Please Share.
I know that many will want to share some words about Richard, and I thought it would be good to create a virtual space to do so given that many of those he touched are now far-flung.
For those who may not have come here via the Early Modern Center’s memoriam, you may want to start here.
Tassie Gniady said,
April 28, 2008 at 8:32 am
On one of my last visits with Richard, he was being read Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of The Odyssey. We agreed that we didn’t mind the licenses that Fitzgerald had taken because the poetry was so wonderful. I would like to beckon him to
…go overland on foot, and take an oar,
until one day you come where men have lived
with meat unsalted, never known the sea,
nor seagoing ships, with crimson bows
and oars that fledge light hulls for dipping flight.
The spot will soon be plain to you, and I
can tell you how: some passerby will say
“What winnowing fan is that upon your shoulder?”
XI.135-142
Travel on dear friend. May your oar soon become a fan, so that you may begin telling your stories to a new audience.
David Miller said,
April 28, 2008 at 10:02 am
Richard lived beautifully, and for all of us who were fortunate to know him, will always be a model: this is how you do it, this is the way to conduct a life in the world.
A Former Student said,
April 28, 2008 at 2:36 pm
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
King Richard II 3.2.152-56
Laurie Ellinghausen said,
April 28, 2008 at 3:51 pm
As I stare at an unwieldy pile of notes for a new project, I feel that the best tribute I can make to Richard is to try my best to follow his impeccable example as a scholar, teacher, and person.
God speed, Richard. And thanks for being my teacher.
Judith Hicks said,
April 28, 2008 at 7:29 pm
While feeling that his loss is very much to have to bear and too soon, I feel a great sense of gratitude as well for his magnanimous presence, his tremendous wisdom and scholarship, and, one might almost say, romantic attachment to the beauty of his primary literatures, which he displayed with wit and style while keeping us firmly grounded to earth in our own work with texts. He gave us, his students, what we could never have earned: his affection. Montaigne says, “Menander declared that man happy who had been able to meet even the shadow of a friend.” Professor Helgerson gave us that happiness in its fullness.
Jessica Murphy said,
April 28, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Richard was one of the most amazing people to work with because it felt like he knew everything and yet it also felt like he was ready to learn from you. He was a true mentor and an amazing scholar.
I’ll never forget the day he told me, as I stood very pregnant in his doorway making plans to talk about my most recent dissertation chapter, that having his daughter was the best thing he had ever done with his life. It struck me then how lucky we all were, his students, to receive even a fraction of that abundant care he had for his family. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to know and work with Richard.
James Nohrnberg said,
April 28, 2008 at 10:13 pm
O divina virtù, se mi ti presti
tanto che l’ombra del beato regno
segnata nel mio capo io manifesti,
vedra’mi al piè del tuo diletto legno
venire, e coronarmi de le foglie
che la materia e tu mi farai degno.
Sì rade volte, padre, se ne coglie
per trïunfare o cesare o poeta,
colpa e vergogna de l’umane voglie
che parturir letizia in su la lieta
delfica deïtà dovria la fronda
peneia, quando alcun di sé asseta. — Dante, Paradiso I, 22-33
O divine virtue, if you may lend yourself to me
so that the shadow of the blest kingdom,
signed in my brain, I may show forth,
then you will see me come to your delightful tree
and you will crown me with the leaves
which you and the subject- matter will make me deserve.
So rarely, father, are they collected
for triumph of Caesar or Poet,
(fault and shame of the human will),
that the Peneian frond must needs beget joy
within the joyful Delphic deity,
whenever it causes any to yearn for it.
–One imagines Richard Helgerson and his admirers invoking the God of Poetry with a prayer from a follower of the Muses seemingly chosen to speak on behalf of us all.
