L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de Ronsard

In the system of the sonnet, the conceit is a crystallization. Within its small confines, it manages to conflate the logical outcome of the poem and a feat of formal brilliance. Art within art, it meets the demands of the respice finem principle by engaging the whole piece. This is where style is at...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Louis Picard
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institut du Monde Anglophone 2006-04-01
Series:Etudes Epistémè
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/2577
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849736011418959872
author Louis Picard
author_facet Louis Picard
author_sort Louis Picard
collection DOAJ
description In the system of the sonnet, the conceit is a crystallization. Within its small confines, it manages to conflate the logical outcome of the poem and a feat of formal brilliance. Art within art, it meets the demands of the respice finem principle by engaging the whole piece. This is where style is at its most visible, as the poetical manera is highly condensed. But the conceit also calls for a specific poetics. It is therefore an essential feature of Ronsard’s and Shakespeare’s collections of sonnets, for their mannerism, fuelled by the conscience of not coming first, of writing after Petrarch — perhaps even against Petrarch —, requires a poetics of prowess, shifting the weight from res to verba. In these poems, the conceit has a double function: structural and dynamic. It concludes the piece in a logical way and calls for an effects-oriented virtuosity. Its highly sophisticated intricacy is just as crucial as the meaning it carries, in such a way that they merge completely. With the conceit, the sonnet ends in a verbal cornucopia that will not be converted into any stable meaning. Be it, as with Ronsard’s Premier Livre des Amours, a highly meaningful spectacle calling for rapture or, as with Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a suggestion asking for the reader’s assent while suspending it, the conceit’s gnomic brilliance could be seen as the relative and astonishing shape truth assumes in the poetic order of things. Under the aegis of the jocus serius, its hyperbolic radiance is a frail reflection as well.
format Article
id doaj-art-5d07c7f240a74d60a80fde7602b04f8d
institution DOAJ
issn 1634-0450
language English
publishDate 2006-04-01
publisher Institut du Monde Anglophone
record_format Article
series Etudes Epistémè
spelling doaj-art-5d07c7f240a74d60a80fde7602b04f8d2025-08-20T03:07:23ZengInstitut du Monde AnglophoneEtudes Epistémè1634-04502006-04-01910.4000/episteme.2577L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de RonsardLouis PicardIn the system of the sonnet, the conceit is a crystallization. Within its small confines, it manages to conflate the logical outcome of the poem and a feat of formal brilliance. Art within art, it meets the demands of the respice finem principle by engaging the whole piece. This is where style is at its most visible, as the poetical manera is highly condensed. But the conceit also calls for a specific poetics. It is therefore an essential feature of Ronsard’s and Shakespeare’s collections of sonnets, for their mannerism, fuelled by the conscience of not coming first, of writing after Petrarch — perhaps even against Petrarch —, requires a poetics of prowess, shifting the weight from res to verba. In these poems, the conceit has a double function: structural and dynamic. It concludes the piece in a logical way and calls for an effects-oriented virtuosity. Its highly sophisticated intricacy is just as crucial as the meaning it carries, in such a way that they merge completely. With the conceit, the sonnet ends in a verbal cornucopia that will not be converted into any stable meaning. Be it, as with Ronsard’s Premier Livre des Amours, a highly meaningful spectacle calling for rapture or, as with Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a suggestion asking for the reader’s assent while suspending it, the conceit’s gnomic brilliance could be seen as the relative and astonishing shape truth assumes in the poetic order of things. Under the aegis of the jocus serius, its hyperbolic radiance is a frail reflection as well.https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/2577
spellingShingle Louis Picard
L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de Ronsard
Etudes Epistémè
title L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de Ronsard
title_full L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de Ronsard
title_fullStr L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de Ronsard
title_full_unstemmed L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de Ronsard
title_short L’Art de la manière et la pratique de la pointe dans les Sonnets de Shakespeare et le Premier Livre des Amours de Ronsard
title_sort l art de la maniere et la pratique de la pointe dans les sonnets de shakespeare et le premier livre des amours de ronsard
url https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/2577
work_keys_str_mv AT louispicard lartdelamaniereetlapratiquedelapointedanslessonnetsdeshakespeareetlepremierlivredesamoursderonsard