Etxeberri Sarakoaren “Escual-herrico gazteriari” eta kultura klasikoaren transmisioaz

Abstract

The reception, presence and transmission of Greek-Latin culture and literature is almost definitively not one of the most researched areas of Basque Literature. Nor would it appear that the specific features of our literature are set to stir up any interest in matters which, in the end, are no more than collateral and whose results, one might imagine, would not be too different from those arrived at in studies concerning neighbouring literature.

More than that of any of his contemporaries, perhaps the work of Etxeberri de Sara (XVII-XVIII) best lends itself to study within the framework of “reception-transmission” of the classical world. A great scholar of literature, a keen admirer of Axular and all that this outstanding writer meant to the development of Basque literature, this doctor from Lapurdi and resident in Azkoitia, did not live to see much of his work in print.

The present article offers a set of comments regarding the approach required in order to study the classical Latin contribution to the texts that Etxeberri wrote for the Basque youth (“Escual-herrico gazteriari”) and the consequent interpretation arrived at in the light of the author’s debt to Axular’s Gero. The appendix includes a comparison of the texts by the two authors.