attack on the Prime Minister Robert Walpole and his supporters. It is one of the plays that triggered the Licensing Act 1737. Anthony Pasquin is the pseudonym of John Williams (1761–1818) and his satirical writing of royalties, academicians, and actors.

Pasquino was a pen name of J. Fairfax McLaughlin (1939–1903), an American lawyer and author. [13] Pasquinade is the title of a piano solo piece by Louis Moreau Gottschalk. [14]

The Yiddish and Hebrew term Pashkevil is the generic name of the posters put up on the walls of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclaves in Israel. These posters define legitimate behavior, such as prohibitions on owning smartphones, as well as often being the mouthpiece for radical anti-Zionist groups, such as the Neturei Karta . [15] Pashkevillim take the place of conventional media in communities where such media are shunned.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Fielding</span> English novelist and dramatist (1707–1754)

Henry Fielding was an English writer and magistrate known for the use of humour and satire in his works. His 1749 comic novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was a seminal work in the genre. Along with Samuel Richardson, Fielding is seen as the founder of the traditional English novel. He also played an important role in the history of law enforcement in the United Kingdom, using his authority as a magistrate to found the Bow Street Runners, London's first professional police force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satire</span> Literary and art genre with a style of humor based on parody

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This article presents lists of literary events and publications in the 16th century.

<i>Greek Anthology</i> Ancient collection of short poems

The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the Greek Anthology comes from two manuscripts, the Palatine Anthology of the 10th century and the Anthology of Planudes of the 14th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pasquino</span> Statue in Rome

Pasquino or Pasquin is the name used by Romans since the early modern period to describe a battered Hellenistic-style statue perhaps dating to the third century BC, which was unearthed in the Parione district of Rome in the fifteenth century. It is located in a piazza of the same name on the northwest corner of the Palazzo Braschi ; near the site where it was unearthed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Weever</span> English antiquary and poet

John Weever (1576–1632) was an English antiquary and poet. He is best known for his Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut, and Newest Fashion (1599), containing epigrams on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other poets of his day, and for his Ancient Funerall Monuments, the first full-length book to be dedicated to the topic of English church monuments and epitaphs, which was published in 1631, the year before his death.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juvenal</span> Early 2nd century Roman poet

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the Satires. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, although references within his text to known persons of the late first and early second centuries AD fix his earliest date of composition. One recent scholar argues that his first book was published in 100 or 101. A reference to a political figure dates his fifth and final surviving book to sometime after 127.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talking statues of Rome</span> Method of anonymous political expression in Rome

The talking statues of Rome or the Congregation of Wits provided an outlet for a form of anonymous political expression in Rome. Criticisms in the form of poems or witticisms were posted on well-known statues in Rome, as an early instance of bulletin board. It began in the 16th century and continues to the present day.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marforio</span>

Marphurius or Marforio is one of the talking statues of Rome. Marforio maintained a friendly rivalry with his most prominent rival, Pasquin. As at the other five "talking statues", pasquinades—irreverent satires poking fun at public figures—were posted beside Marforio in the 16th and 17th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pasquill (the Cavaliero)</span>

Pasquill is the pseudonym adopted by a defender of the Anglican hierarchy in an English political and theological controversy of the 1580s known as the "Marprelate controversy" after "Martin Marprelate", the nom de plume of a Puritan critic of the Anglican establishment. The names of Pasquill and his friend "Marforius", with whom he has a dialogue in the second of the tracts issued in his name, are derived from those of "Pasquino" and "Marforio", the two most famous of the talking statues of Rome, where from the early 16th century on it was customary to paste up anonymous notes or verses commenting on current affairs and scandals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celio Secondo Curione</span> Italian humanist (1503–1569)

Celio Secondo Curione was an Italian humanist, grammarian, editor and historian, who exercised a considerable influence upon the Italian Reformation. A teacher in Humanities, university professor and preceptor to the nobility, he had a lively and colourful career, moving frequently between states to avoid denunciation and imprisonment: he was successively at Turin, Milan, Pavia, Venice and Lucca, before becoming a religious exile in Switzerland, first at Lausanne and finally at Basel, where he settled. He was famous and admired as a publisher and editor of works of theology and history, also for his own writings and teachings, and for the wide sphere of his friendships and correspondence with many of the most interesting reformists, Protestants and heretics of his time, though his energetic influence was at times disruptive. The imputation of antitrinitarianism is very doubtful. Curio published under the Latin form of his name, but scholarship has adopted the Italian form.

