Panegyric

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Title page of the Panegyric of Leonardo Loredan (1503), created in honour of Leonardo Loredan, 75th Doge of Venice, now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore

A panegyric (

thing.[1]
The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens.

Etymology

The word originated as a compound of

romanized: panḗgyris had been borrowed into Classical Latin by around the second century CE, as panēgyris 'festival' (in post-Classical usage also 'general assembly'). Correspondingly, Classical Latin also included the adjective panēgyricus, which appears meaning 'laudatory', but also came to function as a noun, meaning 'public eulogy'. These words inspired similar formations in European languages in the early modern period, such as French panégyrique, attested by 1512. The English noun and adjective panegyric seems to have been borrowed from the French word, but no doubt with cognisance of its Latin and Greek origins.[2]

Classical Greece

In

famous speech of Pericles in Thucydides, also partook of the nature of panegyrics.[1]

Roman Empire

Part of a series on
Rhetoric
History
Concepts
Genres
Criticism
Rhetoricians
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Further information: Panegyrici Latini

The

consulship, which contained a eulogy of Trajan considered fulsome by some scholars.[1]
Towards the end of the 3rd and during the 4th century, as a result of the orientalizing of the Imperial court by
Eusebius of Caesarea gave a panegyric of Constantine the Great
on the 30th year of his reign, in which he broke from tradition by celebrating the piety of the emperor, rather than his secular achievements. A well-delivered, elegant and witty panegyric became a vehicle for an educated but inexperienced young man to attract desirable attention in a competitive sphere. The poet Claudian came to Rome from Alexandria before about 395 and made his first reputation with a panegyric; he became court poet to Stilicho.

Cassiodorus, magister officiorum of Theodoric the Great, left a book of panegyrics, the Laudes. One of his biographers, James O'Donnell, has described the genre thus: "It was to be expected that the praise contained in the speech would be excessive; the intellectual point of the exercise (and very likely an important criterion in judging it) was to see how excessive the praise could be made while remaining within boundaries of decorum and restraint, how much high praise could be made to seem the grudging testimony of simple honesty".[3]

In the Byzantine Empire, the basilikos logos was a formal panegyric for an emperor delivered on an important occasion.[4]

Arabic

Panegyric poems were a major literary form among the Arabs. Writing in the Arabic language, Al-Mutanabbi wrote about Sayf al-Dawla's celebrated campaign against the Byzantine Empire.[5]

Persia

Great Seljuq period from which few records survive.[5]

In a panegyric poem address to Mahmud of Ghazna,

pyramids.[6]

Africa

African

tribal spirituality
.

Examples include

Iziduko amongst the Xhosa people.[9]

Modern revival

The custom of panegyrics addressed to monarchs was revived in the

Duke of Lerma", written by the Spanish poet Luis de Góngora in 1617. Russian poets of the eighteenth century, most notably Mikhail Lomonosov, adopted the panegyric form to celebrate the achievements of Russian emperors and empresses.[citation needed
]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Panegyric" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 676–677.
  2. ^ "pan-, comb. form", "panegyris, n.", "panegyric, n. and adj.", OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2017. Web. 19 March 2017.
  3. ISBN 0-520-03646-8
    .
  4. ISBN 0-19-504652-8
    .
  5. ^ a b G.E. Tetley. The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History. Taylor & Francis. p. 2.
  6. ^ G. E. Tetley. The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History. Taylor & Francis. p. 1.
  7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1921), The History of the Yorubas from the earliest times to the beginning of the British protectorate, p. 85
  8. ^ Turner, Noleen (1994). "A brief overview of Zulu oral traditions" (PDF). Alternation. 1 (1): 58–67. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  9. ^ "African Voices". Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
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