Harmful Eloquence: Ovid's Amores from Antiquity to ShakespeareM. L. Stapleton's Harmful Eloquence: Ovid's Amores from Antiquity to Shakespeare traces the influence of the early elegiac poetry of Publius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C.E.-17 C.E.) on European literature from 500-1600 C.E. The Amores served as a classical model for love poetry in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and were essential to the formation of fin' Amors, or "courtly love". Medieval Latin poets, the troubadours, Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare were all familiar with Ovid in his various forms, and all depended greatly upon his Amores in composing their cansos, canzoniere, and sonnets. Harmful Eloquence begins with a detailed analysis of the Amores themselves and their artistic unity. It moves on to explain the fragmentary transmission of the Amores fragments in the "Latin Anthology" and the cohesion of the fragments into the conventions of medieval Latin and troubadour "courtly love" poetry. Two subsequent chapters explain the use of the Amores, their narrator, and the conventions of "courtly love" in the poetry of both Dante and Petrarch. The final chapter concentrates on Shakespeare's reprocessing and parody of this material in his sonnets. Medievalists, classicists, and scholars of Renaissance studies will find Harmful Eloquence particularly engaging and useful. This work has received early praise for its Shakespearean content and is vital to scholars in this area. Stapleton's scholarship is both enjoyable and readable with a contemporary approach. |
Contents
The Amores and Personae | 1 |
The desultor Amoris before 1100 | 39 |
Ovid and the Troubadours | 65 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
amatoria amica amicus Amores argues attempts Baudri Beatrice becomes begins Bernart Bond Cambridge century chapter Christian classical completely concept concerning conventions Corinna Courtly critical Dante Dante's dark demonstrates describes desire desultor Amoris discuss elegiac Elegies erotic explains eyes finds gives Greene Guillaume heart husband idea imitation John lady later Latin Laura learned literary Literature lover lust lyric magister Marlowe Marlowe's means medieval Metamorphoses Michigan Middle Ages misogyny moral nature never noted Ovid Ovid's Ovidian Ovidius Ovids Elegies Oxford passage Perhaps persona Petrarch physical poem poet poetics poetry praise prose puella quod reader refers Renaissance rhetorical Rime Roman Schooling seems sequence serve sexual Shakespeare simply Sonnets speaker Studies suggests term things throughout tion tradition trans translation troubadours twelfth-century University Press Vita Vita nuova voice vols wish woman women writes York