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THE POETRY OF THE POETRIA NOVA: THE NUBES SERENA AND PEREGRINATIO OF METAPHOR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2017
Abstract
Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Poetria nova must be studied as a poem in its own right as thoroughly as it has been studied as a technical rhetorical treatise; although many scholars have acknowledged the brilliance of his style, few analyses thereof exist. This imbalance in criticism limits our understanding of his ideas and the appeal they held for medieval poets. This study, therefore, focuses on two images in the section on ornatus graves, or weighty ornamentation, the category of figures defined by its reliance on transumptio. In describing its moving effects, Geoffrey uses the imagery of a pilgrimage (peregrinatio) and of a “clear cloud” (nubes serena). Both help him explain how transumptive language at first displaces or hides meaning beneath something that is deceptively ordinary. When that meaning becomes clear to the reader, however, the recognition can be delightful, intoxicating, or even wondrously transporting. The images are not original to Geoffrey, nor are they drawn from the discourse of formal rhetoric. Rather, peregrinatio and the nubes serena have a rich history in liturgical drama, biblical commentary, and iconography where they signify a kind of spiritual transport remarkably similar to Geoffrey's conception of transumptio in terms of process and quality. Thus, the Poetria nova leverages the spiritual significance of the images to make a decisively literary point about the wondrous power of subtle, transumptive language. Only by recognizing the resonance of these images can we fully appreciate just how highly Geoffrey values transumptio. Approaching the Poetria nova with a poet's eye expands the range and scope of likely influences on the treatise and, more importantly, deepens our appreciation for his remarkable commitment as a poet to the affective potential of transumptive language.
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References
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18 Lewis and Short, eds., A Latin Dictionary, s.v. “peregrinor” (v.) and “peregrinus” (adj.). On “verba peregrina” in classical rhetoric, see Lausberg, Heinrich, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study (Leiden, 1998), §477CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Quintilian, The Institutio oratoria of Quintilian , trans. Butler, H. E. (Cambridge, MA, 1980), 1.5.3 and 1.55.5–7Google Scholar. The general idea that metaphoric language has the ability to make us see something familiar in a new and fresh way is at least as old as Aristotle: “Such variation from what is usual makes the language appear more stately. People do not feel towards strangers as they do towards their own countrymen, and the same thing is true of their feeling for language. It is therefore well to give to everyday speech an unfamiliar air: people like what strikes them, and are struck by what is out of the way… . Metaphors, like epithets, must be fitting, which means that they must fairly correspond to the thing signified: failing this, their inappropriateness will be conspicuous.” Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. Roberts, W. Rhys (New York, 1954), 3.2Google Scholar (1404b in the Bekker indexing). On the more general alienus quality of metaphor in classical rhetoric, see Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 8.6.5 and 8.6.18; and Cicero, De oratore , ed. Sutton, E. W. and Rackham, H. (Cambridge, MA, 1948), 3.37.149Google Scholar. See also Krewitt, Metapher, 325.
19 Both DuCange and Niermeyer cite pilgrimage as an important and common definition of peregrinatio, and the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources documents its use in that sense as early as ad 692. Niermeyer, J. F., ed., Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden, 1976)Google Scholar, s.v. “peregrinatio” (n.) and “peregrinus” (adj.). Latham, R. E., Howlett, D. R., and Ashdowne, R. K., eds., Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (London, 1975–2013)Google Scholar, s.v. “peregrinus” (adj.).
20 Tilliette, Des mots à parole, 123.
21 Nims, Margaret F., “Translatio: ‘Difficult Statement’ in Medieval Poetic Theory,” University of Toronto Quarterly 43 (1974): 215–30, at 221–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 Lille, Alan of, “Rithmus de Incarnatione Domini,” in Literary Works of Alan of Lille, trans. Wetherbee, Winthrop (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 535–41Google Scholar. For more information on the manuscripts, see d'Alverny, Marie-Thérèse, “Alain de Lille et la ‘Theologia,’” in L'homme devant Dieu: Mélanges offerts au père Henri de Lubac (Paris, 1964), 111–28Google Scholar; D'Alverny, Alain de Lille: Textes inédites, avec une introduction sur sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1965), 37–51 Google Scholar. The text of the poem is also printed in Analecta hymnica medii aevi 20.9 (1895): 42 Google Scholar. The text in PL 210:577–80 is not reliable.
23 The verb “transeo” was also used to describe the process of transubstantiation, as was transumptio. Boncompagno da Signa, one of the preeminent teachers of the ars dictaminis in Bologna and Padua, states in his Rhetorica novissima that “per occultam similitudinem transumpsit Dominus panem in corpus suum” (in a concealed likeness God transsumes bread into his body). Boncompagni Rhetorica novissima, in Scripta anecdota antiquissimorum glossatorum, vol. 3, ed. Gaudentius, Augustus (Bologna, 1892)Google Scholar; cited in Krewitt, Metapher, 252.
