Article,
Aluzivne dimenzije vračare iz En Dora u Marulićevoj Davidijadi
Književna smotra : Časopis za svjetsku književnost, 54 (206(4)): 19-27 (2022)
Abstract
My essay interprets an episode from the Davidias, the Christian Latin epic by Marko Marulić written around 1517. In the episode the diviner of En-Dor (1 Sam 28, 6-25) summons with a magic rite the deceased Samuel, who announces to King Saul his fate. I read the scene through verbal echoes of Roman poets, approaching it as the ideal reader envisaged by Marulić in his prefatory epistle to Domenico Grimani, patriarch of Aquileia. The echoes point first to the necromancy scene in Lucan's Pharsalia (Phars. 6, 413–830), but a close reading shows that the diviner in Davidias is quite different from the horrible witch Erichtho of the Pharsalia. Other echoes reveal that the diviner is closer to sorceresses of Latin love poetry, Vergil's Eclogues, Tibullus, Propertius, and of Ovid. The allusiveness in the diviner episode is thus shown to be two-pronged (as proposed by Gian Biagio Conte): the refractory allusions, to Lucan principally, invite dialogue, while the integrative allusions, to Latin love poetry principally, superimpose secondary meanings onto the poetic word, occasionally creating chains of resonances: Davidias alludes to Propertius' text which is alluded to by Ovid's text, so that all three texts are present simultaneously in the mind of the ideal reader. This lends density and depth to a rare portrait of a female character in the Davidias.
Ključne riječi
Marko Marulić, epic poetry, allusion, the Bible, Latin literature, interpretation
