Preface

Summary

My largely phenomenological approach to poetry and paradise as presented in this book has been molded, on the one hand, by an epistemological tradition concerned with the problem of expressing the ineffable in literature, a tradition to which, I believe, Maurice Scève rightfully belongs and that includes Aquinas, Artaud, Augustine, Baudelaire, Blake, Boccaccio, Dante, Donne, Flaubert, Mallarmé, Pascal, Petrarch, Plotinus, Proust, Shakespeare, Speroni, Valéry, as well as other writers; and, on the other hand, by a long tradition in critical reading which attempts to come to terms with the ineffable in literature and that includes, among others, such diverse critics as Yvonne Bellenger, Maud Bodkin, Wolfgang Iser, Julia Kristeva, and Philip Wheelwright. It is a pleasure to acknowledge my special debt not only to the above writers and critics but also to many others in this distinguished tradition as invaluable guides in my own pursuit of an ineffable meaning in Scève's poetic love masterpiece. These authors and critics will receive fuller mention in the pages that follow.

This book also owes much to the advice and encouragement of friends and colleagues. Most notably, I wish to thank Professor Donald Stone, Jr., Harvard University, and Professor John R. Williams, University of New Orleans, who took of their own time to read the text of this study at an early stage and to offer me many sound and helpful suggestions, and Professor Hope H. Glidden, Tulane University, who read the Epilogue.