Klöker, Martin (2023). „How we can make use of any verse in common life.“ Place and function of early modern poetry in literary culture. Journal of Baltic Studies, 54 (4), 697−710.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2023.2221665

Abstract

From the sixteenth century onwards, those education institutions that were humanistic by rhetoric turned to a basic education in poetry, teaching the use of verse in everyday life. Initially, this was related to ancient verse and its meaning, then was transferred to Neo-Latin poetry and to German (vernacular) verse, thereby transforming literary culture. On this basis, the role of poetry in literary culture in the Baltics is shown using three examples: the late humanistic literary culture of Riga in the 1580s, mainly in Latin; the literary culture in Reval (Tallinn) around fifty years later, much more influenced by German-language poetry; and finally, German poems in love letters of that time, showing the application and function of verse in the private space.