The Petrarchian lyrical imperative: An anthropology of the sonnet in Renaissance France, 1536--1552.

摘要

In an effort to "rehabilitate Lyric Studies" as suggested by Jonathan Culler in his January 2008 PMLA article "Why Lyric?", this dissertation seeks to explain the near-universal appeal of the constrained, fourteen-verse sonnet form since it was codified by Petrarch seven centuries ago in trecento Italy. Exploring the evolution of the structure and thematics of the verse form, while tracing its historical progression from its Sicilian origins under Giacomo da Lentini through Petrarch and into Renaissance France, my research proposes an anthropological model to explain the supremacy of the sonnet as the ideal lyrical form. Tapping into a tradition that seeks to understand literary genres in terms of the human (i.e. Andrew Lang, Edward B. Tylor, Sir James Frazer, Edith Hamilton, Northrop Frye, Eric Gans, and, most recently, Jonathan Culler) and considering various arts poetiques that seek to theorize the rhetorical functions of lyrical forms, I argue that the predominance of the sonnet can be understood in terms of the inter-relations between human desire, language and the sacred to which it is germane. More succinctly, the sonnet's ideal lyricism derives from: (1) its parsimonious and ritualistically-repeatable form; (2) its unique tension between symmetry and discontinuity, perpetual deferral and violent rupture; (3) its syllogistic validity; and, perhaps most importantly, (4) the fact that it functions linguistically in the imperative mode---recreating the fundamental speech act from which lyrical poetry emerges. In fact, the dissertation's title, The Petrarchian Lyrical Imperative, is multifaceted, referring both to an enduring esthetic compulsion---of imitating Petrarch---that transcends literary movements and historical periods as well as the subjective position of the lyrical poet, addressing a desired, but perpetually absent and ultimately unattainable, object. Testing this anthropological model against the sonnets of the first vogue of the form in Renaissance France, 1536-1552 (those of Marot, Saint-Gelais, Tyard, Ronsard, Baif, etc.), my analysis reveals an evolution in the French sonnet that allows me to divide its earliest manifestations into three separate---sociologically-determined---typologies, prior to suggesting further fields of study in the post-1552 avatars of the verse form in France.