This other eden: The poetics of space in Horace and Bernart de Ventadorn

See E. R. Curtius,European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. Trask (New York, 1953), ch. 10. Medieval contributions to the development of the topos are mentioned, but only marginally.Google Scholar

See D. W. Robertson, Jr., “The Doctrine of Charity in Mediaeval Literary Gardens”,Speculum 26 (1951), 24–49.Google Scholar

H. Levin,The Myth of the Golden Age in the Renaissance (Bloomington and London, 1969), p. 34.Google Scholar

While it is uncertain that golden ages return, there was some optimism in ancient fatalism. See B. L. van der Waerden, “Das grosse Jahr und der ewige Wiederkehr”,Hermes 80 (1952), 129–55.Google Scholar

Ovid,Metamorphoseon, ed. B. A. van Proosdij, (Leiden, 1959), I. 107–12.Google Scholar

For the “ideal at the centre” of Greek life, one might adduce W. Jaeger's discussion of paradeigma inPaideia: the Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. G. Highet, 2nd ed. (New York, 1945), I. 34et passim.Google Scholar

Dante,Purgatorio, xxviii. 139–45,La Commedia, ed. G. Petrocchi, 4 vols. (Verona, 1966–67) vol. 3.Google Scholar

It should be noted that I have chosen Horace as representative of antiquity, and not one of the Roman elegists, because I prefer not to confuse what is already complex enough by an exclusive examination of attitudes on love. I share, in fact, Payen's view that the Lady in medieval lyric is “à la fois une personne et un prétexte”, and would say that Love has the same double function with regard to the song—see “L'Espace et le temps de la chanson courtoise occitane”,Annales de l'institut d'études occitanes, II, no. 5, série 4 (1970), 156. In any case, love as evinced by the troubadour song does not avail itself of analysis through modern psycho-critical investigation, as H. W. Nordmeyer has noted in “Minnesangforschung und Psychologie”,Monatshefte für den deutschen Unterricht, 34 (1942), 274–79.Amor, in fact, poses the same kind of connotative problems asraison does for students of neo-classicism. Love finally, was for the middle ages as much a matter of sentiment as a problem of time and its spatialization; and, as H. Musurillo has recently demonstrated, time is the informing motif of the poetry of Tibullus. See “The Theme of Time as a Poetic Device in the Elegies of Tibullus”TAPA, 98 (1967), 253–68.Google Scholar

All quotations are from Horace,Opera, ed. H. W. Garrod (Oxford 1900).Google Scholar

See “Zwarte lente” inVoorbij de laatste Stad, ed. Paul Rodenko, (The Hague, 1962), p. 52.Google Scholar

T. Boman,Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, trans. J. L. Moreau (New York, 1970), pp. 123–28.Google Scholar

Aristotle,Physica IV. 220a.Google Scholar

Boman, p. 125.Google Scholar

Physica IV. 222b.Google Scholar

Physica IV. 221a-b.Google Scholar

Physica IV. 223b. Cp. O. Lechner,Idee und Zeit in der Metaphysik Augustins (München, 1964), p. 122.Google Scholar

SeeDe Civitate Dei XII. 14. An example of Horatian complacency may be found in Odes I. 7. 25–32.Google Scholar

Boman, p. 128.Google Scholar

See J.-M. André,L'Otium dans la vie morale et intellectuelle romaine (Paris, 1966), pp. 454–99.Google Scholar

André, p. 461.Google Scholar

Lucretius,De Rerum natura, ed. C. Bailey, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1922) II. 5–10.Google Scholar

Cp. Odes I, 28. 15–16.Google Scholar

Cp. Lucretius, II. 29–33.Google Scholar

Cp. Odes IV. 9.Google Scholar

André, p. 468ff.Google Scholar

S. Commager,The Odes of Horace (New Haven and London, 1962), p. 262.Google Scholar

All quotations are from Bernart de Ventadorn,Seine Lieder, ed. Carl Appel (Halle, 1915). Cp. 28. 33–40; 40. 57–64; 42. 18.Google Scholar

I agree with Moshé Lazar for whom Bernart is at once a rich storehouse of Provençal motifs as well as one of the summits of medieval lyric. See “Classification des thèmes amoureux et des images poétiques dans l'œuvre de Bernart de Ventadorn”,FR, 6 (1959), 371–74.Google Scholar

F. Goldin,The Mirror of Narcissus (Ithaca, 1967), pp. 97–98.Google Scholar

I see no basis in the poem for Goldin's otherwise probably correct comments that the images in the mirror are “forms that pass incessantly” (p. 98).Google Scholar

Guillaume de Lorris,Roman de la rose, ed. F. Lecoy (Paris, 1965), I. 565.Google Scholar

The Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn, eds. S. G. Nichols, Jr. and J. A. Galm, rev. ed. (Chapel Hill, 1965), p. 18. Cp. P. Zumthor, “De la circularité du chant”,Poétique 1 (1970), 139.Google Scholar

See the whole discussion, Nichols, pp. 18–21.Google Scholar

Zumthor, p. 129.Google Scholar

Cp. Zumthor, p. 137.Google Scholar

Cp. Nichols onCanso 9, pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

E. Köhler, “Der Frauendienst der Trobadors, dargestellt in ihren Streitgedichten”,GRM, 41 (1960), 201 ff., repr. inTrobadorlyrik und höfischer Roman (Berlin, 1962), p. 95.Google Scholar

As a supplement to X. von Ertzdorff's penetrating article, it might be remarked that the natural position of “das sprechende Ich” isbocha. See “Das Ich in der höfischen Liebeslyrik des 12 Jahrhunderts”,Archiv, 197 (1960–61), 1–23.Google Scholar

For representative examples, seePoeti del dolce stil nuovo, ed. M. Marti (Firenze, 1967),Canzoni vi, xiii, xxxi.Google Scholar

A comic aspect of the evolution may be traced inFlamenca reproduced by R. Lavard and R. Nelli,Les Troubadours: Jaufre, Flamenca, Barlaam et Josaphat (Brussels, 1960) based on the second edition of the text by Paul Meyer,Le roman de Flamence (Paris, 1901), 4369–4462. On Daniel, see L. Pollmann, “Arnaut Daniel und die Entdeckung des Raumes”,GRM, 15 (1965), 2–14. It should be noted, of course, that my concept of space derives from its use as a function of time, while Pollmann's is more plastic.Google Scholar

N. De Paepe, “Over the Wezen van de Troubadoursminne”,Spiegel der Letteren, 7 (1963–64), 34. Cp. L. Spitzer,L'Amour lontain de Jaufré Rudel et le sens de la poésie des troubadours (North Carolina Studies, 1944), H. Kolb,Der Begriff der Minne (Tübingen, 1958), pp. 110–27; Goldin, pp. 207–58.Google Scholar

Cp. O. Cullmann,Christ and Time, trans. F. V. Filson (London, 1951), p. 53.Google Scholar

Confessions XI, 29, 39. Cp. Lechner,Idee und Zeit, pp. 136–40.Google Scholar

J. Guitton,Le Temps et l'éternité chez Plotin et Saint Augustin (Paris, 1955), p. 235.Google Scholar

Cp. J. Chaix-Ruy,Saint Augustin: temps et histoire (Paris, 1956), p. 50.Google Scholar

John Milton,Paradise Lost IX. 69ff.Google Scholar

Milton, IX. 1000–10.Google Scholar

Boman, p. 139. Cp. Cullmann, p. 52.Google Scholar

E. Panofsky.Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (Stockholm, 1960), p. 113.Google Scholar