Dumb Beasts in Hallowed Tombs

This book of animal studies examines a hitherto neglected genre in Swedish poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries: the animal epitaph.

When Kersti Berg died in 1735, she was honoured with an obituary in the form of a poetic epitaph composed by Olof von Dalin. A modern-day reader can easily get the impression that Dalin's poem is an example of a funerary poem for a human being one of the eighteenth century's most common poetic genres. Kersti Berg, however, was a dog, and Dalin's poem belongs to another genre, namely, the animal epitaph. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this was a frequently practised form of poetry which could be used for a great many purposes, from imitations of ancient originals to masked poems composed to convey a political message or to further the writer's career.

Autorentext

Daniel Möller has a doctorate in literature from Lund University, Sweden, where he is associate professor and does research on early modern literature.

Inhalt
Contents: Animal studies Animal epitaph Funerary poetry Epitaph culture Early modern literature Occasional poetry Rhetoric Baroque Panegyric Erotic poetry Court poetry Imitatio Decorum 17th and 18th century Sweden Charles XI Charles XII Israel Holmström Sophia Elisabet Brenner Olof von Dalin.