Hermes' lyre Italian poetic self-commentary from Dante to Tommasco Campanella PDF
Preview Hermes' lyre Italian poetic self-commentary from Dante to Tommasco Campanella
HERMES' LYRE Italian Poetic Self-Commentary from Dante to Tommaso Campanella This page intentionally left blank SHERRY ROUSH 7 Hermes Lyre Italian Poetic Self-Commentary from Dante to Tommaso Campanella UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2002 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3712-7 Printed on acid-free paper Toronto Italian Studies National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Roush, Sherry Hermes' lyre : Italian poetic self-commentary from Dante to Tommaso Campanella / Sherry Roush. (Toronto Italian studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3712-7 1. Italian poetry - History and criticism. 2. Hermeneutics. I. Title. II. Series PQ4066.R68 2002 851.009 C2002-902114-6 This volume was published with the financial assistance of the Research and Graduate Studies Office of the College of the Liberal Arts and the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Penn State University. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Contents PREFACE: THE LYRE OF HERMES vn INTRODUCTION. Beyond Explication: Poets and Their Own Commentaries 3 Part One. Dante and Boccaccio: The Emergence of Italian Poetic Self-Commentary 1 'You might call it something of a commentary': Defining Terms in Dante's Vita Nuova and Convivio 25 2 'Only the ploughshare aided by many clever talents cleaves the soil of poetry': Boccaccio's Earthly Vision of the Text and the Requisites for its Interpretation 52 Part Two. Poetic Self-Commentary Reborn in Quattrocento Florence 3 'Know thyself: Self-knowledge and New Life in Lorenzo de' Medici's Commentary on My Sonnets 71 4 'Distorted in contrary senses': Girolamo Benivieni's Self- Commentative Reformation 96 Part Three. Poetic Self-Commentary at the End of the Renaissance 5 'It is neither formed nor form': Reading Beyond the Lines of Bruno's Dialogic Self-Commentary, the Heroic Frenzies 119 vi Contents 6 'Did we not prophesy in Your name?': Settimontano Squilla as the Apocalyptic Seventh Trumpet in Tommaso Campanella's Vatic Project 134 7 Invocation, Interpretation, Inspiration 153 NOTES 163 BIBLIOGRAPHY 217 INDEX 239 Preface The Lyre of Hermes This study's emblem, Hermes' lyre, aims to invoke the mythic, original union of the hermeneutic and the lyric spheres. The lyre, symbol of poetry, traditionally falls under the aegis of Apollo, god of light and reason, whose laurel crown honours the greatest poets. According to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, however, it was the playful newborn Hermes who created the lyre and played it so well that he left Apollo marvelling. Only after Hermes and Apollo struck a bargain did Apollo come to possess the instrument. On the very day of his birth, playful Hermes leapt from his crib and went in search of Apollo's sacred cows. Hermes, whose name will lend itself to 'hermeneutics,' interpreted his encounter with a tortoise along the way, as a Very propitious sign' (Homeric Hymn to Hermes, 1. 30, my translations). He foresaw that the reptile's shell could prove useful even after the animal's death, since that shell, expertly strung, could protect its possessor through its enchanting sound. The mercurial god killed the tortoise and created his new stringed instrument, but the impro- vised toy did not occupy his full attention for long. The protector of wanderers quickly ventured out again to effect his initial quest, and promptly led away Apollo's herd of cows, disguising their path and hiding place with ingenious subterfuges. Apollo soon discovered both the theft and the perpetrator's identity and summoned the feisty, young Hermes to defend his actions before Zeus. Hermes had to return Apollo's cows, despite his eloquent, albeit untruthful, defence. When Apollo realized that Hermes had slaugh- tered two of his sacred animals, he seethed in rage and disbelief. Only viii Preface when Hermes drew out his lyre and began to pluck its strings was he able to placate Apollo's wrath. Apollo finally said to Hermes: 'Killer of cattle, rascally one, friend of the banquet, what you have invented is worth fifty cows easily! From now on I suppose we will get along well' (11. 436-8). Apollo proposed that Hermes give him the lyre and teach him his musical art; in exchange, Apollo would leave Hermes the offices of guide of souls and keeper of herds. Hermes agreed. Hermes, 'who conceals his thought' (1. 413), became god of secrets, as well as being the god of exchanges and fecundity. Alone in his calling as guide of souls, Hermes could transgress all boundaries. He also received from Apollo the capacity of divination by pebbles. Poetic self-commentary, like Hermes' lyre, contains both hermeneutic and lyric dimensions. The authors of poetic self-commentary also seem to take on decidedly hermetic traits. The symbolic form of their poetic visions suggests that they are both inventors of their own music and carriers of messages and secrets. Poetic self-commentators are ostensi- bly guides, but will show themselves to be players as well. They are boundary crossers, violating the established poetic notions of genre and the role of the commentator. Each of the six authors treated in this study deliberately goes beyond the boundary of his role as poet to explore new expressive potentials at the liminal spaces of his text. A number of these poetic self-commentators - especially Dante, Giordano Bruno, and Tommaso Campanella - also recognize a vatic (a divinatory or poetic-prophetic) motivation for their work. To study the poetic self-commentator, as I hope to show, is to face a Hermes-like figure of complexity and paradox. Perhaps most importantly, the study of self-commentary draws attention to an understanding of works that somehow precede or wilfully oppose an Apollonian rationality. The present book departs in important ways from the doctoral disser- tation (Yale University, 1999) on which it is based. My understanding of self-commentary has evolved through a struggle to understand the self vis-a-vis literature over time. Poetic self-commentary also unites in a personal and efficacious way my profound interests in the prox- imity of poetry and hermeneutics, the expression of spiritual con- version, the open forms of literary and philosophical texts, and the understanding of prescriptive versus Socratic or other dialogic approaches to pedagogy. My heartfelt thanks go to my doctoral dissertation adviser Giuseppe Mazzotta, and thoughtful readers Paolo Valesio, Ernesto Livorni, and Preface ix Deanna Shemek. I benefited greatly from the weekly encounters with the members of Yale University's Whitney Humanities Center, 1997-8. Other colleagues at Yale provided provocative and useful feedback. I am most grateful to Thomas Greene and Olivia Holmes. At the Pennsylvania State University I have enjoyed the generous advice of colleagues Alan R. Perry, Beno Weiss, Terry Peavler, Robert Edwards, Caroline Eckhardt, John Buck, Michael Wolfe, Marica Tacconi, Djelal Kadir, Kit Hume, and John Lipski. Olga Zorzi Pugliese at the University of Toronto also provided much appreciated guidance. It has been a pleasure working with the ever-insightful and com- mendably efficient Toronto Italian Studies series editor Ron Schoeffel. I also thank Allyson N. May and the University of Toronto Press's anonymous readers for the time they took in offering useful, construc- tive criticism. Finally, I am grateful for the financial support of Richard J. Franke, the Giles Whiting Foundation, the Beinecke Rare Books and Manu- scripts Library, the John Perry Miller Research Fund, and the Folger Institute/Folger Shakespeare Library. Pictured on the book jacket is the 'Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror' (c. 1524) by Parmigianino (1503-1540). I thank the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, for permission to use it.
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