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A Rhetorical Pattern in Renaissance and Baroque Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Joseph G. Fucilla
Joseph G. Fucilla*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

Thanks especially to the work of Professor Dámaso Alonso, the study of correlative poetry has made notable strides in recent years. He has concentrated mainly on Spanish and Italian poetry, but has made an excursus into Greek and Latin verse as well. It goes without saying that the phenomenon is universal in its scope.

In this paper I am concerned with only one of the aspects of this poetry, the disseminative-recapitulative type, because both chronologically and geographically information on it can be extended further than hitherto, and because the influences that have played a primary role in establishing its vogue are still in need of being traced with a greater degree of precision. I shall deal with this type chiefly in connection with its vogue in the Romance-speaking countries and England during the Renaissance and baroque periods.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 3 , 1956 , pp. 23 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1956

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References

1 His most important studies dealing with Spanish and Italian are “Versos plurimembres y poemas correlativos”, Revista de la biblioteca archivo y museo del ayuntamiento de Madrid, in (1944), 89-191, and Seis calas en la expresión literaria española (Madrid, 1951) [published with the collaboration of Carlos Bousoño]. His article on this type of verse in Graeco-Latin literature, entitled “Antecedentes griegos y latinos de la poesía correlativa moderna”, is in the Estudios dedicados a Menendez Pidal, iv (Madrid, 1953), 3-23.

In Seis calas … (pp. 53-55), after quoting three examples of correlative poetry including this sonnet by Góngora:

Ni en este monte (A1), este aire (A2), ni este río (A3),
corre fiera (B1), vuela ave (B2), pece nada (B3),
de quien con atención no sea escuchada
la triste voz del triste llanto mío;
y aunque en la fuerza sea del estío
al viento mi querella encomendada,
cuando a cada cual de ellos más le agrada
fresca cueva (C1), árbol verde (C2), arroyo frío (C3),
a compasión movidos de mi llanto,
dejan la sombra (D1), el ramo (D2) y la hondura (D3),
cual ya por escuchar el dulce canto
de aquel que, de Strimón en la espesura, los suspendia cien mil veces. Tanto
puede mi mal y pudo su dulzura!

he supplies us with the following formula and explanation thereof which may be regarded as basic in any analysis of correlative poetry:

“Llamamos ‘pluralidad de correlación’ (o simplemente ‘pluralidad’) a cada línea horizontal de esta fórmula. Por ejemplo: B1, B2, B3,… . Bn es la segunda pluralidad de correlación. A la pluralidad que más claramente permite ver la relación entre los términos 1, 2, 3… .n, la llamamos ‘pluralidad básica,’ o ‘base’.” Indicating that in the above-cited Góngora sonnet the base is fiera-ave-pece Prof. Alonso further explains that in his formula “A, designa el contenido conceptual genérico de la primera pluralidad; B, el de la segunda; C, el de la tercera; . .. ,P, el de la últim'a. El número de pluralidades es, por tanto, indeterminado. En cuanto a n, designa el número de conjuntos semejantes: si son sólo dos, el poema será ‘bimembre'; si tres, ‘trimembre’, etc. Los subíndices (1, 2, 3, … . n) indican, pues, la modificación específica del concepto genérico correspondiente a la esfera ideológica de cada uno de los conjuntos, desde el 1 hasta el n. Por ejemplo; Ci designará el contenido conceptual genérico de la tercera pluralidad con la modificación específica correspondiente a la esfera ideológica del conjunto 4.

“La fórmula general que acabamos de establecer es lo que permite reconocer la vinculación a un mismo sistema de una enorme cantidad de hechos estéticos que de otro modo nos parccerían totalmente distintos.”

2 Paton's translation in The Greek Anthology (London-New York, 1916-1918), iv, 185, reads as follows:

“Not Homer's Chimaera breathed such foul breath, not the fire-breathing herd of bulls of which they tell, not all Lemnos nor the excrements of the Harpies, nor Philoctetes’ putrefying foot. So that in universal estimation, Telesilla, you surpass Chimaerae, rotting sores, bulls, birds, and the women of Lemnos.”

This epigram is cited by Prof. Alonso in “Antecedentes …”, p. 16. He omits mention of the fact that Lucilius also makes use of the device in Epigram 131, Book xi of The Greek Anthology.

3 See also his Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelaher (Berne, 1948), pp. 291-92.

4 Quoted in “Versos plurimembres …”, p. 80.

5 Angeriano is, incidentally, heavily indebted to The Greek Anthology. At least thirty of his poems have been traced to it. See Hutton, James, The Greek. Anthology in Italy (Ithaca, N. Y., 1935), pp. 169-70.Google Scholar For the Pulci versions see Prose volgari … , pp. 222-23, and Carducci's anthology, Epigrammi di autori latini (Bologna, 1881).

6 The Petrarchists did, of course, handle the sestina, which is also based on the disseminative-recapitulative principle, its six rime-words being collected in pairs in the three final verses of the poem. The position of its unit-members is fixed while the recapitulation is spread out rather than condensed. On the other hand, the other type permits a maximum of freedom in the dissemination of the members but concentrates them in a single agglomeration when they are recapitulated. One represents a medieval pattern, the other a classical one. Both move in their own separate channels; their paths seldom cross. As the sestina-type has virtually nothing to contribute to this discussion, only one brief passing reference will be made to it later on.

7 Prof. James Hutton has generously supplied me with the references to Hildebert, Tebaldeo, Lampridio, and Toscano.

8 From the Venice, 1610, edition Dámaso Alonso in “Versos plurimembres …”, p. 136, cites two sonnets from part ii, pp. 26 and 214, with recapitulations respectively in L'occhio, l'audita, l'odorato e'l gusto and Ghiaccio, foco, arco, sol, ferro, aura, hasta, onde.