Robert Tittler said,
April 29, 2008 at 1:32 am
Though I came to know Richard himself only in the past three or four years, through our participation in the ‘Making Publics’ project based in Montreal, I had of course known and admired his scholarship long before. Seeing him in action showed me at once his ability to see lucidly through complex issues, to take enormously meaningful over-views, and to sum up debates in ways which proved path-setting: what quickly became known as ‘Richard’s Twelve Points’ has guided the Making Publics ever since , at the end of hours of discussion, he offered them to us. What surprised me even more was his revelation to me that he had done undergraduate honours work in microbiology with the distinguished scientist Carl Bovell! I’ve no doubt he would have succeeded in that field every bit as much as that which he made his own in the Humanities. What a thoroughly impressive individual; what a terrible loss to us all.
Robert Tittler
‘Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus’
Concordia University.
Jeen Yu said,
April 30, 2008 at 2:44 pm
As I teach The Tempest to my high-school seniors this week, I fondly remember reading it with Richard eight years ago in his “New Worlds” seminar. Through my teaching, I wish to honor Richard and the immeasurable guidance he gave during my graduate years. My classroom today feels graced by his spirit.
Jerry Singerman said,
May 1, 2008 at 7:40 am
There is no editor who does not hope to publish scholars of Richard Helgerson’s standing, and there are precious few who can ever hope to work with anyone of Richard’s grace and magnanimity. We all had–and have still–so very much to learn from him, so very much to admire.
Jerry Singerman
University of Pennsylvania Press
Carolyn Butcher said,
May 1, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Richard absolutely sparkled.
I first met him in 1993 when I took his Milton class as an Undergraduate at UCSB, and from the first day I was transfixed. Richard’s Satan was so sensually appealing that his extraordinary power was completely understandable.
Richard was the chair of the departmental graduate committee during my second year in the PhD program, and when I had a meeting with him for a progress check he quieted my anxiety about the enormity of the process by saying: “You just get it done, get a job as a professor and then, like the rest of us, you never have to leave school.” And then he chuckled in full expression of the joy he was living.
Richard always showed a warm interest in how I was doing and I am grateful to have known him.
Bill Gahan said,
May 1, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I have known Richard Helgerson for a brief six years, during which time he was my mentor and teacher. He was one of the noblest souls I have ever met. First, here are some memories of things he has said, all of them with his genial smile and slow, sympathetic delivery:
About Herbert’s *The Temple*: “If you hold it up, it glows.”
About studying Joachim DuBellay’s poems: “you should know them well for the big exam in the sky.”
If he agreed with you, he said, “Right.”
If he did not agree with you, he said, “Some people have argued that,” or “I can see how someone might make a case for that.”
If he absolutely disagreed, he shook his head and furrowed his brow. Then he made a joke.
About his beloved Marie Christine: “French is the language of love. I should know.”
Over the course of two years, we translated all of Garcilaso de la Vega’s poetry together. I remember many of the impressions he shared about the poems and the contemporary commentators that we also translated. In the case of Francisco de Herrera, instead of pointing out how tedious and pedantic he was, Richard expressed genuine pity for him: “The poor guy slaved away under such a brilliant star as Garcilaso.”
Richard found most of Garcilaso’s sonnets extraordinary. Although he did not consider “Sonnet 37” among the poet’s best, Richard felt personally moved by it anyway:
Garcilaso’s “Sonnet 37”
A la entrada de un valle, en un desierto,
do nadie atravesaba, ni se vía,
vi que con extrañeza un can hacía
extremos de dolor con desconcierto;
agora suelta el llanto al cielo abierto,
ora va rastreando por la vía;
camina, vuelve, para, y todavía
quedaba desmayado como muerto.
Y fue que se apartó de su presencia
su amo, y no le hallaba; y esto siente;
mirad hasta do llega el mal de ausencia.
Movióme a compasión ver su accidente;
díjele, lastimado: «Ten paciencia,
que yo alcanzo razón, y estoy ausente».
Prose translation:
At the entrance of a valley, in a desert where no one passed nor was seen, I saw that a dog made strange and disconcerted complaints of sorrow: Now it would let loose a wail to the open sky, then it would track along the path; it would walk, return, stop, and then would swoon as if dead. It was because his master departed from him and he could not find him that he felt this way. Look how far the pain of absence can go. It moved me to compassion to see his suffering; feeling pity, I told him: “Be patient, for I, who can reason, also suffer from absence.”
