Poetry and Poetics in Gilles of Corbeil and Gentile da Foligno’s Carmina de urinarum iudiciis

IF 0.2 0 LITERATURE, ROMANCE
Maggie Fritz-Morkin
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Some medical treatises from medieval France and Italy demonstrate surprising rhetorical exuberance, especially in the paratexts where an authorial persona can emerge in the first person. This essay launches from the scatological metaphors and epithets in the exordia of works and commentaries by the physicians Archimattheus, Gilles of Corbeil, and Gentile da Foligno. In captationes benevolentiae styled after Ciceronian precepts, these authors attack their rivals before presenting their own superior science. Their scurrilous invectives—“Hoc salernitani cacantes sanitatem nominant!” (This is what the shitting Salernitans call health!); “discursores alienis fecibus imbuti” (vagrants steeped in other dreck)—tap into carnivalesque modes where excrement is organic, filthy, vituperative, and comic, in contrast to the sterility of the treatises’ technical, Scholastic discourse. A close reading of Gilles’s twelfth-century Carmina de urinarum iudiciis (Songs on Judging Urine) and Gentile’s fourteenth-century commentary on this verse treatise shows that both of these experts in uroscopy tie their excremental imagery into a nuanced poetics that extends from the paratexts into the heart of the work. Both writers demonstrate acute metaliterary sensibility, and respectable training in classical and medieval theories of rhetoric and poetry. Gilles defends his choice to write in verse through a constellation of metaphors pitting the synthetic clarity of both urine and poetry against the muddled confusion of feces and prose. He further ennobles his work by comparing the hermeneutics of uroscopy with allegorical interpretation. Gentile assumes the role of exegete, interpreting Gilles’s verses and unveiling their philosophical and theoretical underpinnings.
一些来自中世纪法国和意大利的医学论文表现出惊人的修辞活力,特别是在作者角色可以以第一人称出现的副文本中。本文从医学家阿奇马透斯、科贝尔的吉尔斯和弗莱尼奥的著作和评论的绪论中所使用的污秽学隐喻和形容词出发。在Ciceronian戒律之后的标题仁慈风格中,这些作者在展示他们自己的卓越科学之前攻击他们的对手。他们粗鄙的谩骂——“Hoc salernitani canantes sanitation提名人!”(这就是该死的Salernitans所谓的健康!);“discursores alienis fecibus imbuti”(沉浸在其他饮料中的流浪者)——进入狂欢式的模式,其中粪便是有机的、肮脏的、谩骂的、滑稽的,与论文中技术的、学术的话语的贫瘠形成对比。仔细阅读吉尔斯12世纪的《审尿之歌》(Carmina de urinarum iudiciis)和外邦莱14世纪对这篇诗歌论文的评论就会发现,这两位泌尿镜专家将他们的排泄物意象与一种微妙的诗学联系在一起,这种诗学从文本延伸到作品的核心。两位作家都表现出敏锐的元文学敏感性,并在古典和中世纪的修辞和诗歌理论方面受过良好的训练。吉尔斯为自己选择用诗歌写作进行辩护,他使用了一系列隐喻,将尿液和诗歌的综合清晰与粪便和散文的混乱对立起来。他通过将泌尿镜的解释学与寓言解释进行比较,进一步提升了他的工作。外邦人承担了注释者的角色,解释吉尔斯的诗句,揭示他们的哲学和理论基础。
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来源期刊
Romanic Review
Romanic Review Arts and Humanities-Arts and Humanities (all)
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
23
期刊介绍: The Romanic Review is a journal devoted to the study of Romance literatures.Founded by Henry Alfred Todd in 1910, it is published by the Department of French and Romance Philology of Columbia University in cooperation with the Departments of Spanish and Italian. The journal is published four times a year (January, March, May, November) and balances special thematic issues and regular unsolicited issues. It covers all periods of French, Italian and Spanish-language literature, and welcomes a broad diversity of critical approaches.
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