Forsynet, giftermålspolitikken og døden i leilighetsdiktningen til Københavns boktrykker-klan Godiche, Høpffner, Berling og Møller

Abstract

Walter Baumgartner: Forsynet, giftermålspolitikken og døden
i leilighetsdiktningen til Københavns boktrykker-klan Godiche, Høpffner,
Berling og Møller

At the beginning of the eighteenth century four of the most important publishing
houses in Copenhagen were owned by a clan of printers that included immigrants
from Germany: Høpffner, Godiche, Berling and Glasing/Møller. My case study examines
the occasional poetry written for weddings, apprentices’ final examinations
and bereavements. This genre, which has always been considered as of little value, is
here taken seriously, with its roots in baroque rhetoric and poetics. It is accorded an
aesthetic value and various social and identity-building functions. This is utilitarian
poetry (Gebrauchslyrik) for the prosperous artisan class, which circulated privately or
semi-publicly in the form of elaborately designed single sheets or small booklets. The
authors were often students or poets who wanted to earn some money. In addition to
the explicit content, symptomatic gaffes and omissions shed light on facts and problems
concerning ‘das ganze Haus’, the (consanguineous) marriage, the succession, religion
and the breaking down of the guild system. The baroque repertoire of topoi and forms
soon became inadequate to deal with more recent social and aesthetic developments,
and occasional poetry gradually declined after 1800.