LE MARIAGE DANS LE LIVRE II DES ELÉGIES DE JANUS PANNONIUS

The Marriage in Janus Pannonius’Elegies II. Between 1447 and 1453, Janus Pannonius composed four elegies about the marriage : an epistula (Eleg.II,12) and three epithalamia for the weddings of three girls : a member of the famous Costabili of Ferrara and two daughters of Guarino da Verona (Eleg. II, 14 ; 15 ;16). But Janus didn’t choose the distich, as Pontano did, in order to express a specific form of lyrism : the nuptial lyrism. The young poet took from his master Guarino the pattern of the epithalamic encomium in prose ; but, while Guarino’s Laudatio of the Marriage praised the honestas, utilitas and iocunditas of the nuptial institution, Janus omitted the pleasures of Hymenaeus. So this elegiac point of view about wedding is in keeping with his criticism of the elegiac love expressed in the poetic debate Janus Pannonius had with his Ferrarian colleague, the poet Tito Vespasiano Strozzi.