The Love Aesthetics of Maurice Scève: Poetry and Struggle (Cambridge Studies in French) [Hardcover]

Jerry C. Nash (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521394120 | ISBN-13: 978-0521394123 | Publication Date: January 25, 1991

This book reassesses the love poetry of Maurice Scève from a phenomenological viewpoint. It calls into question the traditional critical view of Scève as a poet consumed by the anguish and darkness of unrequited love, and frustrated by poetic and erotic quests that lead him nowhere. Professor Nash argues instead that the conflicting forces in Scève's poetic expression of love (light and dark, night and day, heaven and hell) lead ultimately to a sense of equilibrium and a transcendent paradisal state, and that the poet's struggle is actually directed toward this coming to terms with the meaning of ineffable love. Contemplation and portrayal of the ineffable are shown to constitute the central and unifying concern of this compelling body of Renaissance love poetry.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this thought-provoking and refreshing study, Nash has accomplished on the critical level what he portrays Scève as having attained in the poetic and aesthetic realm. It is a work which will be valuable, not only to specialists of Scève and Renaissance poetry, but to all who are interested in investigating that mysterious and complicated intellectual, sensual, and aesthetic process which results in the creation of poetry." Renaissance Quarterly

Book Description

This book reassesses the love poetry of Maurice Scève from a phenomenological viewpoint. It calls into question the traditional critical view of Scève as a poet consumed by the anguish and darkness of unrequited love, and frustrated by poetic and erotic quests which lead him nowhere.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 222 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 25, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521394120
• ISBN-13: 978-0521394123
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,664,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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