All who knew Richard Helgerson feel the pain of his absence. I am very grateful to have known such an exemplary scholar, generous mentor, and genuinely kind human being.
Dan Pecchenino said,
May 2, 2008 at 10:39 am
As someone who studies works rather far afield from those Richard loved so much, I think the best thing I can say about Richard as a teacher is that he made me want to read works that I would have never considered before meeting him. His seminars were lively, his comments always spot on, and he was so generous to both is students and to art. I hope someday I can bring even one tenth of his passion and compassion to my own teaching and writing. We’re all better for having known Richard.
Elizabeth Aydelotte said,
May 2, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I attended UCSB from 1974-1978 as an undergraduate in English and first encountered Dr. Helgerson in my English lit survey courses. I was excited about studying Renaissance lit, esspecially as I had been named after the Virgin Queen. Imagine my delight at discovering that the course was being taught by a young, inspiring teacher like Dr. Helgerson. I sung his praises to my fellow undergrads, and we all signed up for any classes he was offering. I took five courses with him over my four years at UCSB, and they were all memorable. He even taught the survery course on 18th century literature, which was outside his usual field, and he urged us to travel down to the Huntington Library and look at the Gainsborough and Romney portraits to get a feeling for the period. He also taught a course entitled “Shakespeare in Film,” which was co-taught with the drama department. We studied the plays from the literary point of view and also from the staging point of view. I thought that was particularly valubable, since the plays were meant to be perfromances as well as literary works.
When my daughter chose to attend UCSB many years later, I told her that in my experience they had an outstanding English department with professors who took the time to work one on one with their students. Dr. Helgerson was that kind of caring and devoted professor.
Sincerely, Elizabeth Aydelotte
Laura Aydelotte said,
May 2, 2008 at 7:10 pm
As my mother’s post above, reveals, I was fortunate enough to be a second generation student of Richard Helgerson. During my own undergraduate years, from 2000-04, I was privileged to experience for myself the convivial humor, copious exchange of knowledge and keen intellectual insight that characterized the world of Richard’s classroom. I was struck with the inclusiveness he encouraged as a discussion leader. Even the most off topic or clumsily expressed student remark was taken up with an air of genuine interest and turned to productive use in the discussion. I was also deeply struck with the incredible amount I learned about some very challenging texts and imposing concepts during sessions when it seemed as though we spent the majority of the time laughing and joking. Richard somehow made learning not only effortless, but profoundly pleasant.
Indeed, the English 101 course I took with Richard in my freshman year proved so pleasant that it started me along the path toward graduate school, where I am currently pursuing my PhD in Renaissance literature and discovering just how right Richard was when he told me that those of us who spend part of our time dwelling in the 16th century have reason to be an unusually happy lot. As a mentor during my undergraduate years he taught me a great deal about the importance of being an open-minded scholar and a patient teacher. Since leaving UCSB, I have continued to enjoy little slices of Richard’s mentorship in the e-mails we’ve exchanged every few months or so during my graduate school years in Chicago. He would sometimes sign his e-mails to me “your fellow student,” which was not only an exceedingly gracious closing salutation from one so wise to one so young, but also so very characteristic of his outlook on life. One of the many fine qualities that contributed to his being such a remarkable person was the way he maintained the fresh joy and lively curiosity of a student. He was not only a scholarly student, interested in what the poetry of the past could teach him, but a student of life, interested in what every person and experience could teach him. Furthermore, he was a “fellow” student, always encouraging others to join him as he learned. This student-like enthusiasm for learning about others and with others was in turn deeply linked with the great personal warmth, tolerance and generosity that characterized his interactions with all those around him. Whatever future success I may have as a teacher and scholar will be indebted in no small way to Richard’s influence on the early days of my career, and the true mark of success for me would be to become even half so good a student as he has been.