24 Alan of Lille, Distinctiones, PL 210:687. Shortly thereafter, Alan also uses the term more literally to mean “departure” in the sense it sometimes had in grammar in relation to barbarisms and solecisms.
25 Lille, Alan of, Anticlaudianus, in Literary Works of Alan of Lille, trans. Wetherbee (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 219–517, at 3.2.153–56Google Scholar.
26 Lille, Alan of, Anticlaudianus, trans. Sheridan, James J. (Toronto, 1973), 97 n. 28Google Scholar. Sheridan also provides a side-by-side comparison of key passages from the Anticlaudianus with Peter of Compostella in an appendix. For the full text of the De consolatione rationis, see Soto, P. B., “Petri Compostellani de Consolatione Rationis Libri Duo,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 8 (1912): 61–151 Google Scholar. Wetherbee includes no note on these lines.
27 See n. 18 above.
28 Augustine, De doctrina christiana , CCL 32 (Turnholt, 1962), 1.36.41Google Scholar. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine , trans. Robertson, D.W. (Indianapolis, 1958)Google Scholar.
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30 Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarvm sive originum libri XX , ed. Lindsay, W. M. (Oxford, 1911), 1.3.3Google Scholar.
31 PL 101:855.
32 Reading l. 1070 as “Remque tuis” rather than “Rem citius.”
33 The imagery of lock and key is fairly common in medieval literary exposition, for example, in the accessus ad auctores. It featured prominently in the language of one vein of the tenso genre of troubadour poetry, between trobar clus, mastered and espoused by poets like Marcabru, Raimbaut d'Aurenga, and Arnaut Daniel and trobar leu, practiced famously by Bernart de Ventadorn. See, for example, Guillaume IX's “Farai un vers de dreit nien,” sometimes called “La contraclau,” (published online March 2016), accessed 1 May 2016, http://www.trobar.org/troubadours/coms_de_peiteu/guilhen_de_peiteu_04.php.
34 According to Krewitt, Geoffrey owes to Quintilian the idea that the structure of a comparison is metaphoric. Krewitt, Metapher (n. 17 above), 328.
35 For these lines, I have borrowed parts of Margaret F. Nims's translation: “This type of comparison is more artistic; its use is much more distinguished.” Nims, Poetria Nova (n. 1 above), 27.
36 The narrative is also recounted in Mark 16:12–13, but in much reduced form. All quotations are from the Vulgate: Gryson, Roger and Weber, Robert, eds., Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, 5th ed. (Stuttgart, 2007)Google Scholar. All translations are from the Doaui-Rheims. The standard introduction to liturgical drama is still O. B. Hardison's work, which corrected some of the historically unjustified evaluations Karl Young made of the quality of such drama: Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama (Baltimore, 1965)Google Scholar. Young's work is still valuable for the texts of the dramas. All versions of the Officium peregrinorum discussed in this essay are found in Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church , 2 vols. (Oxford, 1933)Google Scholar.
37 For recent works that examine the Officium peregrinorum beyond its strictly historical and liturgical qualities, see Iversen, Gunilla and Bell, Nicolas, eds., Sapientia et Eloquentia: Meaning and Function in Liturgical Poetry, Music, Drama, and Biblical Commentary in the Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loewen, Peter V. and Waugh, Robin, “Mary Magdalene Preaches through Song: Feminine Expression in the Shrewsbury ‘Officium Resurrectionis’ and in Easter Dramas from the German Lands and Bohemia,” Speculum 82 (2007): 595–641 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although Dee Dyas does not address the drama specifically, her work adroitly tackles several oversimplifications in how modern scholarship has approached the concept of pilgrimage in literature: Dyas, Pilgrimage in Medieval English Literature, 700–1500 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001)Google Scholar. For more general commentary see Holloway, Julia Bolton, The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland, and Chaucer (New York, 1987)Google Scholar. See also Gardiner, F. C., The Pilgrimage of Desire: A Study of Theme and Genre in Medieval Literature (Leiden, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (noted below). Gardiner's is still the fullest and most historically grounded treatment of pilgrimage as a literary theme. He situates the theme in the commentary of Gregory the Great rather than in the liturgy itself; whereas Augustine read the disciples’ doubt as a failure of faith, Gregory saw a love strong enough to endure doubt. This more positive approach proved longer lasting in the Middle Ages according to Gardiner.
38 “Cleophas et quidam alius, induti byrris et sclauinis cum burdonibus ad modum Peregrinorum. … Et tunc associat se eis ipse Christus cum sclauina, burdone, et barisello uini ad modum Peregrini.” Padua, Bibl. Capit., S, Ordin. Patavinense saec. xiii, fols. 103r–104r. Young, Drama, 481–82.
39 Orleans, Bibl. de la Ville, 201. Young, Drama, 470–76. For the text set with its music, see de Coussemaker, Charles Edmond Henri, ed., Drames liturgiques du moyen âge (texte et musique) (New York, 1964)Google Scholar.
