The Poet’s Odyssey: Joachim Du Bellay and the Antiquitez de Rome by George Hugo Tucker (review)

Book Reviews George Hugo Tucker. T h e P o e t s O d y sse y : J o a c h im D u B e l l a y a n d t h e A n tiq u ite z d e Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Pp. xiv + 304. $76. This book is about Du Bellay’s deepening epistemological and writerly skepticism, his relentless search for a conviction and a style through which the past, present, and future grandeur of Rome may be celebrated, yet his ever-present acknowledgment of the failure of this quest. In critical method, this study is a dazzling and at times dizzying intertextual mise en abyme. Witness this intertextual insight, among literally dozens of others, highlighting the allusively erudite framework o f the Antiquitez in Classical, neo-Latin, and vernacular literatures: “ It also happens that Du Bellay clothes an idea from Vitalis in a Lucanian (or Virgilian) form: e.g. ‘horrida dumis’ for Vitalis’ ‘horrenti . . . situ’ [...]. Similarly, if Antiquitez, III. 6-7 reproduces compactly but closely the idea in Vitalis’ ‘Roma Prisca’, vv. 7-8, it also conflates this partly with the formulation of a similar idea in Lucan [...]. Fur­ thermore, in treating here the theme ‘Rome . . . se donta’ Du Bellay chooses to allude ver­ bally to Vitalis in conflation with Lucan, in preference to another expression of the same idea in a poem by F. Maria Molza [...] which may have inspired more generally the ques­ tioning address and diatribe of Antiquitez, XV and IX, respectively (text from Theodori Bezae . . . poematum editio secunda, 1569). . .” (155). In four long chapters, Tucker assesses, first, recent views on the Antiquitez, especially the “ sources” uncovered by previous scholars. He then surveys other writings upon Rome, from the age of Augustus onwards. Tucker’s intertextual and scholarly tour de force is to be found especially in his third chapter, where the neo-Latin poems of the Sicilian Janus Vitalis (discovered by Tucker in 1985) become the main comparative instrument for reading the poems of the Antiquitez. In his last chapter, Tucker considers the fortunes of the litera­ ture of Rome and those of the Antiquitez themselves, where he shows Du Bellay question­ ing the ultimate value of all human endeavor, be it the construction and celebration of a great city and its accomplishments or that of poetic vision and its writing. “ The End of All” (his title for this concluding chapter) ends up being “ la poudreuse cendre” (187)—the opening image taken from Antiquitez, I. This stress on ontological as well as epistemo­ logical nothingness or dissolution is the fil conducteur throughout this last chapter, that is, Du Bellay’s final position of skepticism which all the other chapters had been leading up to. Even when Tucker is able to assess Du Bellay in a more positive light, the negative element remains constant, as it does in his discussion of the closing sonnet of the Antiquitez: “ There, as we have seen, emphasis is placed not upon the restorative or immortalizing power of poetry for the future, nor even so much upon its ability to celebrate, and thus pro­ long, the memory of past deeds, but upon the present value of the living act of poetry in itself” (214). And also “ in defeat,” one needs to add for understanding Tucker’s reading of Du Bellay. As he states it even more clearly later on, poetry for Du Bellay is above all this “ unique, harmonious [?], but aberrant, moment of existence” that lies “ between Chaos and Chaos” and “ between night and night” (224). Other interesting notions on Du Bellay and poetic production are developed throughout the book. Du Bellay’s writing involves an extremely “ self-reflexive,” “ self-conscious” pre­ sentation. Whereas Ronsard, his rival, believed in or at least suggested the possibility of achieving poetic apotheosis, Du Bellay refused this possibility for himself and his own writ­ ing (this being the main difference intended by Du Bellay to distinguish himself from Ronsard). Du Bellay considered the Antiquitez, not the Regrets (as have modern readers), to be his major poetic work. Eleven useful appendices close the volume: for example, one on “ Du Bellay’s Age,” one on “ The Poems...