LITERATŪRINIAI HIMNAI IR ODĖS XVI–XVII A. LIETUVOS DIDŽIOJOJE KUNIGAIKŠTYSTĖJE: IŠTAKOS
LITERARY HYMNS AND ODES IN THE GRAND DUCHY OF LITHUANIA IN THE 16TH–17TH CENTURIES: ORIGINS

Summary/Abstract: laudatory poems. Willing to trace the origins of these two genres, we notice that starting from the very first ages odes and hymns more than once interwine and appear themselves variuosly in non-Christian and Christian literature. However in poetics of the Renaissance, the Baroque and the late Baroque hymns and odes are fixed as different genres, which originated in the Antiquity. In the Middle Ages both of them underwent transformations which step by step led them to becoming genres like we identify them today. In the literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th–17th centuries it is possible to detect these changes common to all European literature.Despite the fact that Homeric Hymns (still poetic) are quite closely linked with certain ancient rituals, we have no reliable proofs to confirm what like these rituals were in reality. After two centuries Pindar created epinicians (hymn like triumphal odes) which helped to form a way of parting hymns and odes: hymns are to praise god(s), odes – to laud humans. In Hellenistic hymns appealing to gods for creative inspiration, became probably more decorative feature, than having a religious impulse. More precisely, for Hellenistic poets it became a way to imitate an epic and show their literary sophistication. The extant ancient Greek an Roman hymns originated from prayings to gods. For this reason there are common elements in the ancient prayers and hymns.

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