University Microfilms International 300 N

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In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. University Microfilms International 300 N. ZEEB RD., ANN ARBOR, M! 48106 8121842 Ov e r a k e r , Le w is Ja m e s PRAYER, MEDITATION, AND THE FIGURE OF THE POET: ASPECTS OF SAINT-AMANT’S LYRICISM The Ohio Slate University Ph.D. 1981 University Microfilms International 300 X. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Copyright 1981 by Overaker, Lewis James All Rights Reserved PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V . 1. Glossy photographs or pages______ 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print_____ 3. Photographs with dark background_____ 4. Illustrations are poor copy______ 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy______ 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page______ 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages 8. Print exceeds margin requirements_____ 9. Tightly bound copy with print lost in spine______ 10. Computer printout pages with indistinct print_____ 11. Page(s)___________lacking when material received, and not available from school or author. 12. Page(s)___________seem to be missing in numbering only as text follows. 13. Two pages numbered___________. Textfollows. 14. Curling and wrinkled pages______ 15. Other____________________________.______________________________________ University Microfilms International PRAYER, MEDITATION, AND THE FIGURE OF THE POET: ASPECTS OF SAINT-AMANT'S LYRICISM DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Lewis J. Overaker, B.A., M.A. ********** The Ohio State University 1981 Reading Committee: Approved By Dr. Charles G. S. Williams Dr. Charles Carlut* Dr. Salvador Garcia Dr. Edward P. J. Corbett Adviser Department of Romance Languages ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge with grateful appreciation my friend and adviser, Dr. Charles G.S. Williams. I am indebted to him for his guidance, encouragement and inspiration in helping me to complete this dissertation. T will never forget his understanding and insight. I should like to thank, too, the Rev. Brinton W. Woodward, who, as Headmaster of Holderness School, provided interest in and financial support of m y owrk. Finally, T would like to extend to my parents an inadequate expression of appreciation for the emotional support they have provided at all times during the completion of this project. VITA September 12, 1942........... Born - Springfield, Illinois 1964......................... B.A. , MacMurray College Jacksonville, Illinois 1966......................... M.A., Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 1966-69...................... Instructor, Department of Romance Languages, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio 1969-72...................... Assistant Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illinois 1972-76...................... Instructor, Department of Romance Languages, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio 1976-present................. Instructor of French and Spanish, Holderness School, Plymouth, New Hampshire FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: French Literature Seventeenth Century. Dr. Charles G.S. Williams Eighteenth Century. Dr. Robert Mitchell Sixteenth Century. Dr. Robert Cottrell Nineteenth Century. Dr. Charles Carlut Twentieth Century. Dr. Pierre Astier Minor Field: Spanish Literature Eighteenth Century Theatre Nineteenth Cpntury Novel. Dr. Salvador Garcia Twentieth Century Poetry. Dr. John Bennett Table of Contents Page Acknowledgements ................................................. ii V i t a ............................................................ iii Table of C o n t e n t s ............................................... iv Introduction ..................................................... 1 Chapter 1 : Religious movements and their effect on literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ........... 12 Chapter 2: The poetry of meditation........................... 34 Chapter 3: The spirituality of Saint-Amant: The importance of his conversion................................... 60 Chapter 4: "Le Contemplateur": A poem structured on patterns of meditation..................................... 86 Chapter 5: The spirituality of Saint-Amant as revealed in the "Moyse sauve" ....................................... 120 Chapter 6: Expressions of faith in the Dernier Recueil: "Stances a Corneille sur son Imitation de Jesus-Christ," "La Genereuse," "Fragment d'une meditation sur le crucifix" . .............. 190 Conclusion....................................................... 225 Bibliography ..................................................... 239 iv Introduction The examination of that which may he labeled "spiritual" in both the life and work of an author is a task which should be undertaken only with great caution. To attempt to define and to analyze such an elusive and abstract concept can lead to conclusions which are, at best, imperfect. It is particularly challenging to try to establish the reputation of Saint-Amant as essentially a spiritual poet, for he wrote very few poems of religious inspiration. Only four of them, "Le Contemplateur," "Moyse Sauve," "Fragment d'une meditation sur le crucifix," and the "Poeme de Joseph," are purely religious. There are in "La Genereuse" and in "Stances a M. Corneille sur son Imitation de Jesus-Christ" important passages which deal with aspects of the Christian life. "Le Contemplateur" was written in 1628 and appeared in the 1629 edition of his Oeuvres. For two decades, however, the poet abandoned religious poetry per se and earned the reputa tion of a "libertin." The end of his career is marked, however, by a re ligious revival; "Moyse Sauve" appeared in 1653 and the other religious poems belong to the Dernier Recueil of 1658. The poems earn a certain significance because they stand at both the threshold and closing years of the poet's literary .career. It is only recently that critics of Saint-Amant have begun to free themselves from the interdiction of Boileau. Boileau's condemnation of Saint-Amant, in particular of his "Moyse sauve," effectively buried the reputation of the poet until the nineteenth century. His observations in "Reflexion VI," that "Ce Poete avoit assez de genie pour les ouvrages de debauche, et de Satire outree," but that "il gate tout par les basses cir- constances qu’il y mesle,"^ served for almost two centuries as the official 1 2 epitaph of the poet. References to the poet's drunkeness and poverty in the Historiettes of Tallemant de Reaux completed the picture of Saint- Amant as a "bon vivant" at best, but certainly as someone incapable of 2 revealing a deeply spiritual preoccupation in his work. Occasional praise for Saint-Amant's vivid imagination by such friends and contempor aries as Faret, Theophile de Viau, and Chapelain were gestures deemed primarily as acts of courtesy and were no match against the words of Boileau and Tallemant. The lack of serious interest in lyrical poetry in the eighteenth cen tury is reflected in the almost total absence of critical interest in Saint-Amant until the birth of Romanticism, which resulted in a redis covery of the poet and in some genuine acclaim. Chateaubriand, in his Genie du Christianisme (1802), was the first to attribute to certain •Z works of the poet sincere manifestations of a Christian spirit. Theophile Gautier, in his Grotesques (1834), saw in Saint-Amant a predecessor of the Romantic Movement and credited

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