Au Fleuve De Loire’
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ABSTRACT ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN JOACHIM DU BELLAY’S DIVERS JEUX RUSTIQUES AND ‘AU FLEUVE DE LOIRE’ by Masnoon Majeed This thesis, written in English, aims to demonstrate that many of Joachim du Bellay’s poems in Divers jeux rustiques and Vers Lyriques disclose a conscious way of perceiving the environment. A detailed analysis of ‘D’un vanneur de blé aux vents’ reveals how the poem questions the privileging of humans in their relationship with the environment by dismantling the environment-human binary. I examine the symbolism of Roman mythology in ‘À Cérès, À Bacchus et À Pales’ and ‘D’un berger à Pan’ in order to explain how this symbolism represents the dependency of humans on their environment and creates the possibility of converting arduous rural chores into meaningful and pleasurable activities. Lastly, I explain how the poem ‘Au Fleuve de Loire’ can be read as a cartographic poem that highlights the economic, literary, and environmental importance of the Loire river. I conclude that these poems exemplify a consciousness that rejoices, reinforces, and recognizes the role of the environment in the lives of its inhabitants. ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN JOACHIM DU BELLAY’S DIVERS JEUX RUSTIQUES AND ‘AU FLEUVE DE LOIRE’ A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Masnoon Majeed Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2018 Advisor: Dr. Elisabeth Hodges Reader: Dr. Jeremie Korta Reader: Dr. Anna Klosowska ©2018 Masnoon Majeed This Thesis titled ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN JOACHIM DU BELLAY’S DIVERS JEUX RUSTIQUES AND ‘AU FLEUVE DE LOIRE’ by Masnoon Majeed has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Science and Department of French and Italian ________________________________________________________ Dr. Elisabeth Hodges ________________________________________________________ Dr. Jeremie Korta ________________________________________________________ Dr. Anna Klosowska Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: Jeu of the Winnower 7 Chapter Two: Jeu of the Mythology 17 Chapter Three: Jeu of the River 26 Conclusion 38 Works Cited 41 iii To my family iv Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Elisabeth Hodges. With her support, encouragement, challenging, and guidance, I was able to grow as a writer and develop my thinking in ways that will carry on with me beyond my graduate years at Miami University. I would like to thank Dr. Anna Klosowska and Dr. Jeremie Korta for their encouragement, constructive comments, and suggestions to improve my thesis. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Jonathan Strauss for helping me find my literary voice and Michel Pactat for helping me learn and grow as a teacher. Also, I would like to thank my professors at University of Richmond for revealing to me the value of literature. I would like to recognize my friends in Irvin 001 for celebrating the good times, supporting me during tough times, and being there for everything in between. Finally, I would like to recognize that without the support of my brothers, Ahsan and Mustahsan, my parents, Asad and Nazli, my sisters, Madeeha and Wajeeha, and my soulmates, Chloe and Adam, this journey would have been impossible. v Introduction Joachim du Bellay, in his famous sonnet ‘Heureux qui comme Ulysse’, 1 which appears in his first major collection of poems, Les Regrets, juxtaposes his native Anjou with the grandeur of Rome (Œuvres complètes 506). Through this simple juxtaposition, the poet inverts perhaps one of the most nostalgic images in early modern Europe, the ruins of Rome, to create a positive image of his native Anjou, and highlight the beauty of the poet’s ‘petit village’.2 The small houses built by the poet’s ancestors, the fine slate, the Gallic Loir, the ‘little’ Liré and the mild climate of Anjou, all become more desirable to the poet than the Roman palaces, the hard marble, the Latin Tiber, the ‘mountain’ Palatine and the Mediterranean climate of Rome. The poet creates a diptych by separating the two separate spaces of Rome and Anjou, and then, in a stroke of perception, transfers the value from one space to another, from Rome to Anjou. This spatial substitution prompted me to ask the following questions: how are the topographical features of these two regions used to make an argument in favor of Anjou? What is the relationship between Rome and Anjou? What does the poet mean when he says, “mon loyre”? Thus, I decided to look further into du Bellay’s poetry to understand the complex relationship between the physical features of Anjou and his poetry. Joachim du Bellay was born in 1522 to Jean du Bellay and Renée Chabot in the Château de la Turmelière on the Loire river in the historic