40 The instructions in full read, “Ad faciendam similitudinem Dominice Apparicionis in specie Peregrini, que fit in tercia feria Pasce ad Vesperas, procedant duo a competenti loco, uestiti tunicis solummodo et cappis, capuciis absconsis ad modum clamidis, pilleos in capitibus habentes et baculos in manibus ferentes, et cantent modica uoce, Jesu nostra redemptio …” Young, Drama, 471.
41 Paris, BN, Nouvelles Acquisitions, lat. 1064, fols. 8r–11v. Young, Drama, 466–70.
42 Young, Drama, 473.
43 Alan of Lille, Distinctiones, PL 210:876. Cf. Ps. 18.12: “Et posuit tenebras latibulum suum; in circuitu ejus tabernaculum ejus, tenebrosa aqua in nubibus aëris” (Shrouded in darkness, canopied with black rainstorm and deep mist).
44 Ps.-Rabanus Maurus, Allegoriae in universam Sacram Scripturam, PL 112:1008.
45 de Sancto Caro, Hugo, Opera omnia in universum Vetus et Novum Testamentum, Tomi Octo (Venice, 1732)Google Scholar: tom. 7, p. 97, col. 4. Cited hereafter parenthetically by reference to volume, page, and column.
46 Recounted in Matt. 17:1–9, Mark 9:1–7, and Luke 9:28–36.
47 Milan, Ambrose of, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, Fragmenta in Esaiam, ed. Adriaen, M. and Ballerini, P. A., CCL 14 (Turnhout, 1957), 7.20Google Scholar. Commentary on the Transfiguration is concentrated in 7.6–21. Cited hereafter parenthetically in-text.
48 Mâle, Émile, Religious Art in France, the Twelfth Century: A Study of the Origins of Medieval Iconography (Princeton, 1978): 125 Google Scholar. Schiller, Gertrud, Iconography of Christian Art, trans. Seligman, Janet, 2 vols. (London, 1971–72), 1.145–52Google Scholar.
49 The idea that the index finger pointing to the unfurled scroll signifies a speech act in image form is the contribution of both Jesse M. Gellrich and Michael Camille.
50 Matt. 17:4, Mark 9:4, Luke 9:33. Many other depictions of the Transfiguration give Peter a scroll with that verse. See Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, 1.150.
51 Berchorius, Petrus, Dictionarium seu repertorium morale (Venice, 1583): 586–88Google Scholar (s.v. “nubes”). I have silently expanded the abbreviations printed in the text.
52 Translation of Isa. 45:15 from the Douai-Rheims.
53 Reading transfiguratio as concealment is also attested outside of writings on the Transfiguration. Under transfigurare, DuCange offers, “Transfiguratus in vestimentis” (changed or transformed in garments) and defines it as “aliena veste indutus” (having put on foreign or strange clothing), glossed in French as “deguisé” (disguised). Interestingly, for this sense of transfigurare, DuCange cites the Chronica of Rolandino da Padova (1200–1276) who studied under Boncompagno da Signa, a famous instructor of the ars dictaminis.
54 “Significatur mystice, quia Christus fuit in lege, et Prophetis tamquam caput legis, et Prophetarum, et in ipso Christo consummantur, et sic a Christo incipiunt, et in Christo definunt.”
55 Aquinas, Catena in Matthaeum, 17.1–2. For the Latin text of the Catena aurea on all four gospels, I have used S. Thomae Aquinatis doctoris angelici catena aurea in quatuor evangelica , ed. Guarienti, Angelico, 2 vols. (Turin, 1953)Google Scholar. Translations of the Catena in Matthaeum are from Catena aurea, trans. Parker, John Henry (London, 1841–45)Google Scholar.
56 Aquinas, Catena in Matthaeum, 17.1.
57 Ibid., 17.2.
58 Ibid.
59 Bersuire, Repertorium morale, s.v. ‘nubes.’
60 “Et audientes discipuli ceciderunt in faciem suam, et timuerunt valde” (Matt. 17:6) (The disciples, when they heard it, fell on their faces, overcome with fear).
61 Aquinas, Catena in Matthaeum, 17.1.
62 Aquinas, Catena in Marcum, 9.1. Translations from the Catena in Marcum are from Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the Works of the Fathers , trans. Newman, John Henry, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1841; repr., Southampton, 1997)Google Scholar.
63 On Mark, see Hugh of St. Cher, Opera omnia, tom. 6, p. 104, col. 2; on Luke, see tom. 6, p. 186, col. 3.
64 It is difficult to reproduce in English the effect of Ambrose's diction in this passage. The best word for delectus, “delight,” is simply not strong enough. Like illicere and illecebrosus, it frequently has negative connotations. What Ambrose succinctly conveys is that Peter is “seduced” by this vision rather than by worldly things.
65 Aquinas, Catena in Marcum, 9.1.
66 Aquinas, Catena in Mattaeum, 17.1.