Imitation Theory and Practice in Jesuit Colleges of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in XVIIth-XVIIIth Centuries Cover Image

Imitacijos teorija ir praktika XVII–XVIII a. LDK jėzuitų kolegijose
Imitation Theory and Practice in Jesuit Colleges of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in XVIIth-XVIIIth Centuries

Author(s): Živilė Nedzinskaitė
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Vytauto Didžiojo Universitetas
Keywords: the Baroque; history of literature; poetics; rhetoric; imitation.

Summary/Abstract: Imitation is analysed in the article as one of basic phenomena of the Baroque epoch, a concurrent of baroque literary creation and as fundamental category of poetics and rhetoric sciences. Imitation was treated in such way by the most famous literary theorists of XVIth–XVIIth centuries, who mostly were members of the Society of Jesus. Professors of GDL Jesuit colleges perceived the concept in the same way. Numerous compendiums of lectures from GDL Jesuit colleges (Vilnius, Kaunas, Kražiai, Hrodna, Navahrudak, Nyasvizh, Pinsk, Slutsk and others) allow to state, that imitation was explained in the beginning of teaching process (i.e. during the lectures of rhetoric and poetics) and was understood as one of several stages in the search of individual creation manner by a pupil. The term of imitation in poetics and rhetoric courses was defined quite differently. Nevertheless it should be noted that pupils were trained not to literally imitate the most famous ancient or contemporaneous authors, but to penetrate the spirit lying in their oeuvre and to adapt it to the problem or theme they were describing.

  • Issue Year: 11/2009
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 11-17
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: Lithuanian
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