province of Anjou. Verdun-Louis Saulnier poignantly notes that, “c’est dans l’éclairage de la Loire, dans ce climat délicat, soleilleux, un peu mou, propre aux mélancolies sereines et charmantes, qu’il va vivre sa première vingtaine d’années.” (3) As a second son, he could not inherit land, and had to find other ways to sustain himself. Because of his “santé chétive” du Bellay could not be conscribed in the French military in all his thirty-eight years. (10) He studied law at the University of Poiters. Later, he studied the humanities under the tutorship of Jean Dorat, at the Collège of Coqueret along with other poets, including Pierre de Ronsard, all of whom became part of La Pléiade. Their collective goal in du 1An excellent sung version of the poem can be found on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzvQXT2DQ-0&t=2s 2 Ruins of Rome were a common motif in Renaissance Literature. For further details, see The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature by Andrew Hui 1 Bellay’s La Défense et illustration de la langue française (1549) was to be inspired by Classical models to improve the French language and letters to create a national style that would rival the great works of the past. Du Bellay wrote many collections of poems, including L’Olive and Vers lyriques in 1549, which demonstrated his commitment to the ideals championed in his literary manifesto, La Défense. In 1553, he secured a position as a secretary to his uncle Cardinal Jean du Bellay in Rome. There, he published other collections, including the well-known Les Regrets (1558), Les Antiquités de Rome (1558), and Divers jeux rustiques (1558). Du Bellay did not enjoy as much critical attention as other poets, like Ronsard, have received. Saulnier notes that du Bellay is one of those writers who “on l’explique volontiers dans les classes, si bien que le nom demeure illustre, mais la mémoire n’a guère retenu que le premier vers de deux ou trois morceaux.” (5) Nevertheless, after Henri Chamard’s intensive writing on du Bellay in the latter half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, du Bellay became one of the most studied poets of early modern France. One collection, Divers jeux rustiques, published in 1558, is relatively less famous and perhaps less appreciated by critics. Kathleen M. Hall and Margaret B. Wells tactfully summarize the reception of the collection in the following terms: “For Chamard it is ‘très inégale’ (21, II, p.211), for Dorothy Coleman ‘a patchy collection’ (9. p.74). Gaddoffre and Gray neglect it; for Saulnier, ‘ce recueil n’est qu’un beau sourire’ (4, Lxiii); and Du Bellay himself had offered it as merely ‘un entre-mez delectable.3” (79) Other critics have attempted to problematize such a reception by highlighting the richness of the collection. For instance, Louis Mackenzie, has offered a detailed analysis of the poem ‘D’un vanneur’ to highlight its meta-poetic richness.4 (133). Isabelle Fernbach’s excellent analysis of ‘Le Morteum’ elucidates a poetic theory of labor according to which one must work hard to become a good poet. (94) Through my own research and a careful reading of selected poems in Jeux, I realized that the poems could be read as an invitation to look at the landscape in a guided way.56 The poetry 3 The citations within the citation are quoted from Hall and Wells’s Du Bellay : poems. 4 Please note that I have referred two different scholars Louisa Mackenzie and Louis Mackenzie. Every time I mention the two scholars I use their full names, with one exception: I use the last name when I have mentioned the first name within the same paragraph. 5 From this point onwards, I will refer to the collection merely as Jeux. 6 Many of the poems in Jeux are ‘translations’. As Fernbach says in her book chapter ‘From Copy to Copia: Imitation and Authorship in Joachim du Bellay’s Divers Jeux Rustiques’ considering these translations significantly modify (including add liberally) and creatively interpret the original works, du Bellay’s poems deserve analysis in their own right rather than merely as translations (98). In this thesis, I concern myself with the poems themselves 2 has a deep and varied sensual dimension to it because the images presented can not only be conceptualized but they can also be touched, smelled, and felt, as if the reader was kinesthetically reading the poem. Through such imagination, the poet offers a way to make daily rural chores of life in 16th century Anjou possibly pleasurable. In these poems, the environment was not subservient to the inhabitants; instead, the poet places the inhabitants of Anjou in a position of dependence and awe regarding their surroundings. I was surprised by these findings, because the sixteenth century French poems that I studied seemed to embody a version of what we might call today, environmental consciousness.