Jim Hodge said,
May 2, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I have fond memories of Richard. Wandering through the halls at UCSB during my prospective student visit, I heard a voice call out to me from an office. It was Richard inviting me in. He quickly figured out that I wasn’t the grad student he was supposed to meet. But we had a wonderful chat all the same. I had several rewarding conversations with him during my time in Santa Barbara–especially during his remarkable seminar on “Renaissance Memory.” Teaching Frances Yates’ Art of Memory last month, I can only hope that I was able to manifest a fraction of the intimate excitement he exhibited for that text and many others.
Paul Yachnin said,
May 3, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Richard was brilliant and had the most organized mind, and one of the best-stocked minds, that I have ever encountered. But kindness was his distinguishing characteristic. His attention to others, to their feelngs and well-being, will go on resonating in my mind and heart for the rest of my days.
Richard made the MaPs project possible. I told him that the last time I talked to him. He deflected the praise, but it is certainly true that his massive intelligence, the careful and strong way he handled complex ideas, his careful and kind holding of the ideas of others, all that made our work come together from the first into something like a coherent whole.
His life was a gift to us.
Roze Hentschell said,
May 5, 2008 at 12:01 pm
During my first year of graduate school at UCSB, and just after _Forms of Nationhood_ had won the Lowell prize, I approached Richard and asked him about a specific detail of the text buried deep in a chapter. His response has stayed with me ever since: “Oh, Roze, the book knows much more than I do.” To me, this comment captures the spirit of Richard: smart, understated, and spot on funny.
One of the last times I saw Richard was at SAA in Bermuda, where he asked me to organize a table at the lunch where he could visit with his graduate students, many of whom had been long gone from Santa Barbara. While many scholars use such an opportunity to network with their colleagues, he clearly loved nothing more than seeing his students around him.
The academic world has lost an important scholar, to be sure. But for those of us who are lucky enough to be counted among his students, we’ve lost so much more. I for one, will spend my teaching and scholarly career trying to emulate his model.
Dika Golovatchoff said,
May 5, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I knew Richard only as a neighbor. Our paths crossed on numerous walks. After reading the posts from so many others I wish I had known him as a mentor or colleague - but even the fleeting glimpses of his warmth, character, modesty, stoicism, and above all courage in the face of adversity will remain with me. It is tragic when the best leave us prematurely.
Web Admin said,
May 5, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Dr. Harry Berger Jr. has written a wonderful essay on Richard which is now available on the homepage of this blog.
Leonard Barkan said,
May 7, 2008 at 8:34 pm
As I look at the exquisite poetic ear and intellectual scholarship of the duBellay edition–which I pressured Jerry Singerman into sending me ahead of time so that I could share it with my graduate students–it is almost impossible to accept that Richard has left us. He was a man of impeccable wisdom and elegant achievement, a generous friend, and an exemplar of the life of the mind as well as the life of colleagueship. We lost him far too soon.
Mary L. Dudy Bjork said,
May 12, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Though my scholarship has been indelibly shaped by his and my identity as a scholar will always be tied to having been his student, my most cherished memory of Richard comes from the day I graduated from UCSB with my Ph.D. Four months pregnant with my daughter and frantically working to give birth to that work before Francesca’s arrival, I planned to fill Richard in on all of the details of my last chapter, determined to demonstrate to him that I was really and truly going to finish, come what may. To my joyful surprise, Richard wanted to spend the bulk of that afternoon talking about babies, his own two beloved grandchildren as well as my unborn child. “This is the best thing you’ll ever do,” he said, and then continued with “Without children, how would you ever get grandchildren?” Richard was a fantastic scholar, and no one who has ever read his work will ever forget it, but those of us who had the pleasure of knowing him personally were treated to a beautiful lesson in balancing scholarship, which Richard loved, with family, which Richard adored. He was, as the now two-year old Francesca would say, a very great man.
