Originality and Imitation in Four Poems by Saint-Amant

C. Rizza summarises recent trends in her "Etat présent sur les rapports francoitaliens au XVIIe siècle" published in "L'italianisme en France au XVIIe siècle", Studi francesi, xxxv (1968), 11-19.

G. Angeli : "I : Per un' anatomia del comico. II: Saint-Amant e i prototipi berneschi ", Le prove e i testi (Pisa, 1975), 7-24, 25-59 respectively, and A. Rathé , "Saint Amant, poète du 'caprice' ", XVIIe siècle, 30e année, no. 118-19 (1978 ), 229-44.

Angeli, art. cit., 59.

Rathé, art. cit., 243.

References are, unless otherwise stated, to the critical edition of Saint-Amant, Œuvres (STFM; 4 vols, Paris, 1967-71). Vol. i was edited by J. Bailbé, vols ii-iv by J. Lagny, who also wrote the biography, Le poète Saint-Amant (1594-1661). Essai sur sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1964). Together with this biography the notes to the STFM edition provide all needful details on these poems.

Prandial references occur elsewhere; thus English plum pudding and soup are castigated in "L'Albion", iii, 971-8, and a sorry specimen of ham, quite unlike that of the "Epistre", is dished with sooty buttered potatoes in "La Rade", iv, 91-96, but they remain incidental. On the Bernesque, see in addition to the articles quoted: R.A. Mazzara , "A Case of Creative Imitation in Saint-Amant", French Review, xxxi (1957-58), 27-34; his "Saint-Amant and the Italian Bernesque poets", French Review, xxxii (1958), 231-41; L. Erba , "Realismo e italianismo in Saint-Amant", Aevum, xxxvii (1963), 285-97 and W. Roberts , "Berni's 'Malo Alloggio' Motif in Saint-Amant", Studi francesi, xxvi (1965), 465-71. Mazzara's thesis Italian and Spanish Influences and Parallels in the Life and Works of Saint-Amant (University of Kansas, 1959) lists many textual parallels.

See on the Italian mock-epic J. Mirollo, The Poet of the Marvelous. Giambattista Marino (New York and London, 1963), notably on the Sampogna and the Adone, 52-69 and 72-85 respectively. In chap. 12, devoted to "The Marinesque Current in France", 227-42, the curious fact emerges that Marino wrote on the melon but the work is not extant, 231. See also M. Gulglielminetti, "Il Marino e la letteratura francese del suo tempo", Studi francesi, viii (1964), 16-33, 214-28. H. Lafay, La poésie française du premier XVIIe siècle (1598-1630). Esquisse pour un tableau (Paris, 1975) gives a comprehensive bibliography on the Italian influence, 568-70.

The "Lettre ou discours de M. Chapelain à M. Favereau ... sur le poème d'Adonis du Chevalier Marino", Opuscules Critiques, ed. A. Hunter (Paris, 1936), 71-111, praises the Adonis for combining "nouveauté" with the "règles générales de l'épopée", 74. Saint-Amant admires the heroic verse of La Sampogna in the "Avertissement" to the first collection of his works, Œuvres, i, 20-21. On Tassoni, a member of the Roman Accademia degli Umoristi, who fiercely attacked Petrarch, see the introduction to his Secchia rapita, ed. G. Nascimbeni (Lanciano, 1914), from which quotations are taken.

Compare Œuvres, ii, 105-13 with "L'Albion", iii, 343-51, and iv, 218-23.

See his "Préface du Passage de Gibraltar", Œuvres, ii, 157 and Livet's comment on the claim in his edition of the Œuvres complètes de Saint-Amant (2 vols, Paris, 1855), i, 285.

Lettere di Alessandro Tassoni, ed. Rossi (Bologna, 1918), ii, 12 and Rathé, art. cit., 231.

All references to Berni are from his Poesi e prose, ed. E. Chiòrboli (Geneva and Florence, 1934).

References are to Grazzini, Le rime burlesche edite e inedite, ed. Verzone (Florence, 1882). "In lode de poponi" and "In lode de i poponi" are 534-8, 631-4 respectively. Mazzara lists the parallels in his second article.

Angeli describes the French and Italian gastronomic poems, art. cit., 29-32.

On the capitol form see R. D. Rodini, Antonfrancesco Grazzini. Poet, Dramatist and Novelliere (1503-84) (London, 1970), 78-89. See Berni, ed. cit., 56-59.

Mazzara, "Saint-Amant and the Italian Bernesque Poets", 238; Rathé, art. cit., 242.

