Les theories de la "dispositio" et le Grand Oeuvre de Ronsard. (Reviews).

Claudine Jomphe, Les theories de la "dispositio" et le Grand Oeuvre de Ronsard.

The introduction to this work surveys critical opinions concerning La Franciade and suggests its dispositio has been neglected. Chapter 1 looks at ancient works on rhetoric, Chapter 2 at Renaissance arts poetiques, and Chapter 3 at La Franciade. There are three annexes. The dispositio of Claudine Jomphe's study itself is clearly delineated for the reader.

(Etudes et Essais sur la Renaissance, 24.) Paris: Honore Champion, 2000. 410 pp. FF 360. ISBN: 2-7453-0262-0.

Chapter 1 suggests that ancient theorists often consider invention and disposition as natural gifts, deeming elocution a superior art. They do, however, speak of artificial disposition, which Quintilian sees as the addition, suppression, and transposing of elements of discourse. Attention is paid to the proof: one sort of dispositio begins the confirmation with the most convincing arguments and places weaker ones in the middle. The details of the case, the orator's consilium, and the listener must be considered. Theorists struggle to reduce dispositio to a formula, and find the orator's consilium difficult to describe. Mastery of all the elements of the system of rhetoric leads, it is thought, to mastery of dispositio. Aesthetic preoccupations are almost entirely absent from Greek and Latin theories on the subject.

Renaissance arts poetiques concentrate on invention and dispositio, which they often treat together, and elocution. They accord particular attention to the epic. Ronsard considers it in the Abbrege de l' Art poetique Francois (1565), the first preface of La Franciade (1572), and the 1587 preface. Unlike ancient theorists, Renaissance writers see dispositio as a difficult art, for which poetic fury is also necessary. Jomphe examines the Horatian origins and medieval interpretations of the in medias res rule, to which the sixteenth century, like some ancient commentators, adds the notion of permutation -- retrospective passages summing up the genesis of the action. Vida devotes some forty lines to in medias ret and associates it with suspense, which also interests Peletier. Scaliger's Poetices libri septem examine, at length, epic dispositio and adumbrate a theory of suspense. Ronsard emphasizes the importance in the epic of the in medias res rule, although he does not fully respect it in La Franciade. Jomphe s hows how sixteenth-century theorists ponder the relationship between unity and variety. "Vida, Peletier, Scaliger et Ronsard eprouvent tous de la difficulte a apprehender theoriquement la structure globale de laeuvre epique" (182). Ronsard attaches less importance than they do to suspense and speed, and emphasizes inspiration.

Chapter 3 looks first at the opening of La Franciade, then examines the repetitions, the direct speech, and the absence of an address by Francus to his people in Book 1. The study of the chronology of this book is influenced by Guy Demerson's work on tenses in La Franciade, but introduces important comments on pictorial aspects. (Reference to Philip Ford's work on ekphrasis would have been pleasing here.) The structure of Book 2 is more conventional, with the tempest and combat at either end. Jomphe describes it as a concentric structure. Rather laboriously, she examines the combat, whilst omitting all reference to the 'Hymne de Pollux et de Castor', which would have helped her explore the poeme / poesie narrative relationship with which she is concerned (see my article in French Studies, 1989). She finds in the innamoramento of the two sisters, echoes of the canzoniere. In Book 3, Terpin's hymn receives an interesting analysis. The first half of Book 4 is carefully studied; in the second, Hyante's voice appa rently blends with that of the poet, instructing his king. Jomphe analyses the notions of fortune and virtue in relation to Francus.

The conclusion suggests that in La Franciade Ronsard "amplifie la signification de ce qui est deja ecrit, au lieu d'esquisser ce qu'il reste ecrire" (360). Variants often suppress the canzoniere-like passages; yet what governs La Franciade is not suspense but "une tension entre diverses philosophies de l'existence"' (366).

The analysis of ancient and Renaissance theories of dispositio is enlightening. The examination of La Franciade is painstaking, yet somewhat arduous. It could have been shortened. Perhaps, indeed, more signposts and devices providing suspense should have been deployed in Chapter 3. Critics such as Menager are put to good use; yet there are gaps in the bibliography, especially as regards works written in English.