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Imitatio and Inventio. How to Construct Meaning in Early Modern Emblems

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  2. Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch
  3. Vol. 66, Issue 1
  4. pp. 177–194

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Chardin, J. Imitatio and Inventio. How to Construct Meaning in Early Modern Emblems. Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch, 66(1), 177-194. https://doi.org/10.3790/ljb.2025.1466206
Chardin, Jean-Jacques "Imitatio and Inventio. How to Construct Meaning in Early Modern Emblems" Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 66.1, 2025, 177-194. https://doi.org/10.3790/ljb.2025.1466206
Chardin, Jean-Jacques (2025): Imitatio and Inventio. How to Construct Meaning in Early Modern Emblems, in: Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch, vol. 66, iss. 1, 177-194, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/ljb.2025.1466206
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Imitatio and Inventio. How to Construct Meaning in Early Modern Emblems

Chardin, Jean-Jacques

Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch, Vol. 66(2025), Iss. 1 : pp. 177–194 | First published online: November 21, 2025

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Duncker & Humblot GmbH
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3790/ljb.2025.1466206
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Multiple languages
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18

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Chardin, Jean-Jacques

References

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Abstract

Emblems are intermedial configurations combining images, mottos, epigrams, and marginal notes, and are significant examples of collaborative authorship as texts and engravings were often produced by different artists (cf. Whitney’s A Choice of Emblemes,1586; Georgette de Montenay’s Emblemes ou devises chréstiennes, 1571; Francis Quarles’s Emblemes, 1635). Emblems are also multi-voiced compositions engaging in a dialogue with other works (classical texts, the Bible, scriptural exegesis, commonplace books, adages, proverbs …). Recourse to learned and popular culture is not mere imitatio of past discourses, but serves the inventio of a syncretic aesthetic object, signifying by the interaction between its various components.

Although it has often been claimed that the cooperation between the two semiotic codes was meant to deliver a moral message (the pictorial enigma created by the image and its relation to a sententious motto is supposed to be resolved by the epigram that follows), and that emblems share with allegorical readings of the Book of Nature, I would like to argue that, because of their mode of composition, emblems resist monologism and singular interpretations, and create rich tapestries of meanings.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Jean-Jacques Chardin: Imitatio and Inventio. How to Construct Meaning in Early Modern Emblems 177
Abstract 177
I. Imitating as collecting and compiling: »Te stante Virebo« (Claude Paradin, Devises heroïques 1557), »Principum opes, plebis adminicula« (Hadrianus Junius, Emblemata 1565),»Te Stante Virebo« (Geffrey Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes 1586) 179
II. Digesting, enriching, strengthening: »Divina Misericordia« (Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna 1612) 183
III. Iconotexts and the individual voice:» Maxima non confundit justificat Christus« (Georgette de Montenay, Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes 1571), »Omnis a Deo Sapientia« (Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna 1612). 188
Primary Sources 193
Secondary Sources 194

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