The first pattern poem in Hungary? On János Filiczki of Filefalva's three pattern poems
Abstract
In the volume of János Filiczki’s 1614 Carminum liber, there are two pattern poems which are not mentioned in the Hungarian or foreign-language scholarly literature. These products of the special sub-genre of occasional poetry did not only adopt the genre standard of the age, but were written relatively early at the beginning of the 17th-century boom of pattern poetry. Therefore, these may also be worthy of the attention of European literary history. From a Hungarian point of view, these poems are especially important, because there are no known poems of this type from the age than Albert Szenci Molnár’s two pattern poems. Through the analysis of the stylized altar- and wedding ring-shaped poems, the paper shows the playfulness of this genre. The paper also deals with Filiczki’s poem recorded in the peregrination album of István Miskolci Csulyak, and argues that this entry also should be considered as a pattern poem. If this suggestion is acceptable, Filiczki’s entry would be the first known pattern poem in the history of Hungarian literature.
