Alison Baird Lovell - The Shadow of Dante in French Renaissance Lyric: Scève’s “Délie”

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture XXVI. Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture LXXII

To my parents

and to Michel Beaujour

This book is the culmination of a project of long gestation and refinement. It would not have been possible without research libraries and their generous curators and staff. I would like to express my gratitude to many talented and accomplished people whose support and advice have been essential to the books completion. I conceived the idea many years ago while auditing James Helgesons graduate course on sixteenth-century French poetry, and over time he has witnessed it passer par les flammes, if I may be permitted to borrow the phrase from Scve. Michel Beaujour, my mentor, was willing to entertain my idea about Scve and Dante, reminding me with scepticism that it was not enough to speak of poetic traditions, but that il faut la preuveI hope to have provided sufficient textual evidence for the case. It was a great honor to study with him, and I always miss him. Francesca Canad Sautman indulged my determination to forge my way, and my understanding of medieval culture is indebted to her. Giuseppe Di Scipio taught me about Dante, stilnovo poetry, and the troubadours. My knowledge of Dante and Petrarch was further enhanced through study with John Freccero, who honored me by graciously reading my manuscript when I was a postdoctoral fellow. Nancy Siraisi has been a source of consistent encouragement, and is a model for scholarly and intellectual rigor. Jean-Godefroy Bidimas confidence in me has been an inspiration, and he exemplifies intellectual inquiry and independence of thought. Thomas Hunkeler is ahead of me in my Scve inquiry, and I aspire to approach the fine quality of his work. Ccile Alduys elegant and thorough scholarship on Scve has been of immense help in my research. It is a pleasure to thank Robert Pogue Harrison, Ullrich Langer, Michle Clment, Nancy Frelick, Elizabeth Beaujour, Cosima Coccheri dInzillo, Elias Theodoracopoulos, Wendy Nolan Joyce, Sylvie Gillard-Cohen, Vincent Martinat, Tiffany Werth, Susan Gaylard, and Barbara Szlanic. I am very grateful to my steadfast editor, Erika Gaffney, Theresa Whitaker at MIP, and Christine Henschel at De Gruyter. Most of all, I thank my parents for their longstanding support.

All errors are my responsibility.

There are no known manuscripts of Dlie, so I have relied primarily upon the critical editions of Grard Defaux (2004) and I. D. McFarlane (1966), which are based on extant copies of the first edition of 1544, printed by Sulpice Sabon for Antoine Constantin at Lyon, the facsimile of which I also consulted. Both critical editions include variants in the critical apparatus from the 1564 edition. Defaux and McFarlane address the troublesome problems of dizain numbering in these editions, punctuation, and typographical errors. We do not know whether Maurice Scve revised the 1564 edition, which was printed at Lyon by Nicolas du Chemin. As of this writing, Michle Clment is preparing a multi-volume critical edition for Classiques Garnier of the Oeuvres compltes of Maurice Scve.

The Dlie (1544) of Maurice Scve (ca. 1501ca. 1564) is a meditation in the form of poetry. This does not necessarily imply Christian religiosity or philosophical musings; rather, it is a patterned reflection on certain themes. The patterns take shape in the themes and in the poetic form: 449 decasyllabic dizains, each of which constitutes a perfect square, 10 x 10, plus one huitain. The collection is punctuated by fifty emblems, woodcuts with mottoes interspersed at regular intervals with the dizains. Thus the visual alternates with the verbal. The advent of the printing press facilitated the visual component of emblems in Dlie. Scves meditation centers on yearning, seeking the beloved, and finding joy and suffering. Dlie is the polysemic name of the lady the poet-persona adores, but she is not exclusively a conventional Petrarchan or courtly love object: instead, she radiates outward, signifying philosophical, cosmic abstractions and representing throughout the poetry an intense desire for union. She dominates the poet-lovers universe, and he desires her without guilt.

This book presents a reading of Scves Dlie to illuminate the poetic filiation with Dante Alighieri, and offers a new perspective on the scholarly assessment of Dlie as a Petrarchan lyric sequence. Petrarch and Scve are generally considered Renaissance poets, and both drew upon earlier literary resources. Poetic traditions of courtly love nourished Petrarchs Canzoniere and Triumphi, both widely read in the Renaissance. Scves appropriation of certain Petrarchan motifs and language was consonant with the practice of imitatio, the use of models to participate in a literary and intellectual tradition. Thomas Greene has characterized the imitation of models in the Renaissance as a precept and an activity which during that era embraced not only literature but pedagogy, grammar, rhetoric, esthetics, the visual arts, music, historiography, politics, and philosophy. Terence Cave identifies sixteenth-century literary