A Particularly Perfumed Rhetoric

The Rhetoric of the Libel and Political Virtue in Eighteenth Century Denmark

Abstract

Manuscript libels against the clergy and the secular authorities circulated in Denmark in the first half of the eighteenth century and can be regarded as a comment on the dominant panegyric of the time. The analysis of the poem A Peculiar Dream (Een Særdeeles Drøm) shows that the libels were often personally motivated. However, the attack on certain orthodox clergymen could be seen as a general attack on the powerful position of the orthodoxy – articulated among others by pietistic dissidents at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The libels often subverted the decorum of the tribute poetry. The analysis of the poem A Perfumed Petition (Een Perfumeret Supplik) shows how the panegyric rhetoric is parodied by presenting a low subject in a high style. The poem hereby points to the privileged status and virtue of the nobility as a delusion and strikes an attack on the institution of patronage as such. The essay seeks to show how the libels present the nobility’s and clergy’s lack of virtue as contrary to their traditional powerful position in society.