Joanna Cymbrykiewicz, Aleksandra Wilkus, Aldona Zańko, “‘Stemmer, der veksler’ – nogle bemærkninger om det dansk-norske litanidigt som fænomen fra middelalderen til 1600-tallet,” Nordica 32 (2015).
The term “litany” is basically used with regard to a form of responsorial prayer, performed typically in the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox church tradition. Besides this primary liturgical meaning, litanic forms and formulas can also be found in poetry. In order to discuss this literary phenomenon, the term “litanic verse” has been coined to describe a particular type of poem related to the litanic prayer in terms of semantics and/or structure. The essence of litanic verse is discussed in accordance with the terminology put forward by Witold Sadowski, i.e. the so-called litanic genes which facilitate an accurate approach to the different “tones” or attitudes which litanic verse offers and serve as a frame of reference for further discussion. Even though the genre is present in all the major European literatures, it still remains significantly disregarded in research. The aim of the present paper is, therefore, to account for the historical and aesthetical development of the litanic verse in the Danish-Norwegian literature from the Middle Ages, where it begins to emerge, throughout the Renaissance, where it slides to the background while facing the Reformation, and up until the Baroque, where it finally gets restored. In this way, the paper proposes a new perspective on a considerable part of the Danish-Norwegian literary heritage dating back to the period, where the two countries constituted a political and cultural commonwealth.