Peri Hypsous in Translation: The Sublime in Sixteenth-Century Epic Theory
2016; University of Iowa; Volume: 95; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0031-7977
Autores Tópico(s)Early Modern Spanish Literature
ResumoThe sublime has been called the preeminent modern aesthetic category--a well-deserved title, as the sublime stars in multiple essay collections and single-authored volumes in the twenty-first century alone. (1) Yet scholars are only beginning to explore its presence in the early modern period. A recent collection published by Brill aims to fill this gap by examining the early modern of Longinus's foundational first-century treatise, Peri Hypsous [On the Sublime], Dispelling the traditional view that the Longinian revival began only in the late seventeenth century, humanities scholars from multiple fields chart the dissemination of the text from its recovery in the fifteenth century to its appropriation in rhetorical theory, visual arts, and theater throughout the Renaissance. (2) In this essay, I examine the of Peri Hypsous into an area of Renaissance poetics in which it has never been studied: theories of epic poetry. The of a concept of the sublime into epic theory has the potential to reorient our understanding of arguably the most prestigious genre of the sixteenth century. (3) Modern scholars typically view Renaissance epic as espousing ethical and civic-building aims, which are generally at odds with the telos of literature championed by Longinus. While the influence of Aristotle, Horace, and Cicero led many Renaissance theorists to view the aim of poetry as ethical, shaping good citizens and building a moral society, Longinus presents something more radical: that great literature should promote sublimity, a condition of heightened emotion and transcendence originating with the poet and transferring to the audience. (4) Longinus held that literature's most important role was its ability to produce ekplexis [rapture or paralysis] and ekstasis [transport], crushing the faculties of reason and raising readers into a state of ecstasy or terror. In considering the emergence of this theory in the sixteenth century, I suggest, we find a discourse of sublimity latent in early theorists' understanding of epic. After all, according to epic theorist Torquato Tasso, the epic poem should evoke wonder and astonishment, a formula that epitomizes the characteristics of the sublime identified by Longinus. (5) I aim to show how Peri Hypsous's many translators--its early commentators, its Latin and Italian translators, and the early literary theorists grappling with Longinian ideas--were instrumental in bringing the sublime into epic theory in sixteenth-century Italy and England. I look at how translation contributed to the reception of Peri Hypsous in two stages: first, as sixteenth-century scholars Longinus's Greek text into Latin and Italian; and second, as other scholars translated or appropriated Longinus's ideas into theories of epic. For the second stage, I focus on the fate of the sublime in two of the most important theories of epic in the sixteenth century, in Italy and England, respectively: Tasso's Discorsi del poema eroico (1594), the most developed theory of epic poetry written during the European Renaissance; and Philip Sidney's Defence of Poetry (published 1595), a work that highlights heroic poetry as an especially sublime genre. (6) Crucially, I am not claiming that Longinus directly influenced Tasso or Sidney or that we can identify direct textual connections between them--neither poet-theorist ever quotes or mentions Longinus--but, rather, that we may identify the diffusion of Longinian thought in literary theory in different ways and in different places. In a century actively concerned with poetic theory and practice--particularly of epic--Longinus's ideas of sublimity, I propose, were in play in works as diverse as those of Tasso and Sidney, who for all their differences demonstrate a shared (but underappreciated) interest in post-Aristotelian rhetoric. RENAISSANCE TRANSLATIONS OF LONGINUS: BEFORE BOILEAU Peri Hypsous made its way into Italy in manuscript form in the mid-fifteenth century and was first published in 1554 by Francesco Robortello, followed by the Greek editions of Paolo Manuzio (1555) and Francesco Porto (1570), Latin translations by Domenico Pizzimenti (1566) and Pietro Pagano (1572), and an Italian translation by Giovanni Niccolo da Falgano (1575). …
Referência(s)