Folengo, Teofilo

Folengo, Teofilo (tāô'fēlō fōleng'gō) [key], 1496–1544, Italian burlesque poet, who used the pseudonym Merlinus Cocaius or Merlino Cocajo. A Benedictine monk, he left (c.1515) his monastery to become a wandering poet, returning in 1534. Folengo was outstanding among the macaronic poets (who wrote mixing Latin grammatical forms with vernacular vocabulary). His Baldus, which antedates Don Quixote, is a burlesque of the chivalric romance and is considered the great epic of the macaronic type.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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