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Chapter 1 Orpheus Nods: the Failure of Rhetoric in the Bucolicum Carmen

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Chapter 1 Orpheus Nods: the Failure of Rhetoric in the Bucolicum Carmen THE POET IN BABYLON: PETRARCH, DANTE, AND THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROPHETIC MODE A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Joel Salvatore Pastor May 2015 © 2015 Joel Salvatore Pastor THE POET IN BABYLON: PETRARCH, DANTE, AND THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROPHETIC MODE Joel Salvatore Pastor, Ph. D. Cornell University 2015 DISSERTATION ABSTRACT My research is designed to plumb a question crucial to our understanding of both Dante and Petrarch: do they write for heaven or for earth? Does their poetry operate, as holds the present scholarly consensus, within the confines of Ciceronian rhetorical norms, whether aimed at practical reform within the sphere of politics, or else, failing that, representing a withdrawal into wishful thinking or pessimistic introspection? How does their seeming interest in the renewal of the Roman Empire correlate with the otherwordly commitments of their Christian faith? It is my contention that the two elements are complementary rather than competitive: that both poets are able to maintain a vital interest and engagement with the world while at the same time recognizing the inevitable tragedy of human history; and that they do this by adopting the rhetorical stance of Jeremiah. If the moral suasion of Classical Humanist rhetoric must ultimately fail to save the world from its vices, to avoid despair requires a vision of the world redeemed. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Joel Salvatore Pastor was born in Oxford, Ohio, but grew up chiefly in Vermont. He first encountered Dante, quite by accident, whilst wandering the stacks of Bizzell Library at the University of Oklahoma, and soon thereafter found himself immersed in research in the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University. He lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife, Jennifer, and their three children: Francesca, Laura, and Elizabeth. iii For my parents, who reared me; for my daughters, who love me; for my wife, who continues to extend me grace. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The present work owes much to many, a debt that words cannot repay. Nevertheless, on the theory that insufficient thanks are superior to none, I express here my gratitude, in the first place, to Jason Houston of the University of Oklahoma. My first glimpses into the study of Italian literature came under his tutelage. I also thank Filippo Naitana, now of Quinnipac University, for taking an active interest in my undergraduate studies, and first introducing me to Singleton and Nardi. I am deeply obliged to my graduate committee chair at Cornell, Bill Kennedy. His courtesy and kindness have meant the world to me, and the completion of this dissertation, to say nothing of whatever virtues it may possess, I owe in great part to his probing questions, encouraging commentary, and indefatigable solicitude. My other committee members deserve no less thanks: John Najemy, for his splendid lectures on Renaissance Florence that fired the imagination and the intellect, and for the compliment of taking my arguments seriously; equally, for his very careful attention to this manuscript, which has saved me from countless infelicities. Likewise I thank Marilyn Migiel, among many other things, for her tremendous investment in my writing. Even now, nearly every sentence I compose has been read over, and doubtless much improved, by the skeptical voice of Marilyn inside my head. I thank all these for their assistance, to which so much of what is good herein is owed. I cheerfully retain title to the rest. It would be absurd to close these all-too-brief remarks without making mention of my family. I thank my children: Francesca, Laura, and Elizabeth, for their love v and liveliness, for balancing my academic life with such joyful abandon. More than any other, I return poor thanks here to my lovely bride, Jenny. Thank you for your forbearance, for your generosity with my time, for allowing me to go away and write; most of all, for your affectionate desire that I return. It is intimidating to touch the like of Dante and Petrarch with the blunt instrument of criticism, to drag to earth a poetry more suited to the stars. Yet in this one respect I fancy I can boast amid cotanto senno: they were both of them content to write about their ladies, those luminous beings partaking equally of earth and heaven, and in whose gaze resides an invitation to beatitude. Reader, I married mine. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch.......................................................................................................iii Dedication......................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................v Table of Contents..........................................................................................................vii Introduction.....................................................................................................................1 I. Orpheus Nods: The Failure of Rhetoric in the Bucolicum Carmen.........................12 II. Dante’s Commedia: From Ciceronian Rhetoric to Jeremiad..................................49 III. The World in the Dock: from Contemptus Mundi to Prophetic Engagement.....105 IV. From Exile to Triumph: Petrarch, Babylon, and Laura......................................133 Bibliography................................................................................................................188 vii INTRODUCTION That Dante and Petrarch wrote poetry is, I believe, a truth universally acknowledged. We are less sure as to why. The psychological aspect of the question is, of course, necessarily opaque to the methods of modern scholarship: whatever the proportions of self-regard, idealism, rage and hope that underlie the brilliant alloy of their verses, neither man is presently available for an interview. Yet take the question ideologically and we find ourselves before a vast field of critical engagement. Well before Petrarch’s death in 1374, the work of both poets was being interrogated with particular concern for its intended impact on the world; an intersection of politics and rhetoric that continues to provoke comment and critical reflection in our day. Yet despite its length and breadth, the field is remarkably monolithic in its output. With few exceptions, the respective authorial engagements of Dante and Petrarch with social and political affairs, together with the relationship between their two approaches, are questions that each admit but one response. The present study aims to cast fresh light upon them. The first difficulty arises with the framing of the question. To lump Dante and Petrarch together as a collective object of study is to violate a central tenet of the received wisdom of Trecento studies. Practically every scholar since Boccaccio has known, or at any rate suspected, that the only proper way to think about the two first Crowns of Florence is antithetically. Dante’s Muse is public, prophetic, Medieval, political, encyclopedic; Petrarch’s is private, spiritual, modern, introspective, fragmentary. Their very portraits say as much: Dante’s aquiline sobriety and piercing 1 gaze, his beard tinged black, as the elderly Veronese heard tell, with infernal fire, conveys a high severity of purpose. Petrarch, on the other hand, with cherub countenance and laurel crown, conveys little purpose at all. Here we trade in stereotypes; yet such perspectives are instructive. Turn from portraiture to politics, and a similar effect can be observed. With Dante, the relevant question is not whether but which: which political customs and values are meant to be encouraged and facilitated by his verse? Here there are a variety of answers: some call him a partisan of Empire,1 others a Republican of sorts,2 but nearly all agree that the poet of the Divina Commedia is first invested in the secular world, writing in Italian for the masses and intent on driving them with the goad of eloquence toward some definite, terrestrial conception of the Good. As for Petrarch, the opposite consensus holds: his are the poetics of the self. The wars and tumults of his age, it is generally conceded, largely caught his fancy as opportunities to explore his own fragmented subjectivity, or else increase his personal renown; ideally, he would do both at once. But the terms of his engagement were decidedly individualistic: he would labor to compose a fine moral epistle for a friend, but would just as soon prevent the ill-spoken hoi polloi from having anything to do with his poetic compositions. 1 e.g., Joan Ferrante, The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 2 Robert Hollander and Albert L. Rossi, “Dante’s Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 104 (1986), 59-82. Honess, Claire. From Florence to the Heavenly City: The Poetry of Citizenship in Dante. Oxford: Legenda, 2006. Neither Hollander and Rossi, nor Honess directly challenges the imperial emphasis found in Ferrante (and others). Both, however, lay additional emphasis on Dante’s interest on local civic virtues which assume a measure of republican independence. 2 In distinguishing between Dante and Petrarch on this basis, it is ironic that we apply a standard of rhetorical teleology which owes much of its popularity to Petrarch. It was he, in
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