Fran Dolan said,
May 15, 2008 at 9:34 am
As I’ve reflected on Richard’s life, and my own relationship with him, I’ve come to realize that I most valued about him two things: his uncynical, robust engagement in scholarly and professional life and his remarkable frankness. When I am having trouble making a decision, I sometimes think: would I do this if I only had one year to live? Richard faced this question in earnest and his answer was unfailingly “yes” rather than “no.” Watching him handle these last years, I’ve thought about the many, many conversations we’ve had since we first met in which Richard always expressed his passionate sense that of course one would say yes to service, yes to students, yes to writing–because, really, what could be more fun, what could be more worth doing? He always said “yes” and advised “yes” not out of duty but out of desire. He did not talk in terms of calculation. He talked in terms of launching one’s self without reservation into engagements with other people’s ideas, into learning new things, into helping other people, into building a department and institution in which one should and must be invested. I cannot live up to the model he set–a model he burnished in his final years–but I do hear his voice in my head when I’m making decisions! More than that, I think of him when I think about why I do what I do and why it’s important to me. When we first met at a gig at UCLA, when Richard was already eminent and I was an assistant professor, he disarmed me by speaking honestly about what was happening in his life, thus knocking me right out of my guarded performance of professional perkiness and into shared confidences. We never went back! Richard’s frankness is one of the reasons he did not disappear into serious illness but allowed other people in to share his last years, even while maintaining a reserve that also defined him. That combination–of openness and self-possession, I guess–was so wonderful and so distinctive. I have depended on Richard for advice and support and example since the beginning of my career. It’s hard to imagine not having him to turn to anymore.
Margie Ferguson said,
May 15, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Richard Helgerson was a brilliant, gentle, and quietly but sometimes wickedly witty man. I will miss him sorely. During the years that we both served on the editorial board for a series called “Massachusetts Studies in Early Modern Culture,” Richard’s emailed comments on book proposals were invariably judicious, intelligent, and tending toward the kindly end of the spectrum. He was unfailingly colleagial but he never joined a consensus just to make his life easier. He persuaded by example as well as by argument. I remember going back to reread a text after he began an email by saying that while he “hesitated to break [our] impressive list of refusals,” he nonetheless was going to do just that because he thought that the text in question had more merit than others were allowing. This spring, he took his leave from the editorial board; most other scholars would have done so–and stopped doing such humble, every-day professional work–much earlier than he did. He left, typically, without fanfare: just with a statement that he could no longer handle his email and that he was sorry to go “in the midst of a minor flighting.” He also mentioned, parenthetically, that his daughter was writing for him, which gave his far-flung colleagues a tiny but intense picture of the manner of his dying: in the midst of a family he loved.
Richard taught so many readers so much about early modern literature and culture. My own education was immeasurably enriched by my correspondence with Richard about his translations and interpretations of Joachim du Bellay’s writings. When I reread that poet’s description of Ulysses as one who was happy in making—and returning home from—“un beau voyage” (Regrets 31), I think of Richard. He loved Du Bellay but didn’t seem to share his sense of his own life as a blighted voyage. Even after receiving the terrible diagnosis of cancer in 2005, Richard continued his intellectual questing without self-pity and in deep enjoyment of being at home in his marriage, surrounded by family and friends and close to the beautiful California university where he had spent his entire fruitful career. Those of you who knew him better than I did and who are among the many who honor his memory and feel angry sorrow now at his too-early death will recognize his laconic but impeccably honest voice in this email message from 2006, in which he described to me the two kinds of chemotherapy he was then enduring: “Though my illness leaves little doubt about the ultimate outcome, I am for the moment doing pretty well and should be able to hang on for a while longer.” He did more than hang on; he continued in his generous and unusual path, excelling in what Emerson called “the conduct of life.”
Andrew McRae said,
May 16, 2008 at 7:46 am
Like so many scholars of early modern literary and cultural history, I feel like I’ve lived in Richard Helgerson’s long shadow my entire career. As a graduate student, the discovery of his 1988 essay, ‘The Land Speaks’, terrified me, it was so good. Now, it is of course impossible even to think of ‘nationhood’ without thinking of his work. (And some of us spend more time than is good for us thinking of nationhood.)
