4 - Correspondence Lyric

Summary

Abstract

Correspondence verse was part of a broader vogue in Renaissance Italian literature of using contemporary, identifiable speakers. In contrast to the standard vagueness surrounding the identity of the beloved in amorous lyric, correspondence verse was often printed with the full names of both poetic participants. These poems are artistically mediated portrayals of speech, to be sure. Even so, these publicly circulated documents tell us how actual men and women imagined speaking in a variety of relationships— courtships, friendships, mentorships—highlighting Petrarchism's capacity as a socially embedded practice. This chapter also demonstrates how attention to book history suggests an alternate gendered genealogy for the subgenre of correspondence verse, where women played a more significant role than has been previously recognized.

Keywords: Pietro Bembo; Vittoria Colonna; lyric anthology; Tullia d’Aragona; Benedetto Varchi; Celio Magno

I could be happy and content with you in the lowest, darkest part of Styx … Sailing those waves would be little to you, to free me from pain and torment.

‒ Orsatto Giustinian to Celio Magno

The Canzoniere that Petrarch left behind after his death in 1374 can appear manifestly unsocial. This is especially true when considered beside the great range of correspondence verse that littered the poetic landscape in the Italian Middle Ages. The last chapter mentioned the influence of medieval contrasti and tenzoni fittizie, such as those found in the thirteenth-century manuscript Vaticano Latino 3793. One might also call to mind something like Dante's famous tenzone with Forese Donati, and the former's jabs about the latter's impotence; or Dante's circulation of a poem about dreaming of his lady in Love's arms, and the memorable reply from Dante da Maiano that he should wash his testicles in cold water. Beside such examples of poetic thrust and parry, Petrarch—so great a fan of reclusion that he authored an entire treatise on the virtues of the solitary life—seems to stand apart, the author of a volume of lyric about a man chasing the ghost of a girl through the woods solus.

And yet, despite first impressions and Petrarch's best, loneliest intentions, there is much that relates to the collective in his verse. The first line of the proemial sonnet famously posits an audience, addressing readers directly in the second person plural: “You who listen in scattered rhymes” (Voi ch’ ascoltate in rime sparse).