Clemens Brentano by John F. Fetzer (review)

92ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW characterization. Lyrical interludes regulate plot development and narrative direction, as musical and staged performances become part of the story. For Damiani, the inclusion of the enchanted Orpheus in the Diana may represent an early form of opera, which historically makes use of both the Orpheus legend and pastoral settings. The ultimate manifestation of Montemayor's background in music is the musicality of his language, a literary discourse that may be classified as a type of "recitar cantando." "La Diana and the Visual Arts" accentuates reading as a visual experience, following the Horatian principle of ut pictura poesis as expounded by the Cinquecento theorist Lodovico Dolce. Material objects function decoratively and symbolically. Not only is elaborate description a verbal analogue of painting, but Renaissance literary artists rediscover and "reinterpret" classical motifs and themes, reconciling Platonic thought with Christian theology. The naviform earrings of Felismena, for example, are works of art transformed by language into literary objects, as well as secular, spiritual, and emblematic symbols. Their value — denotative and connotative — encompasses the plastic and the didactic aspects of artwithin -art. Similarly, a given sign, such as the mirror, may define character and reflect relationships between characters. The points of reference may be literary or artistic: Damiani discusses Diana's obsession with the mirror in the context of Dante's Purgatory and Titian's Young Woman Doing Her Hair. Literature and art unite, to cite another case, in the depiction of a sculpture of Lucretia in Felicia's palace, vividly portrayed through verbal images in the novel and pictorially by Titian and Jan Gossaert, among others. As with music, Montemayor is moved to bring the plastic arts into his text, a text that follows the compositional model of a painting. One analogue finds and builds upon another, through the recreation and amplification of artistic (in the broadest sense) recourses. Damiani effectively demonstrates the importance of music and art in Montemayor's conception of the pastoral mode. He draws on a number of Renaissance and contemporary sources, and the result is an impressive contextualization of the Diana. The reader could perhaps wish for illustrations to complement the second essay and a more comprehensive analysis of the novel's structure. The author undoubtedly will address himself to the latter of these desiderata in the forthcoming Society, Morality, and Didacticism in "La Diana" of Jorge de Montemayor. EDWARD FRIEDMAN Arizona State University John F. Fetzer. Clemens Brentano. Boston: Twayne, 1981. 179p. As Professor Fetzer (University of California, Davis) indicates, Wolfgang Frühwald, a leading authority on Brentano, has cautioned against any attempt to present a definitive study of the life and works ofthis poet in view ofthe still unclear philological situation, which may only be settled once the historical-critical so-called Frankfurt edition will have become available. Only a few volumes already published, the completion of the projected edition of almost forty volumes may be many years down the road. The vast amount of material to be contained in that monumental edition would, for the most part, be unsuitable for an introductory study such as Professor Fetzer has realized. It is fortunate that he has not delayed sharing with us the "poetological spadework" of his research and reflections. Book Reviews93 The aim of this study is an elucidation of Brentano's unique views of romantic art (shown juxtaposed yet complementary to the more popularized theories of romanticism of Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis) and a demonstration of how his major literary works conform to Brentano's own concept of romanticism. In exposing the theoretical aspects of Brentano's literary credo, the reader is treated in chapter one to a fascinating discussion of the nature of the romantic world view, highlighted by excerpts from the poet's first major work, the novel Godwi. Godwi is quoted explaining his perception of the world: "It is amazing . . . that I never regard a thing for itself, but always in relation to something unknown, something eternal . . . and thus I never come to rest, because with every step which I take forward, the focal point of my perspective likewise takes a step forward" (p. 33). A single example illustrating how Brentano's concept of romantic art is manifest in...