Poets of Divine Love: The Rhetoric of Franciscan Spiritual Poetry

by Alessandro Vettori

Overview

St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181-1226) and Jacopone da Todi (c.1236-1306) were but two exemplars of a rich school of mystical poets writing in Umbria in the Franciscan religious tradition. Their powerful creations form a significant corpus of medieval Italian vernacular poetry only now being fully explored.Drawing on a wide range of literary, historical, linguistic, and anthropological approaches, Vettori crafts an innovative portrait of the artists as legends and as poets. He investigates the essential features of emerging Franciscan tradition, in motifs of the body, metaphors of matrimony, and musical harmony. Vettori also explores the relationship of Francis's poetic mission to Genesis, the relationship between erotic love and ecstatic union in both poets' work, and the poetics of the sermon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823223251
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	08/23/2004
Series:	Fordham Series in Medieval Studies , #3
Edition description:	1
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alessandro Vettori teaches in the Department of Italian, Rutgers University.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Adviso to Reader	xi
	Introduction	xiii
Part 1
1.	Theater of Nudity	3
2.	Mysticism of Sexual Union	40
3.	Harmony of the Cosmos	59
Part 2
4.	Origins of the Canon	79
5.	Theology of Ravishment	112
6.	Ecstasy of Agapic Love	145
7.	Symphony of the Ineffable	172
	Conclusion	193
	Appendix	197
	Cantico di frate sole	197
	The Canticle of the Sun	199
	Sources of the "Canticle of Brother Sun"
	Daniel 3:51-90	200
	Psalm 148	203
	Bibliography	205
	Index	219

Editorial Reviews

Drawing on literary, historical, linguistic, and anthropological approaches, Vettori examines Francis of Assisi's 'The Canticle of Brother Sun' and Jacopone's Laude from a collection of more than 100 poems.

Theology Digest