Maurice Sceve Poet of Love
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reprint, 6/24/2010
EAN 9780521154727, ISBN10: 0521154723
Paperback, 218 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm
Language: English
A study of Maurice Scève's sequence of love poems, the Délie - the first French canzoniere. There are two main themes: Scève's rendering of the intensity and complexity of the human experience of love, and secondly, his exploitation of the European tradition of love poetry. Dr Coleman tackles broad issues concerning appreciation of poetry, and more particularly, difficult poetry. Comparing individual poems by Horace, Scève and Mallarmé, she pinpoints the task of a serious reader: to experience sensitively and intellectually human emotions couched in artistic form. The book does not offer doctrines about Scève's love. instead, it looks at the contextual linguistic formulae which create love within the poems themselves: the allusiveness, the intellectual rigour, the tautness, the juxtaposition of words, combine with the voluptuousness and simplicity of the images, rhythm and sound, to make out of the poems a timeless an intensely personal experience.
Preface
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. 'Innamoramento'
3. Tradition
4. Scève
composer of 'imprese amorose'
5. Précieux poet
6. Oblique art
7. Thematic structure
8. Passion and linguistic control
9. 'Simple' themes
10. Nature and solitude
Bibliography
Index.