William
J. Kennedy.
The Site of Petrarchism: Early Modern National
Sentiment
in Italy, France, and England.
Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University
Press,
2003.
Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society series.
400pp.
Hardback ISBN
0801871441.
Publisher's
recommended price $45.00
Drawing
upon poststructuralist
theories of nationalism and national identity developed by such writers
as Etienne Balibar, Emmanuel Levinas, Julia Kristeva, Antonio Negri,
and
Slavoj Zizek, noted Renaissance scholar William J. Kennedy argues that
the Petrarchan sonnet serves as a site for early modern expressions of
national sentiment in Italy, France, England, Spain, and Germany.
Kennedy
pursues this argument through historical research into Renaissance
commentaries
on Petrarch's poetry and critical studies of such poets as Lorenzo de'
Medici, Joachim du Bellay and the Pléiade brigade, Philip and
Mary
Sidney, and Mary Wroth.
Kennedy
begins
with a survey of Petrarch's poetry and its citation in Italy,
explaining
how major commentators tried to present Petrarch as a spokesperson for
competing versions of national identity. He then shows how Petrarch's
model
helped define social class, political power, and national identity in
mid-sixteenth-century
France, particularly in the nationalistic sonnet cycles of Joachim Du
Bellay.
Finally, Kennedy discusses how Philip Sidney and his sister Mary and
niece
Mary Wroth reworked Petrarch's model to secure their family's
involvement
in forging a national policy under Elizabeth I and James I.
Treating
the subject
of early modern national expression from a broad comparative
perspective, The
Site of Petrarchism will be of interest to scholars of late
medieval
and early modern literature in Europe, historians of culture, and
critical
theorists.
|
|