MACARONICS  , a

species of burlesque poetry, in which words from a modern vernacular, with Latin endings, are introduced into Latin verse, so as to produce a ridiculous effect . Sometimes Greek is used instead of Latin . Tisi degli Odassi issued a Carmenmacaronicum de Patavinis in 1490 . The real founder of the practice, however, was Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544), whose mock-heroic Liber Macaronices appeared in 1517 . Folengo (q.v.) was a Benedictine monk, who escaped from his monastery and wandered through Italy, living a dissolute life, and supporting himself by his absurd verses, which he described as an attempt to produce in literature something like macaroni, a gross, rude and rustic mixture of flour, cheese and butter . He wrote under the pseudonym of Merlinus Coccaius, and his poem is an elaborate burlesque epic, in twenty-five books, or macaronea; it is an extraordinary medley of chivalrous feats, ridiculous and squalid adventures, and satirical allegory . Its effect upon the mind of Rabelais was so extraordinary that no examination of Pantagruel can be complete without a reference to it (cf . Gargantua, i . 19) . It was immediately imitated in Italy by a number of minor poets; and in France a writer whose real name was Antoine de la Sable, but who called himself Antonius de Arena (d . 1544), published at Avignon in 1573 a Meygra entrepriza, which was a burlesque account of Charles V.'s disastrous campaign in Provence . Folengo in Italy and Arena in France are considered as the macaronic classics .

In the 17th

century, Joannes Caecilius Frey (1580-1631) published a Recitus veritabilis, on a skirmish between the vine-growers of Rueil and the bowmen of Paris . Great popularity was achieved later still by an anonymous macaronic, entitled Funestissimus trepassus Micheli Morini, who died by falling off the branch of an elm-tree: De branche in brancham degringolat, et faciens pouf Ex ormo cadit, et clunes obvertit Olympo . Moliere employed macaronic verse in the ceremonial scene with the doctors in Le Malade imaginaire . Works in macaronic prose are rarer . An Anti-Clopinus by Antony Hotman may be mentioned and the amusing Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1515) . Macaronic prose was not unknown as an artifice of serious oratory, and abounds (e.g.) in the sermons of Michel Menot (1440-1518), who says of the prodigal son, Emit sibi pulcheras caligas d'ecarlate, bien tirees . The use of true macaronies has never been frequent in Great Britain, where the only prominent example of it is the Polemo-Middinia ascribed to William Drummond of Hawthornden . This short epic was probably composed early in the 17th century, but was not published until 1684 . The Polemo-Middinia follows the example set by Arena, and describes with burlesque solemnity a quarrel between two villages on the Firth of Forth . Drummond shows great ingenuity in the tacking on of Latin terminations to his Lowland Scots vernacular: Lifeguardamque sibi saevas vocat improba lassas, Maggaeam, magis doctam milkare cowaeas, Et doctam sweepare flooras, et sternere beddas, Quaeque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threedas . There is a certain macaronic character about many poems of Skelton and Dunbar, as well as the famous Barnabae itinerarium (1638) of Richard Brathwait (1588-1673), but these cannot be considered legitimate specimens of the type as laid down by Folengo . See Ch .

Nodier, Du Langage factice ¢ pele macaronique(1834); Genthe, Histoire de la poesie macaronique (1831) . (E .