The collected works of J.M. Falckenburg

Abstract

Jacob Milich Falckenburg has on rare occasions in the twentieth century received recognition in notes and scholarly afterthoughts for his Latin verse retelling of the Apollonius of Tyre romance and dedicatory poem to Queen Elizabeth in 1578. In his own time Falckenburg, as a member of a wide circle of Central European humanists, served as a courtier and agent for the Holy Roman Empire and composed a range of verse which saw print in cities from Gdansk to London between 1564 and 1579. Prior to this study, the known facts of Falckenburg's life and works have been restricted to information gleaned from a limited number of the poet's printed works. Collected here are Jacob of Falckenburg's known works, together with a biographical sketch and a brief survey of his printed works. The biography of Jacob of Falckenburg traces the poet's movements from his early years in Wittenberg and Breslau, as a member of an important humanist family, through Vienna, Paris and Antwerp to London, while the survey of his printed works demonstrates that in his nearly twelve thousand lines of poetry Falckenburg has often relied on adaptation in his treatment of diverse subjects. Falckenburg's poetry is shown to include a number of epithalamia and celebratory poems, including three on Henri, King of Poland, while his religious works consist of paraphrases of scripture and sacred meditations. Jacob's magnum opus is the Historia Divi Apollonii, a Latin hexameter version of the Apollonius of Tyre romance. The importance of this poem in the context of the Apollonius romance's Latin and English traditions and, in particular, as a likely source for the play Pericles, Prince of Tyre, has warranted in this study a detailed discussion and commentary.