Lyric in the Renaissance: From Petrarch to Montaigne

Moving from a definition of the lyric to the innovations introduced
by Petrarch’s poetic language, this study goes on to propose a new
reading of several French poets (Charles d’Orléans, Ronsard, and
Du Bellay), and a re-evaluation of Montaigne’s understanding of
the most striking poetry and its relation to his own prose. Instead
of relying on conventional notions of Renaissance subjectivity, it
locates recurring features of this poetic language that express a turn
to the singular and that herald lyric poetry’s modern emphasis on
the utterly particular. By combining close textual analysis with more
modern ethical concerns this study establishes clear distinctions
between what poets do and what rhetoric and poetics say they do.
It shows how the tradition of rhetorical commentary is insufficient
in accounting for this startling effectiveness of lyric poetry, manifest
in Petrarch’s Rime sparse, and the collections of the best poets writing
after him.