The Latin Verse of Martin Luther - Texts, Translations and Commentary

Martin Luther wrote some thirty Latin poems in traditional classical meters over the course of his career. He used them to praise friends, insult adversaries, and express his faith in times of distress. Up until now Luther''s neo-Latin poetry has largely fallen through the disciplinary cracks. Literary scholars have traditionally paid more attention to the Latin verse of more celebrated humanist poets such as Petrarch or Eobanus Hessus. Students of the Reformation have concentrated far more often on Luther''s prose and his famous German hymns than on his Latin poems. Even scholars who are familiar with Luther''s neo-Latin poetry have dismissed it as of only marginal significance. As this book demonstrates, Luther''s Latin verses are valuable cultural products that amply reward scholarly reconsideration. Springer''s volume is the first to provide English translations of all of them. It also includes extensive introductions and line-by-line annotations for each of the poems, situating them within their literary traditions and contemporary contexts. As such, it should help readers to see that far from being a reformer who more or less repudiated the Classics, or someone who merely dabbled in them, Luther was a confident, even bold, Latin poet, who was serious about working out his own distinctive synthesis between Christianity and the language and literature of the ancient Romans.>

Product details

• Authors: Carl P E Springer, Carl P. E. Springer, Springer Carl P. E.
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 09.01.2025
• EAN: 9781350261495
• ISBN: 978-1-350-26149-5
• No. of pages: 240
• Dimensions: 146 mm x 218 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Bloomsbury Neo-Latin Series: Early Modern Texts and Anthologies
• Subjects: Education and learning > Schoolbooks, general education schools; Europe, European History, Latin, HISTORY / Europe / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / General, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Ancient & Classical, RELIGION / Christianity / Lutheran, FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY / Latin, Classical texts, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Language teaching and learning, Literature: history and criticism, Ancient, classical and medieval texts, Lutheran Churches