Citations, motifs, sujets : quelques types d’emprunt dans l’œuvre d’Ulrich von Hutten

Abstract

Though Ulrich von Hutten’s work is deeply rooted in his own story and in his homeland’s one, and is therefore very personal and original, he often borrowed things in latin and greek works of Antiquity to deal with contemporary questions so important to him. Like all Renaissance’s authors, he uses many quotations, for example in his De guaiaci medicina et morbo Gallico, in which he quotes several times Galen and Hippocrates or in his dialogue Trias Romana, written against Roman catholic church, in which he uses only Aeneid’s verses to support his attacks. Hutten can also imitate an author’s style, for example Cicero’s in his Philippics, when he writes his Orationes against duke of Würtemberg, or Plautus’style in his comical dialogue Bulla sive bullicida. Finally, he sometimes borrows patterns or themes that he adapts to the contemporary situation; thanks to these, he adds ancient works’weight to his own works’ strength. In this way, in the Aula dialogue, he constantly compares life at court with Ulysse’s dangerous travels; Marcus, one of his satires against Venice, is inspired from Batrachomyomachia, and both Phalarismus and Inspicientes borrow their narrative topic from Lucian’s dialogues. At the end of his life, though, Hutten did not have time enough to borrow and rearrange topics and themes and his very last works show no sign of borrowing.

Keywords

• Ulrich von Hutten
• Germany
• borrowing
• Antiquity
• Renaissance
• dialogue