Reading Boileau: An Integrative Study of the Early "Satires"

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. See Charles Revillout, "La Legende de Boileau," and Rene Bray, La Formation de la doctrine classique.Sima Godfrey, "The Anxiety of Anticipation: Ulterior Motives in French Poetry," has pondered the "effet Boileau" on the history of French poetry. In her assessment, inspired by Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence, the evolution of French poetry is marked by epic critics, among whom Boileau stands as the "paradigmatic example" (6). Unlike the English tradition, in which individual poets, in their attempts to "rewrite" the poems of their predecessors , engage in an Oedipal dialogue with the paternal "strong" figures of the past, the French tradition requires poets to rewrite not Boileau's individual poems, but rather the canonical prestige and theoretical authority that the "legislateur du Parnasse" embodies in the Art poetique. This exalted image of Boileau as father figure that all French poets since foster within them does not, however, address the question of why it . was Boileau's "art poetique," and not another, that created this fixation on poetics rather than poems. The fact that the doctrine did not pass on to future generations in a form other than the verses of the Art poetique suggests that Boileau's talent as a poet might have led to his eventual status as institution. 2. Gustave Lanson, Boileau. See also Daniel Mornet, Nicolas Boileau; Pierre Clarac, Boileau; R. Bray, Boileau, l'homme et l'ceuvre; H. E. White, Jr., Nicolas Boileau. For an excellent history of Boileau's literary fortune , see Bernard Beugnot and Roger Zuber, Boileau: Visages anciens, visages nouveaux, 1665-1970. 3. Allen G. Wood, "Boileau and Affective Response," has elucidated the emotional element in Boileau. 4. E. B. O. Borgerhoff, "Boileau Satirist Animi Gratia." 5. Wood, "The Regent du Parnasse and Vraisemblance." 6. Nathan Edelman, "L'Art poetique: 'Longtemps plaire etjamais ne lasser.'" 7. Cleanth Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn. 8. Several prior critics have accepted a priori that the Satires constitute an entity. The excellent article by Susan Tiefenbrun, "Boileau and His Friendly Enemy: A Poetics of Satiric Criticism," is most remarkable in this regard. Simone Ackerman, "Les Satires de Boileau: Un Theatre de l'absurde avant la lettre," likens the Satires to absurdist theatre. For Ackerman, Boileau depicts a random universe in opposition to the seventeenth -century theoreticians' belief in an ideal ofbeauty, a preordained design that the artist must strive to achieve. 9. A notable exception is The Ladder of Higher Designs: Structure and Interpretation ofthe French Lyric Sequence, ed. Doranne Fenoaltea and David Lee Rubin. 10. See Miner 18-43. 129 Notes to Pages 5-6 11. See Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End, for a presentation of structural integrative principles. 12. The bibliography on this subject is substantial. For a useful summary , see Susan H. Braund's bibliography in her Roman Verse Satire. In genres other than satire, Virgil's Eclogues has often been cited as a book for which the poet intended a perceivable structure. See, for example , J. Van Sickle, The Design of Virgil's Bucolics. In the case of Horace, see Matthew S. Santirocco, Unity and Design in Horace's Odes. 13. "I think that there can be little question that Horace has given careful thought to the order of his Satires and organized a book that makes sense of his definition of satire as a thoughtful combination of nondoctrinaire Epicurean ethics and of poetic techniques and purposes. Three interrelated groups of three poems expose us by different methods to the satirist as poet-moralist (or moralist-poet), and the final poem makes clear how confident and committed Horace the poet wishes to appear" (Anderson 61). See also David Armstrong, Horace, and a series of articles by C. A. Van Rooy, "Arrangement and Structure of Satires in Horace." 14. Notable exceptions are two exceptional contributions to Boileau scholarship: Borgerhoff's article "Boileau Satirist Animi Gratia," which centers on a reading of Satire IX, taking into account its crucial placement in the corpus ,of the satires: "Thus the whole poem has to read in the light of the previous satires, indeed in the light of Boileau's whole career in the literary world up to this time" (246). Borgerhoff's intention , however, is not to examine how Satire IX integrates into the ensemble we call the Satires. Susan Tiefenbrun's article "Boileau and His Friendly Enemy: A Poetics of Satiric Criticism," examines the twelve Satires, the Discours au Roy, the prose preface, and the...