Семейно-обрядовая поэзия Великого Княжества Литовского XVI века: книжный вариант

ENIn folklore the poetry of family rituals is represented abundantly. The natal, nuptial and funeral folklore texts reflect vividly the principal events of human life - birth, marriage and death. The poetry of family rituals existed not only in folklore, but also in literature, playing the same role in the life of the upper classes ofsociety as folklore played in the life of ordinary people. The first specimens of the poetry of family rituals appeared in the literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as early as the 1540s (P. Roiziusz's Latin epithalamia). In the 1560s some Polish funeral pieces were written and published in Brest by Poet Laureate C. Bazylik. This kind of poetry began to flourish in the 1590s due to the work of such authors as G. Bielozor, M. Witosławski, K. Kiernowski, S. Kułakowski, J. Protosowicz,J. Radwan and W. Skorowiec. The readers of their poems were representatives of wealthy aristocracy - the Radziwiłłs, the Chodkiewiczes, the Sapiehas, the Dorohostojskis; middle gentry soon began to imitate the magnates. By the end of the XVI century all kinds of poetry of family rituals were developed in the literature ofthe Grand Duchy ofLithuania: genitalicones (poems written on the occasion of the birth of a child), apithalamia (nuptial poems) and funeral poetry (written on the occasion of death) - epicedia, epitaphs, elegies (trens), etc. The material was presented in different forms: epic, lyric and dramatic and performed in a variety of ways during the festivities: by reading, singing and playing on stage. The written poetry of family rituals (especially the matrimonial one) was closely connected to the ritual and often functioned in the form of a song which shows its affinity with folklore. The poetics of the written version, however, differed remarkably from that oforal poetry, the formerfollowing (like the poetics of solemn prose declamations) the principal rules of rhetoric.