Actually there is such a thing as "Prescottism" and one of its chief
tenets is that Hannibal Hamlin is always to be listened to. Thanks,
Hannibal--to me this makes excellent sense, and I'm glad to be
reminded about Petrarch's Psalm bits as well as about Montenay's
emblems. Anne.
On Nov 17, 2007, at 3:26 PM, HANNIBAL HAMLIN wrote:
> As a further, more general comment, I would urge that we be
> cautious about abstracting and reifying such belief systems as
> "Petrarchism" and even "Christianity." "Petrarchism" certainly has
> no meaningful existence for Petrarch (imagine someone positing a
> "Nohrnbergism" or "Prescottism" or even "Hamlinism"!), and even for
> his followers it is hardly systematic or a matter of belief
> analagous to Christianity. And "Christianity" itself seems too
> broad a term to be very meaningful. In that vast tent are some
> very diverse types, and even terms like "Protestant," "Catholic,"
> "Calvinist" and such are far less systematic than modern scholars
> often assume (witness the weird things so often written about Donne
> or Shakepeare and religion). Certainly there is tension in
> Petrarch and others between different kinds of love, spiritual,
> secular, carnal, but this was hardly invented by Petrarch. Indeed,
> much of the tension in the Rime Sparse (or in subsequent sequences
> like A&S, Amoretti
> and such) may be as much to do with this basic human problem as it
> does with the literary tradition. In the Ecstacy of St. Teresa, we
> see this the other way around: her description of her spiritual
> experience is so obviously erotic we find it hard to take seriously
> (especially if we throw in Bernini's sculpture). Yet it's not
> really surprising that people seek to describe the experiences of
> spiritual and sexual ecstacy in terms of each other. They both
> represent experiences so intense that we find them describable only
> by analogy or metaphor. But of course certain religious positions
> (though not all, and not easily categorized into, eg., Catholic and
> Protestant) find sexual love problematic, hence the tensions.
>
> Back to Petrarchism and Christianity, mightn't it be more useful to
> think not of a systematic conflict but of a fairly typical
> Renaissance/Reformation syncretism? I note also (surprise,
> surprise) that Petrarch wrote Psalms (sort of -- really pastiches
> of Psalm bits, later translated by Chapman) as well as the Rime,
> and that he writes glowingly of Augustine's Commentaries on the
> Psalms as well as books by Dante and Homer. For more useful
> muddling, I think of the emblem tradition, surely part of the long
> Petrarchan legacy but also frequently adapted to spiritual
> purposes, as in Quarles's Emblems, Harvey's School of the Heart, or
> (something French for Anne!), Georgette de Montenay's Emblemes ou
> devises chrestiennes.
>
> Hannibal
>
>
> Hannibal Hamlin
> Associate Professor of English
> The Ohio State University
> Book Review Editor and Associate Editor, Reformation
>
> Mailing Address (2007-2009):
>
> The Folger Shakespeare Library
> 201 East Capitol Street SE
> Washington, DC 20003
>
> Permanent Address:
>
> Department of English
> The Ohio State University
> 421 Denney Hall, 164 W. 17th Avenue
> Columbus, OH 43210-1340
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James C. Nohrnberg" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Friday, November 16, 2007 11:37 pm
> Subject: Re: Petrarchism and Christianity
>
>> (1) Kennedy also has a second volume, The Site of Petrarchism, on
>> the
>> conscription of Petrarch for nationalistic uses. Kennedy here
>> starts from
>> the historical-philological (e.g. secular) appreciation of
>> Petrarch that
>> followed upon earlier moralizing allegoresis. (2) Because, of
>> course,
>> Petrarchan sentiment or expression can be re-deployed for
>> Christian or
>> relgious-devotional uses -- e.g. Sor Juana. (3) The Christianized
>> anabasis
>> of eros in Dante has been mentioned, and the remains of it, or its
>> afterlife, can of course be found in places like the conclusive
>> Rime Sparse
>> 366, the prayer "Vergine bella."
>>
>> On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:55:59 -0500
>> Christopher Warley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> William Kennedy argues in *Authorizing Petrarch*, if I remember
>>> correctly, that "Petrarchism" was used to legitimate any number
>> of
>>> religious and political positions--Catholic apologist, crypto-
>> proto
>>> Protestant, monarchist, republican, and so on. I think he's a
>> good place
>>> to begin--it is a very helpful book. On love poetry and
>> Christianity,
>>> though, the first two chapters of Auerbach's *Dante: Poet of the
>> Secular
>>> World* (on the idea of man and literature, and on Dante's early
>> poetry)
>>> remain jaw-dropping, at least for me. Petrarch makes a lot more
>> sense
>>> after reading Auerbach's account of Dante.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> cw
>>> On Nov 16, 2007, at 7:35 PM, lipke wrote:
>>>
>>>> Has anybody teased out any relationships between Petrarchism
>> and
>>>> Christianity in the Early Modern Period? Is there an argument
>> that
>>>> they were oppositional movements/beliefs/philosophical systems
>> or
>>>> that they simply ran in tandem? Can anyone recommend some
>> reading
>>>> I might find useful? Somebody suggested C.S. Lewis. The
>> Allegory
>>>> of Love. I’ve read that but didn’t find it very helpful.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Ian Lipke
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>
>>>
>>> Christopher Warley
>>> Department of English
>>> University of Toronto
>>> 170 St. George Street
>>> Toronto, ON
>>> Canada M5R 2M8
>>> 416-978-6476
>>>
>>>
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>> James Nohrnberg
>> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
>> Univ. of Virginia
>> P.O Box 400121
>> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
>>
>>
>> --
>> BEGIN-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS
>> ------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Teach CanIt if this mail (ID 476752059) is spam:
>> Spam:
>> https://antispam.osu.edu/b.php?c=s&i=476752059&m=17ef786543baNot
>> spam: https://antispam.osu.edu/b.php?
>> c=n&i=476752059&m=17ef786543ba
>> Forget vote:
>> https://antispam.osu.edu/b.php?c=f&i=476752059&m=17ef786543ba------
>> ------------------------------------------------
>> END-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS
>>
>>
|