2nd lecture Intro to Early Modern Lit L3 S5

How was the courtly lit before the sonnet?

11th: troubadours were mainly aristocrats and they created a love lg ( a way of showing their skills with contraints)

The figure of the lady = idealised = a new cult of women => the lg normally used for religious purposes is used to praise women

Define courly love + example

an ideal of love and of self-improvment (originally written in Latin)

 Andre le Chapelain, De Arte Honeste Amandi (1184-6)

How can courtly love be considered as a systme of social control?

A way of canalising their energy by praising for instance the daughter of the Lord (showing loyalty to the Lord)

= theory according to Georges Duby

Where was the sonnet invented?

In Sicily

Who wrote the first sonnet?

Giacomo da Lentini, (1200-1250)

What is the dolce stil nove? (the sweet new style) 1280-1310

a spiritualisation of love → a doctrine of love + lady praised and idealised

In Tuscany

The donna angelicata

the figure of beatrice in Dante’s work, she become a sort of intermetiary between the poet and the divine

Who was Petrarch?

• (1304-1374)

• the 1st humanist (rediscovering the classical age and saw the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages)

• Petrarch’s L in Latin > L in En or It

What did Petrarch write?

• Canzonere

• Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta = written in the lg of the people => Tuscan not Latin

= about a youthful error, fell in love with Laura but his mind should be directed to God who’s eternal

= in two parts: “In Vita di Laura” and “In morte di Laura”

/!\ should not sympathise with the speaker because sometimes he is wrong

What did the Cardinal Pietro Bembo said?

• (1470-1547)

• he said that great txts could be written in Italian not only Latin

• /!\ = good italian = Petrarch’s

What is Petrarchism and when was this term invented?

• XIXth

• The use of the same poetic form (sonnet)

• Love poems with a lover praising an inaccessible love and complaining about the pain

• use of the same words, adj, rhymes as Petrarch, figure of speech, etc

• status of the lady/the beloved = idelaised

what are anti-courtly poems?

• lovers wanting to take revenge over the rejection

• misogynistic rejection of the beloved

what are antipetrarchist poems?

• poetry that reject the beloved

• that parodies or satirises the petrarchian language

who introduced Petrarchism and the sonnet in Fr?

Clément Marot (1496-1544) = a Fr poet

How was the Fr Petrarchism represented after 1530s?

• The Pléiade (1533-1570s)

Showing that Fr can also be a poetic language but has to be a good French (Du Bellay)

What is the name of a the sonnet saying how to imitate Petrarch?

L’olive Du Bellay

What did Ronsard do?

• 1524-1585

• he combined Petrarchism and classic writers

→ Les Amours (1552)

→ La continuation des Amours (1555)

→ Nouvelle continuation des Amours (1556)

→ Sur la mort de Marie (1578)

→ Sonnets pour Hélène (1578)

How did Petrarch and the sonnet reach England?

• Surrey (1516-1547)

• Wyatt (1503-1542)

They were aristocrats who traveled a lot (Fr and It)

When was the first Englis Sonnet and the first translation of Petrarch?

1530s (same as France)

For what is Surrey known?

For a new pattern: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG (the Shakespearian sonnet)

Did the French write more or less sonnets than England?

More but a few people had access to the manuscripts

What is Songes and Sonettes?

It is an anthology of the  best sonnets/ poems.

It was printed in different versions which made it successful

= Written by Surrey BUT published by Tottel in 1557 (Surrey died in 1547)

Tottel wrotye a message for readers saying that those poems prove the possibility to wirte good poems in English and so it was published to show the value of the lg

Which work explains how to improve the En lg imitating Fr, It and Latin?

Edmund Spencer, The Shepheards Calendear 1579

What are the paradoxes of the English Italianism?

It is a compressed reception of the Petrarchan tradition because:

• they imitated Petrarch but also the Fr, It petrarchists and imitators of imitators

• There is a fascination and a rejection of the It culture because of the Reformation (Catho could corrupt through poetry because of the Vatican and the Pope => Italian as the lg of vice, because even if it’s well written, it could be a way to corrupt)