This distribution of style was not just done according to genre: it also had to do with the social status of the characters depicted. 2 The work seems to have been published in more than ten different editions from 1597 to Drayton’s d (.).all hymnes and histories, and Tragedies, were written in the high stile, all Comedies and Enterludes and other common Poesies of loves, and such like in the meane stile, all Eglogues and pastorall poems in the low and base stile. This is not, however, the way they were initially codified.ġ In the third book of his Arte of English Poesie (1588), Puttenham reminded the reader of the rules of decorum as they had been used in Greek and Latin rhetoric and poetry: It seems indeed logical that discourses about love, and love poetry in particular, should exceed rhetorical, physiological or even moral norms of control, temperance or balance. This poem therefore exemplifies the predominantly excessive nature of desire. These four lines (7-10) from John Donne’s “The Paradox” (1633) 1 present two forms of excess: on the one hand physiological excess, excessive heat being caused by the fire of love on the other hand rhetorical excess, as the poem is based on the hyperbolic metaphor of love as death – a Petrarchan metaphor. 1 This poem was first published in 1633, but was written earlier.Drawing from varied sources, this paper explains the literary, cultural and moral reasons why excess was so central an issue for both Petrarchan poets and those who criticised their work in the 1590s and 1600s. In that sense, sonnet sequences are not to be set apart from other literary works of the period, though their moral ambiguity is probably responsible for some of their critical misfortune. However, the literary criticism of the last three decades has shown that the excesses of the lover were part of the very issues Petrarchan sonnets sought to address. This has led to a certain misconception of Petrarchism in general, and of the Petrarchan sonnet in particular, as a meaningless juxtaposition of clichés. In poems and plays of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods, his excessive desire and grief were expressed through a rhetoric characterised by a systematic resort to set devices and a repeated use of Petrarchan commonplaces.
In the English Renaissance, the Petrarchan lover was the figure of excess par excellence. À partir de sources diverses, cet article montre le caractère central de l’excès et ses enjeux littéraires, culturels et moraux pour les poètes pétrarquistes et pour ceux qui critiquaient leurs écrits dans les années 1590 et 1600. En ce sens, il convient de ne pas marginaliser les recueils amoureux dans le paysage littéraire de l’époque, bien qu’il faille reconnaître que leur ambiguïté morale les a probablement desservis. Cependant, la critique littéraire des dernières décennies a montré que les excès de l’amant étaient au cœur des problématiques soulevées par les sonnets. Cet état de fait a favorisé une conception du pétrarquisme en général, et du sonnet pétrarquiste en particulier comme une juxtaposition de clichés vide de sens. Dans les poèmes et les pièces de la fin de l’époque élisabéthaine et du début de l’ère jacobéenne, sa douleur et son désir excessifs étaient exprimés par une rhétorique spécifique, caractérisée par un recours systématique à certains procédés et un usage répété de lieux communs pétrarquistes. En Angleterre, à la Renaissance, l’amant pétrarquiste était la figure de l’excès par excellence.