<i>The Poor-Whores Petition</i>

The Whores' Petition was a satirical letter addressed from brothel owners and prostitutes affected by the Bawdy House Riots of 1668, to Lady Castlemaine, lover of King Charles II of England. It requested that she come to the aid of her "sisters" and pay for the rebuilding of their property and livelihoods. Addressed from madams such as Damaris Page and Elizabeth Cresswell, it sought to mock the perceived extravagance and licentiousness of Castlemaine and the royal court.

<i>Paradisus Judaeorum</i> Polish epigram

"Paradisus Judaeorum" is a Latin phrase which became one of four members of a 19th-century Polish-language proverb that described the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) as "heaven for the nobility, purgatory for townspeople, hell for peasants, paradise for Jews." The proverb's earliest attestation is an anonymous 1606 Latin pasquinade that begins, "Regnum Polonorum est". Stanisław Kot surmised that its author may have been a Catholic townsman, perhaps a cleric, who criticized what he regarded as defects of the realm; the pasquinade excoriates virtually every group and class of society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jiří Haussmann</span> Czech writer (1898–1923)

Jiří Haussmann was a Czech writer of science fiction and satire born in Prague.

References

  1. 1 2 Spaeth, John W. (1939). "Martial and the Pasquinade". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. 70: 242–255. doi:10.2307/283087. ISSN   0065-9711. JSTOR   283087.
  2. ↑ Indiana Slavic Studies. Indiana University. 2000. p. 10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Teresa Michałowska; Barbara Otwinowska; Elżbieta Sarnowska-Temeriusz (1990). Słownik literatury staropolskiej: średniowiecze, renesans, barok. Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich. pp. 555–557. ISBN   978-83-04-02219-5.
  4. 1 2 Nussdorfer, Laurie (23 April 2019). Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII. Princeton University Press. pp. 8–10. ISBN   978-0-691-65635-9.
  5. 1 2 3 Sullivan, Robert; Walzer, Arthur, eds. (2018-05-01). "Pasquill the Playne: Critical Introduction". Thomas Elyot: Critical Editions of Four Works on Counsel: 155–173. doi:10.1163/9789004365162_007. ISBN   9789004365162.
  6. ↑ Sullivan, George H. (2006-05-15). Not Built in a Day: Exploring the Architecture of Rome. Hachette Books. p. 116. ISBN   978-0-7867-1749-1.
  7. ↑ Partner, Peter (1976). Renaissance Rome 1500-1559: A Portrait of a Society. University of California Press. p. 202. ISBN   978-0-520-03945-2.
  8. ↑ Jerold C. Frakes (6 June 2017). The Emergence of Early Yiddish Literature: Cultural Translation in Ashkenaz. Indiana University Press. p. 69. ISBN   978-0-253-02568-5.
  9. ↑ ("Two volumes of Pasquinades"). Pasquillorum Tomi Duo. Quorum primo uersibus ac rhythmis, altero soluta oratione conscripta quamplurima continentur, ad exhilarandum, confirmandumque hoc perturbatissimo rerum statu pij lectoris animum (Johann Oporino, Eleutheropoli (sc. Basel) 1544) (digitized)
  10. ↑ Spaeth 1939:245, identifies the editor as the humanist-turned-Protestant Caelius Secundus Curio, an exile and professor of oratory at Basel, whose satirical dialogue Pasquillus Extaticus et Marphorius appeared for the first time (in Latin) in this work (Part 2, pp. 426-529) and rapidly gained an independent life in translations into Italian, French, German, Dutch and, a little later, English.
  11. ↑ Sysyn, Frank E. (1995). ""The Buyer and Seller of the Greek Faith": A Pasquinade in the Ruthenian Language against Adam Kysil". Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 19: 655–670. ISSN   0363-5570. JSTOR   41037025.
  12. ↑ Bakhtin, Michail Michajlovič (2009). Rabelais and his World. Indiana University Press. ISBN   978-0-253-34830-2. OCLC   730451153.
  13. ↑ Joseph F. Clarke (1977). Pseudonyms. BCA. p. 130.
  14. ↑ Steve Sullivan (17 May 2017). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 9. ISBN   978-1-4422-5449-7.
  15. ↑ Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics, E. Sprinzak, 1999, p. 95
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