9 The most easily accessible of these authors must have been Angeriano whose Eρωτoπαιγvιov was published at least five times in the space of a few years—Florence, 1512, Naples, 1520, Paris, 1520?, Paris, 1525?, Paris, 1530? (interrogation marks show probable dates of publication assigned to these editions in the British Museum catalogue). On possible traces of Angeriano in Ronsard, see Addamiano, , Il rinascimento in Francia: Pietro Ronsard (Palermo, 1925), p. 520 Google Scholar, and on traces of Sasso, see my review of Cameron, Alice, The influence of Ariosto's epic and lyric poetry on Ronsard and his group (Baltimore, 1930)Google Scholar in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, ci (1933), 145-47. Baïf imitated Philoxeno according to Auget-Chiquet, M., La vie, les idées et l'oeuvre de Jean Antoine de Baïf (Paris, 1909), p. 91.Google Scholar For additional points of contact between Ronsard and Angeriano and Baïf and Angeriano, see Hutton, James, The Greek anthology in France and in Latin writers of the Netherlands (Ithaca, N. Y., 1946), pp. 341n, 351n, 355n.Google Scholar

Bruno Berger in Vers rapportés. Ein Beitrag zur Stilgechichte der französischen Renaissancedichtung (Freiburg diss., Karlsruhe, 1930) is quite incomplete in the examples of the formula which he lists in his chapter “Enumeration und Wiederaufnahme”, pp. 61-62. On p. 2 of his study he states: “Die Franzosen des 16. Jahrhunderts hatten die Form nicht selbst aus einer etwaigen Grundform entwickelt. Sie wurde fertig übernommen: die Muster lieferte jedoch nicht ausschliesslich die neulateinische Poesie, sondern auch die italienische Dichtung des 15. Jahrhunderts, wo sie ziemlich häufig war.” Though only a limited number of correlative verse patterns ultimately derive from these sources, he happens to be right if we restrict this influence to the disseminative-recapitulative type.

10 See the Marty-Laveaux editions of the Oeuvres of these poets, all of them published in Paris: Du Bellay, i (1866), 118-19; ii (1867), 136-37; Ronsard, i (1887), 32, 140, 10-11; Ba'if, i (1881), 309-10; Pontus de Tyard (1875), 118-19.

11 See the Marty-Laveaux ed. of the Oeuvres, i (Paris, 1868), 286, and ii (Paris, 1870), 16, 131, 93, 147, 12, 21, 104.

12 Cf. Fucilla, J. G., “A miscellany of Portuguese imitations”, Hispanic Review, iii (1935), 47–48 Google Scholar, reprinted in Studies and Notes (Literary and Historical), Napoli, 1953, pp. 240-41.

13 This sonnet has been erroneously attributed to Camoens by Alvares da Cunha in his 1668 edition of the Rimas. It is included in tile Obras, p. 110.

14 See my “Manuel Faria y Sousa's imitations from Italian poets”, in Studies and Notes, pp. 311-29.

15 I am grateful to Prof. M. A. Shaaber for the references in The Phoenix Nest and the one in The Faerie Queene.

16 Noted by Scott, Janet, Les sonnets élizabéthains (Paris, 1929), p. 281.Google Scholar

17 See Morby, E. S., “A Latin poem of Ariosto in Spanish”, Modern Language Notes, LXX (1955), 361.Google Scholar

18 See Fucilla, J. G., “Pedro de Padilla and the current of the Italian Quattrocentist preciosity in Spain”, Philological Quarterly, ix (1930), 232-39.Google Scholar

19 Cf. D. Alonso, “Versos plurimembres …”, pp. 123-24, 132-33.

20 On some imitations made by Lope from Aquilano's poems or from poems attributed to him see Fucilla, J. G., “Concerning the poetry of Lope de Vega”, Hispania, xv (1932), 231-33Google Scholar, and “Notes on Spanish Renaissance poetry”, Philological Quarterly, xi (1932), 244.

21 Cf. Fucilla, J. G., “Some imitations of Quevedo and some poems wrongly attributed to him”, Romanic Review, xxi (1930), 228-35Google Scholar; “Notes on Spanish Renaissance poetry”, p. 243; “The Italian imitations of Jerónimo de Heredia”, Modern Language Notes, XLIV (1929), 318—23; Zumel imitates Groto's S'il diluvio … and Se 'l cor non ho … in two sonnets in the Codice riccardiano, MS. 3, 3358, 157r, 157v. In his Segundo tomo de las obras de D. Luis de Góngora. Primera parte (Madrid, 1645), p. 331, Salcedo Coronel tells us: “Remataré este discurso con un Madrigal de Luis Groto, el ciego de Hadria, que siguió este argumento [i.e. Ausonius—Collige Virgo rosas … imitated in his Quando de la tua etade il giorno breve …] que merece lugar entre los mejores poetas.”

22 Cf. the statement by Prof. Alonso, in Seis calas … , pp. 61–62 Google Scholar: “No hay tipo más fértil en nuestra literatura: a montones (lo mismo que en sonetos, en canciones, romances, etc.) nos lo ofrece Lope de Vega, y conocidísimo del público es en infinitas florescencias líricas del teatro de Calderón.”

Because of their inaccessibility I am excluding consideration of the Latin verse of the Spanish humanists, Salinas, Falcó, etc. An examination of the disseminative-recapitulative type of poems that they use would undoubtedly uncover further contacts with Italian Quattrocentists, notably Angeriano.