Excellent summary of the (a)etiology (and, no, I don't mean etymology)
of the word - but does it really tell us how "Macaronics" is or might
usefully be used? But for the Latin tags, you seem very close to
describing Menippean satire -- and in that case "Macaronic" would have
little meaning beyond that of a simple classification of terminators.
Possibly that's your point and position.

But what term, then, would you propose as descriptor for polyglot,
non-satiric poetry that doesn't fit into the narrow mold of "Macaronic"
that you set forth? Maybe "Poundianics"? Or, if we include non-verse
writing AND not-necessarily-Macaronic verse, Poundiejoycianics?
Joyciepoundianics? Or have I simply overlooked the historically correct
term in my distraction and ignorance?

By the way.....you aren't one who, remembering Chaucer, would be
insulted by someone saying that you have a "nice" smile -- are you?

Dirkus Ioiansonum

Francis Gavin wrote:

>One of the things I love about this list is that when things get rolling,
>it's because somebody raked open an old scab. In particular an inherently
>erroneous old scab. The recriminations of January revisited.
>
>To the point--what the hell is/are macaronics. This argument has been all
>over the road about polyglot writing by Modernists. Joyce probably comes
>closest with his multilingual multilayered puns and entendres. But none of
>this, neither Pound nor Joyce nor the Rosetta nor world peace have
>intrinsically a goddamn thing to do with macaronics. What we've dealt with
>so far has been an exercise in caca-moronics. Now please READ CAREFULLY, as
>THE MENU HAS CHANGED:
>
>MACARONICS is a species of BURLESQUE poetry, in which words forming a modern
>vernacular, with LATIN endings, are turned into Latinate verse, producing a
>comic effect. SOMETIMES, but RARELY, Greek is used instead of Latin.
>
>The real founder of the practice, however, was TEOFILO FOLENGO (149191544),
>whose mock heroic Liber Macaronices appeared in 1517. Folengo 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 a verse not unlike like
>macaroni, i.e. a gross, rude and rustic mixture of flour, cheese and butter.
>Not the Kraft dinner of today.
>
>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
>medley of chivalrous feats, ridiculous and squalid adventures, and satirical
>allegory.
>
>Korg is correct in citing Rabelais insofar as Macaronic influence--its
>influence on his work was major, specifically in Gargantua. But it existed
>long before Rabelais.
>
>It was immediately imitated in Italy by a number of minor poets and in
>France a writer whose real name was Antoine de la Sablebut used the
>Antonius de Arena (d. 1544), published at Avignon in 1573 a MEJORA
>ENTEPRIZA, which was a burlesque account of Charles V¹s disastrous campaign
>in Provence.
>
>Folengo in Italy and Arena in France are considered as the macaronic
>classics. In the I7th century, Joannes Caecilius Frey (158091631) published
>a Recitus veritabilis, on a skirmish between the vine-growers of Rueil and
>the bowmen of Paris.
>
>"De branche in brancham degringolat, et faciens pouf Ex ormo cadit, et dunes
>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 EPITOLAE OBSURORUM VIRORUM (1515).
>Macaronic prose was not unknown as an artifice of serious oratory, and
>abounds in the sermons of Michel Menot (14409I518).
>
>
>The use of true macaronics was frequent in Great Britain, where the only
>prominent example of it is the POLENZO MIDDINIA ascribed to William Drummond
>of Hawthornden. This short epic was probably composed early in the 17th
>century, but was not published until 1684. It 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..."
>
>
>And that's it guys. Sick Have-a-bammer Macaronices, thunk-et nun-qualm.
>
>
>GAVIN
>
>
>