But intellectual debts are one thing, and intertwinted personal and professional ones another. While I only met Richard a few times, he was one of the most generous and supportive influences upon me, reading work and writing endless references through an uncertain phase of my career. The academic world is fortunately crowded with good people; however, Richard, in my experience, was one of the very best.
Most of the tributes for Richard will inevitably come from the US, but it’s also worth stating just how well regarded he was in the UK and beyond. He was a wonderfully engaged and collegial presence at conferences: a star, certainly, in the eyes of others, but not at all in his manner.
Mac Test said,
May 21, 2008 at 3:49 pm
After reading Forms of Nationhood, I knew that I wanted to work with Richard as a graduate student. His prose was so understandable and his comprehension of history and literature so large. I felt he inhabited his scholarship with ease and without pretension. When I met Richard as a prospective student I realized that his personality matched his prose, and I immediately knew I wanted to study at UCSB with this great Renaissance scholar. During my five years of study, Richard was a wonderful mentor, gently guiding my investigation, and never letting me get away with a faulty argument.
I remember entering his office during my first quarter at UCSB, all full of excitement and verve about a discovery I had made. Richard listened attentatively, and when I finally ran out of steam, he commented: “That’s all well and good, Mac, but in order to build this argument you need cable, not a thread.” I am forever indebted to Richard for pushing me to my limits and helping me build that cable. Without Richard, that thread would have broken long ago. Richard provided me with a diligent and thorough approach to scholarship that I will carry throughout my career. Thank you!
Kathy Lavezzo said,
June 2, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I had the tremendous good fortune of receiving Richard’s support and expert guidance over some fifteen years, since he served on my dissertation committee at UCSB. Richard was a superlative mentor, upon whom I could always rely for immediate feedback on a query. Above all, perhaps, his confidence in the power and agency of the literary critic was contagious. The strong and lucid interpretive stance he demonstrated through his own criticism and in conversations has been inspirational for me. In the face of his own mortality, Richard proved exemplary as well. His frankness about how a negative prognosis transforms one’s relationship to one’s work, his inspiring embrace of quotidian pleasures, his ongoing direction of graduate students and teaching nearly up to the very end all demonstrate his status as no ordinary human being but someone who is truly exceptional, truly great. I feel extremely privileged to have known him and deeply miss him.
Kathy Lavezzo said,
June 10, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I had the tremendous good fortune of receiving Richard¹s support and expert
guidance over some fifteen years, since he served on my dissertation
committee at UCSB. Richard was a superlative mentor, upon whom I could
always rely for immediate feedback on a query. Above all, perhaps, his
confidence in the power and agency of the literary critic was contagious.
The strong and lucid interpretive stance he demonstrated through his own
criticism and in conversations has been inspirational for me. In the face
of his own mortality, Richard proved exemplary as well. His frankness about
how a negative prognosis transforms one¹s relationship to one¹s work, his
inspiring embrace of quotidian pleasures, his ongoing direction of graduate
students and teaching nearly up to the very end all demonstrate his status
as no ordinary human being but someone who is truly exceptional, truly
great. I feel extremely privileged to have known him and deeply miss him.
Elias L. Rivers said,
July 1, 2008 at 1:35 pm
This is my review of his last book.
Elias L. Rivers
1532 Zoreta Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33146-2433
Helgerson, Richard. A Sonnet from Carthage: Garcilaso de la Vega and the New Poetry of Sixteenth-Century Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. xvii+120 pp. ISBN-10: 0-8122-4004-9
This small volume is a highly original and brilliantly developed essay in literary history. Its ideas are organized around a single poem, Garcilasós Sonnet 33 (“Boscán, las armas y el furor de Marte”); each quatrain and tercet of this sonnet provides a chapter with 3 or 4 lines of poetry to be analyzed in combination with other passages by Garcilaso and by writers both ancient and modern. These four central chapters are preceded by a preface and by an introductory chapter giving us the European literary context; they are followed by a chapter devoted to the partnership of Boscán and Garcilaso and by an epilogue. Part II of the volume is an appendix entitled “Garcilasós Tunisian Poems: a Bilingual Anthology.” It contains six poems arranged in chronological order of composition: the “Epístola a Boscán”; Sonnet 35, beginning “Mario, el ingrato amor, como testigo” (which chronologically precedes Sonnet 33); the “Elegía a Boscán”; the “Elegía al duque de Alba”; and the Latin “Ode ad Genesium Sepulvedam.”
