Renaissance Resonance: Lyric Modality in La Ceppede's Theoremes.

Russell Ganim. Renaissance Resonance: Lyric Modality in La Ceppede's Theoremes.

Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998. 421 pp. $77.50. ISBN: 90-420-0484-3.

Whereas earlier studies of the Theoremes tended to privilege devotional stance and strategies over the poetic, Russell Ganim focuses on the process of absorption and readaptation of prior medieval and Renaissance subgenres, successively the blason, the baiser, the pastoral, and the emblem, circumscribing thereby the creative process of La Ceppede's rereading of the biblical account of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. Concentrating on a repertory of textual and intertexual modalities involved in the self-conscious passage from secular to sacred discourse, his study presents a specifically literary analysis of the first (1613) and second (1622) parts of the Theoremes. Intent upon diverting Renaissance poetry from pagan mythology and petrarchan frivolity, La Ceppede reinvests it with truth and purpose, entrusting the 520 sonnets and some 2500 annotations of his Theoremes with the mission of conveying the drama and deeper meaning of Christ's sacrifice for mankind's salvation. In so doing, he accomplish es a dual mission of human and poetic redemption, adapting a lyrical means to a spiritual end.

At the beginning of each of his first four chapters, Ganim provides a definition and history of the subgenre in question. He then proceeds to describe the assimilation and transformation of specific generic phenomena, such as, in the chapter on the blason, the presentation of the body, the eye, the hand, or, in the following chapter, the mystery and eroticism of the kiss. Chapter 3 is concerned with the aesthetic appropriation of the pastoral and Christ's seduction of the reader, whereas chapter 4 deals with the dynamics of emblematic writing and spiritual meditation. The final chapter centers on Sponde, Selve, Marguerite de Navarre, and Georgette de Montenay in meaningful dialogue with La Ceppede, underscoring similarities and differences in perception and intent between the Theoremes and the devotional poetry of the age. Almost 400 pages of commentary are followed by a three-page conclusion, a useful bibliography, and an index.

Ganim's study raises the larger question of how to decipher a discourse which, in structure, syntax and language, is essentially rhetorical. Is it sufficient, one asks, to know what a poem says, to locate the thematic matter which structures it, or should we also know, how and why it says? Means and meaning are part of poetic analysis, but so is the relationship between writer and reader. La Ceppede's poetry is not only devotional; it is also propagandistic, and, as such, it is intended to move and convince the reader. But since ideological concerns are touched upon only peripherally in the present study, little attempt is made to define or situate La Ceppede's metaphoric sensibility. Thus, for example, while Ganim returns in every chapter to a consideration of erotic elements in La Ceppede's poetry (sometimes with unfortunate conjectural emphasis, as when Christ rakes leave of his mother, meets with Mary Magdelene -- conflated with a shepherdess -- or is nailed to the Cross), his remarks do not extend to ot her configurations of baroque dialectics, whether in poetry (D'Aubigne or Teresa of Avila), painting (Tintoretto) or sculpture (Bernini). It may be legitimate, in a word, to prefer or oppose literary to historical exegesis, but close reading of a work -- however perceptive -- without reference to the aesthetic or contextual framework which informs it, remains only partially conclusive.

The great advantage of this work over earlier studies on La Ceppede, namely the thoroughness of Ganim's energetic, insightful, and generous commentary, is somewhat offset by redundancy and insufficient documentation and proof-reading. While admiring the profusion of informative detail, the careful, systematic introduction and definition of categories and examples, one cannot help but suspect that a more economical and theoretical presentation would have been possible. Some thoughts on the limits of genre would have been appropriate, especially in light of the fact that La Ceppede's liminary sonnet suggests that the Theoremes are a kind of epic, a potentially seminal lead that Ganim chooses not to pursue. But what he does, he does well, providing the reader with a perceptive appreciation of the intertextual complexity of a work which is at once profoundly religious and poetically sound.