Discourses of mourning in Dante, Petrarch, and Proust

218 Pages·2016·1.03 MB·English

by  Dante Alighieri

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
OXFORD MODERN LANGUAGES AND
LITERATURE MONOGRAPHS
Editorial Committee
a. kahn k. m. kohl
m. l. mclaughlin r. a. g. pearson
j. thacker w. williams
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
Discourses of Mourning
in Dante, Petrarch,
and Proust
JENNIFER RUSHWORTH
1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Jennifer Rushworth 2016
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2016
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939028
ISBN 978–0–19–879087–7
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
For Olivia Cooper
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
Acknowledgements
My thanks first and foremost go to my two supervisors, Manuele Gragnolati and
Ian Maclachlan. I could not have asked for more supportive or learned interlocutors
and first readers. Without Ian’s guidance I would never have dared to venture into
the dark wood of Derrida’s writing, and without Manuele’s passion for medieval
engagement with modern theory the original thesis would not have been possible.
I would also especially like to thank the Arts & Humanities Research Council for
their generous funding of this project, as well as Worcester College for their kind
bestowal of a Martin Senior Scholarship (not to mention providing a friendly home
throughout my undergraduate and postgraduate studies). More recently, I am
immensely grateful to St John’s College, Oxford, where as a Junior Research Fellow
I was able to turn the thesis into the book you are now holding. I would also like to
express my gratitude to my two DPhil examiners, Elena Lombardi and Adam Watt
(the latter in particular for suggesting I spend more time with Roland Barthes), to
Rachel Platt and Eleanor Collins at OUP, and to the anonymous readers.
Throughout my time as a postgraduate and beyond, I have been lucky to have
the constant dialogical support of David Bowe, and Julia Hartley with whom to
share my enthusiasm for Dante and Proust, while Alexandra Hills and Elizabeth
Ward have always provided the kindest encouragement and comradeship from
further afield. During the writing of the thesis, the weekly forum of the Petrarch
Reading Group, founded and led by Nicola Gardini, was a pure joy to attend. Anna
Elsner kindly let me read her thesis on mourning in Proust before its publication
and generously shared her expertise with comments on the present work. Francesca
Southerden also most helpfully read parts of this thesis; her intimate understanding
of Petrarch has always been a source of inspiration. From my distant memories of
undergraduate days I wish to acknowledge the encouragement of Emanuela Tandello
and Kate Tunstall, who as demanding but heartening tutors enabled me to hone my
reading skills immeasurably, and have remained kind friends ever since.
Finally, I am grateful, too, to my sisters Cathy and Ruth, both voracious and
brilliant readers, to my parents for bringing me up in a house full of books, and to
my husband Matthew Salisbury, who read every draft of this book and who has
been a constant companion throughout. All remaining errors are, however, naturally
my own.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/09/16, SPi
Contents
Translations xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Interpolating the Medieval and the Modern 1
A Definition of Discourse 2
A Definition of Mourning 4
On Dante and Proust 9
Interpolation and the ‘modieval’ 15
1. Mourning and acedia in Dante 18
Acedia in Inferno 18
Melancholia in Inferno 24
A Barthesian Interpolation: From acedia to Writing 28
The Purgatorial Cure for acedia 35
Mourning in Purgatorio 42
Loss and Love in Paradiso 47
2. Petrarch’s Fraught Poetics of Melancholia 54
Rereading Kristevan Melancholia 56
Melancholic Language in Petrarch 58
Petrarch’s Melancholic Rewriting of Dante 65
Petrarch and acedia 72
Laura Triumphant? 81
3. Proust’s Recherche, Derridean ‘demi-deuil’, and Mimetic Mourning 91
The Paradoxes of Proustian Mourning 92
The Paradoxes of Derridean ‘demi-deuil’ 96
Mimetic Mourning 102
Mourning the Name: Orpheus 104
Naming Mourning: Lamentations 114
Epilogue: In Search of an Ending 126
Epiphanies in Dante and Proust 127
Endings in Dante and Proust 135
The Derridean Promise of Writing in Dante and Proust 139
The Barthesian Promise of Writing after Dante and Proust 141
The Image of the Book in Dante and Proust 147
Petrarch and the End of his ‘scattered rhymes’ 150
Bibliography 163
Index 195