Richard Helgerson (RH), who has published major books on Elizabethan poets as well as a bilingual edition of Du Bellay, is uniquely qualified to write the introductory chapter, entitled “What They Expected (…and What They Got).” In this chapter he begins with the phrase “siempre la lengua fue compañera del imperio,” taken from Nebrijás Gramática de la lengua castellana of 1492. Spaińs nascent world empire and its awareness of the need for an imperial language anticipated the similar needs of France and of England; literary Spaniards in Sicily and Naples had come into early contact with the Italian Renaissance. Garcilasós lyric poetry may not seem to provide an imperial language, but as a military man he was closely associated with Charles V́s invasion of North Africa and the Spanish war against the French in Italy; his youthful death in southern France, along with what RH calls his “Tunisian poems,” was enough to convert his new poetry into a powerful cultural symbol, acclaimed by Herrera, of Spaińs Renaissance dreams of becoming a new Rome, both literarily and militarily. Garcilasós Latinization of the Spanish vernacular, following the models of Cicerós and Horacés Hellenization of Latin and of Petrarch́s Latinization of Tuscan, made Spaińs Castilian poetry cosmopolitan; as RH puts it (p. 9), “the new poetry was always a deliberate and radical self-estrangement, a poetry that abandoned itself to become another.”
But there was at the same time a radical split between heroic and erotic poetry. Homeŕs Circe lured Ulysseśs crew away from their destined voyage; Virgiĺs Aeneas had to abandon his love affair with Dido in order to go on and found Rome. And yet Didós desperate story was “irresistibly attractive” (p. 14) to the poets of the European Renaissance, from Du Bellay to Spenser and beyond. RH (p. 21) concludes his introductory chapter by saying that Garcilasós sonnet from Carthage is “ a poem that marvelously combines in its brief length imperial ambition, self-conscious poetic aspiration, and Dido-like self-immolation.”
Garcilaso begins his sonnet celebrating Charles V́s invasion of Tunis in 1535 with this variation on Virgiĺs “Arma virumque cano”: “las armas y el furor de Marte” (probably recalling Virgiĺs discarded words “horrentia Martis,” as Alcina points out in his edition). RH lists the impressive worldwide triumphs of Spaińs new Hapsburg monarch, ranging from his defeat of Toledós comuneros, led by Garcilasós older brother Pedro, to the conquests of Mexico and Peru, the capture of Francis I of France, the sack of Rome, and the defense of Vienna against the Turks. But the taking of Barbarossás Tunis and its Goleta fortress reminds Garcilaso in his sonnet not of the crusades against Islam but of Romés Punic Wars and the destruction of nearby Carthage; in another poem he refers to Charles V as “Caesar Africanus,” a new Scipio, a classical rather than a Christian hero. By implication, Garcilaso was casting himself in the role of a new Virgil as well as a new Petrarch.
In the second quatrain, the epic arms of the emperor “han reduzido a la memoria el arte / y el antiguo valor italïano.” Lapesa lists this use of the verb “reducir” as a “cultismo semántico,” a Latinism based on the etymological meaning of the word: “to lead back.” What is led back to memory is both the military valor of ancient Italy and, according to RH, the new Italian art of versification, with its Latinisms, that Boscán and Garcilaso were imposing upon Spanish vernacular poetry. Exiled in November of 1532 to Naples, Garcilaso, already a Petrarchist, came under the influence of the neo-Latin academy of that city, and (RH, pp. 33-34) “he began adopting classical models. In addition to the blank-verse Horatian epistle, the two elegies, and the Latin ode to Sepúlveda, all of which he wrote during the months he was involved in the Tunis campaign and its immediate aftermath, these last years of his life saw the production of his three eclogues, his two other Latin odes, and a Horatian ode in Spanish, his ́Ode ad florem Gnidi,́ poems for which, as for the others, there was no precedent in Spanish.”
