Renaissance English Text Society (RETS), Vol. 18

The Poetic Works of Helius Eobanus Hessus, Volume 1: Student Years at Erfurt, 1504-1509

Eobanus Hessus (1488-1540) was the most celebrated poet of the German Renaissance and Reformation. Mutianus Rufus hailed him as “a modern Pindar.” Reuchlin crowned him “the king” of poets. To Erasmus he was a Beatus Rhenanus, Melanchthon, Reuchlin, and Hutten all rolled into one: a “Christian Ovid.” His star blazed resplendent for as long as Latin was read as a living language. Besides a brilliant style and a humanist’s learning he brought to his work an uncommonly wide range of themes, a warm and engaging tone, and a refreshing boldness in pioneering new genres on German soil. In this first volume of his Poetic Works he bursts onto the scene with two lively narrative poems about student life at Erfurt (1506). These are followed by an exuberant praise of the university (1507), a prosimetric satire on a student’s passion for a prostitute (1508), and a cycle of eclogues that celebrate his friends and ideals, alternately laud and decry conditions at Erfurt, and trace the poet’s inner growth from callow youth to maturity (1509). Subsequent volumes will include his famed Letters of Christian Heroines, Luther Elegies, On Keeping in Good Health, Idylls, On the Tumults of these Times, Epicedia, Nuremberg Glorified, and the nine books of impromptus or Sylvae - all of them presented in a critical edition, with idiomatic translations and informative introductions and notes.

Edited, translated, and annotated by Harry Vredeveld (Ohio State University)