Epithalamium
Encyclopedia
Epithalamium ˌɛpɨθəˈleɪmiəm (Latin form of Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον epithalamion from ἐπί epi "upon," and θάλαμος thalamos nuptial chamber) refers to a form of poem that is written specifically for the bride
on the way to her marital chamber. This form continued in popularity through the history of the classical world; the Roman poet Catullus
wrote a famous epithalamium, which was translated from or at least inspired by a now-lost work of Sappho
.
a song in praise of bride and bridegroom, sung by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber. According to the scholiast on Theocritus
, one form was employed at night, and another, to rouse the bride and bridegroom on the following morning. In either case, as was natural, the main burden of the song consisted of invocations of blessing and predictions of happiness, interrupted from time to time by the ancient chorus of Hymen hymenaee
. Among the Romans
a similar custom was in vogue, but the song was sung by girls only, after the marriage guests had gone, and it contained much more of what modern attitudes would identify as obscene.
, Anacreon, Stesichorus
and Pindar
are all regarded as masters of the species, but the finest example preserved in Greek literature is the 18th Idyll
of Theocritus
, which celebrates the marriage of Menelaus
and Helen. In Latin
, the epithalamium, imitated from Fescennine Greek models, was a base form of literature, when Catullus
redeemed it and gave it dignity by modelling his Marriage of Thetis and Peleus on a lost ode of Sappho.
In later times Statius
, Ausonius
, Sidonius Apollinaris
and Claudian
are the authors of the best-known epithalamia in classical Latin; and they have been imitated by Julius Caesar Scaliger
, Jacopo Sannazaro
, and a whole host of modern Latin poets, with whom, indeed, the form was at one time in great favor.
The names of Ronsard, Malherbe and Scarron are especially associated with the genre in French literature
, and d'Iarini and Metastasio
in Italian
. Perhaps no poem of this class has been more universally admired than the pastoral Epithalamion of Edmund Spenser
(1595), though he also has important rivals - Ben Jonson
, Donne
and Francis Quarles
. Ben Jonson's friend, Sir John Suckling, is known for his epithalamium "A Ballad Upon a Wedding." In his ballad, Suckling playfully demystifies the usual celebration of marriage by detailing comic rustic parallels and identifying sex as the great leveler.
At the close of In Memoriam A.H.H.
, Tennyson
has appended a poem, on the nuptials of his sister, which is strictly an epithalamium.
E. E. Cummings
also returns to the form in his poem Epithalamion, which appears in his 1923 book Tulips and Chimneys
. E.E.Cummings' Epithalamion consists of three seven octave parts, and includes numerous references to ancient Greece.
The term is occasionally used beyond poetry, for example to describe Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream
.
The term is central in the relationship between the main characters in Yellow Dog
by Martin Amis
(2003)
Taylor Mali's poem "Falling in Love is Like Owning A Dog", from his 2002 book What Learning Leaves, is subtitled "an epithalamion."
(12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) composed a piece of music called "Epithalamion" consisting of 11 songs: The Prologue, Wake now, The Calling of the Bride, The Minstrels, Procession of the Bride, The Temple Gates, The Bell Ringers, The Lover's Song, The Minstrel's Song, Song of the Winged Loves, and Prayer to Juno.
Though each song was individual, each song runs neatly into the next, creating one piece of music. As he often did, Vaughan Williams incorporated the flavour of English folk songs into these songs.
The 20th-Century French organist-composer (and successor in his post to Charles Tournemire and César Franck), Jean Langlais (1907–1991), includes it as a title in his collection Ten Pieces for organ (No. 9).
In Richard Wagner
's Lohengrin
, the Bridal March (Treulich Geführt) of Act 3 is also called "Epithalamium" in several program notes: concert in London, 26 March 1855; concert in Paris, 25 January 1860; concert in Brussels, 24 March 1860
. These were nudes presented as wedding gifts, which were intended to wish newlyweds happiness and fertility. Venus and Cupid was a common subject. Although epithalamia existed only in poetic form during antiquity, during the Renaissance, it was believed that presenting gifts of erotic paintings was an ancient Roman tradition.
Bride
A bride is a woman about to be married or newlywed.The word may come from the Proto-Germanic verb root *brū-, meaning 'to cook, brew, or make a broth' which was the role of the daughter-in-law in primitive families...
on the way to her marital chamber. This form continued in popularity through the history of the classical world; the Roman poet Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
wrote a famous epithalamium, which was translated from or at least inspired by a now-lost work of Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
.
History
It was originally among the GreeksGreeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
a song in praise of bride and bridegroom, sung by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber. According to the scholiast on Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
, one form was employed at night, and another, to rouse the bride and bridegroom on the following morning. In either case, as was natural, the main burden of the song consisted of invocations of blessing and predictions of happiness, interrupted from time to time by the ancient chorus of Hymen hymenaee
Hymenaios
In Greek mythology, Hymen was a god of marriage ceremonies, inspiring feasts and song. Related to the god's name, a hymenaios is a genre of Greek lyric poetry sung during the procession of the bride to the groom's house in which the god is addressed, in contrast to the Epithalamium, which was sung...
. Among the Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
a similar custom was in vogue, but the song was sung by girls only, after the marriage guests had gone, and it contained much more of what modern attitudes would identify as obscene.
Development as a literary form
In the hands of the poets the epithalamium was developed into a special literary form, and received considerable cultivation. SapphoSappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
, Anacreon, Stesichorus
Stesichorus
Stesichorus was the first great poet of the Greek West. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres but he is also famous for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing...
and Pindar
Pindar
Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
are all regarded as masters of the species, but the finest example preserved in Greek literature is the 18th Idyll
Idyll
An idyll or idyl is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus' short pastoral poems, the Idylls....
of Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
, which celebrates the marriage of Menelaus
Menelaus
Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria.*Menelaus , brother of Ptolemy I Soter...
and Helen. In Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, the epithalamium, imitated from Fescennine Greek models, was a base form of literature, when Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
redeemed it and gave it dignity by modelling his Marriage of Thetis and Peleus on a lost ode of Sappho.
