(Re)visiting "Délie": Maurice Scève and Marian Poetry

This study proposes a new reading of "Délie" and tries to shed a new light on the poet himself. Scève appears here not only as the humanist we all know, but as a Christian poet, a poet as much interested in biblical and other religious sources as in Classical and Italian ones. In his "...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Renaissance quarterly 2001-09, Vol.54 (3), p.685-739
Main Author: Defaux, Gérard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bible
Christian literature
Christianity
Criticism and interpretation
Divinity
European literature
European poetry
Humanism
Humanism in literature
Literary criticism
Love
Love poetry
Odors
Poetry
Religion and poetry
Religious poetry
Renaissance literature
Renaissance poetry
Renaissance, 1450-1600
Sceve, Maurice (1510-64)
Spiritual love
Unicorns
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Summary:This study proposes a new reading of "Délie" and tries to shed a new light on the poet himself. Scève appears here not only as the humanist we all know, but as a Christian poet, a poet as much interested in biblical and other religious sources as in Classical and Italian ones. In his "canzoniere," Scève follows very closely, and even sometimes imitates, a corpus of fixed-form poems -- "rondeaux parfaits, ballades," and "chants royaux" -- written by poets of the two previous generations for poetic contests known as "Puys." And he constantly expresses his love and describes his idol in terms, images, and symbols directly borrowed from Marian poetry. To the Christian cult of the Virgin Mary corresponds for the Lover the pagan cult of Délie.
ISSN:0034-4338
1935-0236
DOI:10.2307/1261922