Search results

Literary imitations of the testament form have a European tradition going back to classical times and constitute a neglected part of English literature. Although examples appear from the 14th century onwards, no thorough study of last wills and testaments as a specific form of English literature has been undertaken. This neglect may be because, within the broad field of the literary idea of 'legacy', parodies of the testament form ('mock testaments') and serious imitations ('lovers' testaments' etc.) appear in nearly every genre as either single texts or parts of larger ones, themselves crossing the genre boundaries. Then too, a large number of literary testaments come under the heading of 'minor literature' , such as shortlived pamphlets and broadsides. Yet the use which major authors like Shakespeare and Donne made of the literary testament shows that it had become an established form in the 16th century. The texts under examination here would normally be referred to as courtly love poems, political pamphlets, jests, cook-books, nursery rhymes, epic poems, autobiographical verse (Chatterton's Will), modern poems (yeats, Auden and McNeice) or as parts of masques, plays or novels. The aim is to show that one can legitimately speak of all these texts as belonging to a single literary category. In addition to adescription of the history of the literary testament in England, the central problem of this study was one of generic form. The attempt has been made to apply recent ideas of genre theory, i.e., the structuralist generative approach, to texts imitating a non-literary or utility document. This non-literary model is narrowly defined by criteria set by the Church and the Law. Thus it becomes possible to proceed as if the model were the generic norm of a corpus of greatly varying literary texts, thereby avoiding the problems of defming and re-defming selective principles (and of the need to assume a hypothetical 'first form') for the gathering of texts. The testament is a private re cord especially weil suited for studies of this kind because of its traditional fixed form and wide popularization from the Middle Ages onwards. In its complexity, the testament allows for more variation of style, content and purpose than does the letter, but is more disciplined in its form. In categorizing the testaments as such, it is necessary to study contemporary connotations and to defme the basic structure of the model. A selection of genuine, nonficticious testaments drawn up by members of the University of Cambridge in the 16th century has been examined for this purpose. (The 16th and 17th centuries can be taken as the most productive of literary testament writing.) There seems to exist a dichotomy in the testament itself; on the one hand there are mundane considerations (bequeathing of property) and on the other thoughts directed towards the life to come. Ihis dichotomy is observable not only on the content level, but also on the formal level and the semantic level. Ihe relation between the two testamentary elements, which is characterized by polarization, can be postulated as the basic structure of the testament and as the genre norm of the literary texts examined here. Taking into account the fact that the testament has been of varying importance in various ages, a wide selection of literary imitations of the testament from Chaucer to Yeats and after is studied in detail. A distinction may be drawn between mock testaments and serious imitations, with the former representing rebellion against the exalted authorities behind the testament. When the theoretical rebellion coincides with the practical function of satire or attack in a particular case, then the mock testament is raised to a true literary form. The serious imitation, on the other hand, makes use of the metaphysical element of the testament, and is directed to a worldly being or to the 'human condition' (as in examples drawn from the modern poets). Its problems and aim assign this study to the wider fjeld of genre research, particularly research into the relationship between genuine documents (utility texts) and their literary imitations.