In later times Statius
Statius
Publius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet of the 1st century CE . Besides his poetry in Latin, which include an epic poem, the Thebaid, a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae, and the unfinished epic, the Achilleid, he is best known for his appearance as a major character in the Purgatory...
, Ausonius
Ausonius
Decimius Magnus Ausonius was a Latin poet and rhetorician, born at Burdigala .-Biography:Decimius Magnus Ausonius was born in Bordeaux in ca. 310. His father was a noted physician of Greek ancestry and his mother was descended on both sides from long-established aristocratic Gallo-Roman families...
, Sidonius Apollinaris
Sidonius Apollinaris
Gaius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius or Saint Sidonius Apollinaris was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Sidonius is "the single most important surviving author from fifth-century Gaul" according to Eric Goldberg...
and Claudian
Claudian
Claudian was a Roman poet, who worked for Emperor Honorius and the latter's general Stilicho.A Greek-speaking citizen of Alexandria and probably not a Christian convert, Claudian arrived in Rome before 395. He made his mark with a eulogy of his two young patrons, Probinus and Olybrius, thereby...
are the authors of the best-known epithalamia in classical Latin; and they have been imitated by Julius Caesar Scaliger
Julius Caesar Scaliger
Julius Caesar Scaliger was an Italian scholar and physician who spent a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the new learning...
, Jacopo Sannazaro
Jacopo Sannazaro
Jacopo Sannazaro was an Italian poet, humanist and epigrammist from Naples.He wrote easily in Latin, in Italian and in Neapolitan, but is best remembered for his humanist classic Arcadia, a masterwork that illustrated the possibilities of poetical prose in Italian, and instituted the theme of...
, and a whole host of modern Latin poets, with whom, indeed, the form was at one time in great favor.
The names of Ronsard, Malherbe and Scarron are especially associated with the genre in French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
, and d'Iarini and Metastasio
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...
in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
. Perhaps no poem of this class has been more universally admired than the pastoral Epithalamion of Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
(1595), though he also has important rivals - Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
, Donne
John Donne
John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
and Francis Quarles
Francis Quarles
Francis Quarles was an English poet most famous for his Emblem book aptly entitled Emblems.-Career:Francis was born in Romford, Essex, , and baptised there on 8 May 1592. He traced his ancestry to a family settled in England before the Norman Conquest with a long history in royal service...
. Ben Jonson's friend, Sir John Suckling, is known for his epithalamium "A Ballad Upon a Wedding." In his ballad, Suckling playfully demystifies the usual celebration of marriage by detailing comic rustic parallels and identifying sex as the great leveler.
At the close of In Memoriam A.H.H.
In Memoriam A.H.H.
In Memoriam A.H.H. is a poem by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, completed in 1849. It is a requiem for the poet's Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna in 1833...
, Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
has appended a poem, on the nuptials of his sister, which is strictly an epithalamium.
E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
also returns to the form in his poem Epithalamion, which appears in his 1923 book Tulips and Chimneys
Tulips and Chimneys
Tulips and Chimneys is a collection of poetry by E. E. Cummings, published in 1923 . This collection is the first dedicated exclusively to Cummings' poetry; his work had been published previously alongside others' in Eight Harvard Poets.Though most now know the title to be Tulips & Chimneys ,...
. E.E.Cummings' Epithalamion consists of three seven octave parts, and includes numerous references to ancient Greece.
The term is occasionally used beyond poetry, for example to describe Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
.
The term is central in the relationship between the main characters in Yellow Dog
Yellow Dog (novel)
Yellow Dog is the title of a 2003 novel by the British writer Martin Amis. Its setting, like many of Amis’s novels, is contemporary London. The novel contains several strands that appear to be linked, although a complete resolution of the plot is not immediately apparent...
by Martin Amis
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
(2003)
Taylor Mali's poem "Falling in Love is Like Owning A Dog", from his 2002 book What Learning Leaves, is subtitled "an epithalamion."
Music
The English Composer, Ralph Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
(12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) composed a piece of music called "Epithalamion" consisting of 11 songs: The Prologue, Wake now, The Calling of the Bride, The Minstrels, Procession of the Bride, The Temple Gates, The Bell Ringers, The Lover's Song, The Minstrel's Song, Song of the Winged Loves, and Prayer to Juno.
Though each song was individual, each song runs neatly into the next, creating one piece of music. As he often did, Vaughan Williams incorporated the flavour of English folk songs into these songs.
The 20th-Century French organist-composer (and successor in his post to Charles Tournemire and César Franck), Jean Langlais (1907–1991), includes it as a title in his collection Ten Pieces for organ (No. 9).
In Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, the Bridal March (Treulich Geführt) of Act 3 is also called "Epithalamium" in several program notes: concert in London, 26 March 1855; concert in Paris, 25 January 1860; concert in Brussels, 24 March 1860
Painting
Epithalamia were also a painting genre popular in Italy during the RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. These were nudes presented as wedding gifts, which were intended to wish newlyweds happiness and fertility. Venus and Cupid was a common subject. Although epithalamia existed only in poetic form during antiquity, during the Renaissance, it was believed that presenting gifts of erotic paintings was an ancient Roman tradition.
External links
- Catullus' Epithalamion
- E.E. Cummings' Epithalamion
- Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion
- Dannie Abse's Epithalamion