Meeting of Minor Genres at Janus Pannonius

Poetic Elements of the Fable in the Prose Translation

Abstract

An elevated awareness of style can be observed in the attitude of Janus Pannonius in his translation of Plutarch’s Apophthegmata regum et imperatorum from Greek into Latin. For that very reason was he able to deliver a Latin version with outstanding stylistic coherence. At the same time, he gave back the Greek apophthegm in Latin in an authentic manner and form. The study shows that the style of Janus’ text has been coloured by poetical patterns of related literary genres as well: of which the present inquiry focuses on the ancient fable and its impact on the style of the Latin version. Using the characteristic elements of the fable does not lead to a stylistic incongruity in Janus. On the contrary, it reveals a great fidelity to the original Greek text, which also contains elements from related genres.