ArchivesSpace at the University of Iowa

Scope and Contents

The Archive purchased a book of "architectonic" poems by Optatianus Publilius titled Panegyricus dictus Constantino Augusto dated 1596 and a volume of Theacritus dated 1539 which contains three poems printed within woodcut figures from this catalogue. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Includes reproduction of pages in Wolfgang Fugger's Ein nutzlich und wolgegrundt Formular Manncherly schoner Schiefften, Nurnberg, 1553 and Theocritus' Idyllia Trigentasex .... Venice, 1539. The former depicts shaped calligraphic German text, the latter a poem outlined by an axe shape. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This paper is a well researched survey of concrete and visual poetry done by an undergraduate student. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This is a Ph.D. thesis whose purpose was to trace the appearance of shapes in English poetry in the 16th and 17th centuries. Church found that the pattern poetry had its origins in Greek and Hindi literature. Greek literature contains six examples of pattern poetry: an axe, an egg, a pair of wings, a shepard's pipe, and two alters. Church defines Carmina Quadrata as verses that contain as many lines as each line contains letters. Within these boxlike poems are acrostics, telestichs, and many pictures and designs. The pictures are formed by either capitalizing the letters which outline the figure or by writing them in inks of various colors. Quincunx are poems arranged in oblique lines that can be read from either the upper or lower levels to make sense with either choice (p.51). Pattern poems reached the Anglo-Saxon literature in the 8th century. Alcuin of York wrote two Carmina Quadrata addressed to the cross. Hrabamus Maurus was one of Alcuin's followers. In 1573, pattern poetry...