See the notes to each poem in the STFM edition where Bailbé declares that Mazzara's work has "rien de probant" (i, 231). F. Gourier in her Etude des oeuvres poétiques de Saint-Amant (Geneva, 1961) mentions the Italian link in chap. 5, "Poèmes gastronomiques et bachiques", 85-91 and again 138-40, granting it a minimal role.

Rathé, art. cit., 230.

Lagny, op. cit., 52-210 on the works and travels of Saint-Amant whose nickname, beloved by Tallemant des Réaux, he cites 115, 166, 401.

The most accessible edition of libertin texts is by A. Adam, Les libertins au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1964). An old work, R. Charbonnel, La Pensée italienne au XVIIe siècle, et le courant libertin (Paris, 1919), quotes many original texts from the Italian thinkers. The ham in the "Epistre" is transported to the abode of Des Yveteaux, "ce rare et digne homme", ii, 214.

"Préface", ii, 156.

Mazzara, "Saint-Amant and the Italian Bernesque Poets", 238; Rathé, art. cit., 242-3.

"Préface", ii, 156.

"Préface", ii, 156-7.

See Erba, art. cit., 293.

See Tassoni, ed. cit., canto II, 35-46.

Tassoni, ed. cit., 46, 464-80; 517-20.

"Préface", ii, 157.

Angeli, art. cit., 32-33. For a full gloss of Saint-Amant's burlesque vocabulary and a definition of the genre, see F. Bar, Le genre burlesque en France au XVIIE siècle. Etude de style (Paris, 1960).

Berni established cross-references, ed. cit., 50, 1-3; 55, 31-34; Grazzini referring to Berni expresses mock rage at poets who write about gudgeons and eels, ed. cit., 631, 18-27. For paneygric see Berni, 42, 10-15; 51, 11-19; 54, 17-19 and Grazzini, 536, 61-63 and 632, 40-45.

On Tassoni we shall say more. On parody of old language see the section "Le langage poétique de Voiture" in Voiture, Poésies (STFM; 2 vols, Paris, 1971); i, LXVI-LXXI.

Berni writes about the flesh of eel and thistle, ed. cit., 48-49, 30-31; 52, 55-60; Grazzini about the bloom on melons, 535, 51-60; 632-3, 67-74.

Œuvres complètes, ed. Livet, ii, 143. I quote Livet since the STFM edition does not include the Moyse sauvé and this quotation is in the introduction to it.

Berni, ed. cit., 53, 79-81; 42, 16-20, 25-32 ; 53, 79-81, and Grazzini, ed. cit., 537, 103-8.

See ii, 151, note 9.

See ii, 239, note 147, and the "Rome ridicule" where the poet prefers the Ciotat vines to those of Rome, iii, 1001-4. See too Œuvres de Chapelle et Bachaumont, ed. T. de Latour (Paris, 1854), 91.

Angeli, art. cit., 39.

Roberts gives examples of this, art. cit., 467, 470.

I. Buffum discusses the multiple sense-imagery of 'Le Melon' in "Three Poems by a libertin", Studies in the Baroque from Montaigne to Rotrou (Yale, 1957) ; this quotation is on p. 139.

Erba, art. cit., 293, 297.

Roberts shows that Saint-Amant distorts nose to 'snout' like Berni in other poems, art. cit., 470. D. B. Wilson suggests in his Descriptive Poetry in France from Blason to Baroque (Manchester, 1967) that the sense of smell came into its own in the seventeenth century, 225-6.

Berni, ed. cit., 60, 16; Grazzini, ed. cit., 631-2, 31-36.

Berni, ed. cit., 60, 22-27.

Œuvres, ed. Livet, 345-6; ed. Lagny, ii, 241, note 188. Lagny does not reprint the actual recipe.

Tassoni, ed. cit., 167, 297-304; 317-20.

Grazzini, ed. cit., 535, 37-39.

See Œuvres, i, 232, note 48; also Angeli, art. cit., 34-35.

Tassoni, ed. cit., 45-46, 457-80.

Tassoni, ed. cit., 153, 189-92.

Grazzini, ed. cit., 633, 91-96.

For example: "En un mestier comme le nostre / On ne rime pas comme on veut / Mais seulement comme l'on peut !", Le Virgile travesty... (Amsterdam, 1712), 321.

"Préface", ii, 156.

Œuvres, ii, 94.

Obvious examples are the descriptions of Charles's cap and the wedding cake in Madame Bovary (Classiques Garnier, Paris, 1971), 4 and 29-30.

Theophile Gautier , Les Grotesques (Paris, 1873), 155-6.