The informal “descuido” of the epistle (October of 1534), its “sprezzatura,” is part of “a highly artful artlessness” (RH, p. 35) that is not at all heroic. And in contrast to the brief epic allusions of the first two tercets of the elegy addressed to Boscán (August of 1535, one month after the victory in Tunis), Garcilaso gives us “a wry account of his fellow soldierś generally unheroic motivations before catching himself up with a sudden sense of violated literary decorum: ́But where has my pen taken me? Step by step I slip into satire, and what I am writing you is an elegy.́ And, as soon becomes clear, elegy is antithetical not only to satire but also to the kind of heroic verse we might have expected [...]” (RH, pp. 35-36).
In Chapter 4 RH (pp. 40-41) emphasizes the importance of the first word of the sestet: “Garcilasós sonnet from Carthage turns on a single word: Aquí.” And this first-person adverbial shifter refers not to La Goleta or to Tunis, the modern place names of where Garcilaso actually was at the time, but to the name that is all that remains of the nearby ancient city of Carthage, after its destruction by Rome. “Thus for Garcilaso to insist on being in Carthage, to insist that Carthage is his aquí, is to identify not with empire but rather with places of which empire leaves only the name.” Empire brings “alienation from place,” and the poet was long an exile from his home town of Toledo. “Seen this way, Carthage might be taken to stand for other places overrun by empire, for Goleta and Tunis, for sacked Rome, for Mexican Tenochtitlán, for Inca Cuzco [...].” But while writing in exile his last great eclogue, Garcilaso reveals his “local allegiance” (p. 43) by returning to the Tagus River where it almost encircles the city of Toledo. He was well aware that the comuneros of Toledo had been crushed by the empire of Charles V. And that he had fought for the emperor against the comuneros, led by his own brother Pedro.
At this point I will quote from the paragraph in which RH (p. 49) explicates the final line of the sonnet, “y en llanto y en cenizas me deshago”: “Though Garcilaso came to Carthage as a soldier in an invading army, he ends by identifying with the victims of that army and even moreparticularly with the victims of that armýs ancient Roman predecessor. [...] And thinking of Carthage more generally and its legendary connection with the founding of Rome, we may also remember Queen Dido, who stabbed herself on a sacrificial pyre when her lover Aeneas left her to fulfill his imperial destiny. [...This] is evoked not only by the conjunction of love, Carthage, and a death in tears and ashes, but also by a verbal echo in hiere y enciende of the “wound” and “fire” that afflict Dido in the opening lines of book 4 of the Aeneid , the book that ends with her suicide. Like Garcilaso, Dido has been struck by Amor, the son of Venus and half brother of Aeneas, and like both Garcilaso and Hasdrubaĺs wife, she ultimately falls victim to the cruel exigencies of empire.”
Citing Anne J. Cruźs 2002 essay “Arms Versus Letters: The Poetics of War and the Career of the Poet in Early Modern Spain,” RH (p.50) points out that in his Latin ode to Ginés de Sepúlveda on the Tunis campaign, Garcilaso again shows sympathy for the female victims of empire, “the Moorish wives, who ́gaze from the high towers over the wide plains of the field,́ and sigh for their lovers ́with a trembling breast.́” Even more significant is the fact that the first line of Garcilasós most famous love sonnet, Sonnet X, clearly echoes the final words of the suicidal Dido addressing Aeneaśs discarded clothing and their bed of love (Aeneid IV, lines 651-652): “Dulces exuviae dum fata deusque sinebat, / accipite hanc animam meque his exsolvite curis” (“Oh relics sweet while the gods permitted, / receive this soul of mine and free me from these woes!”):
¡Oh dulces prendas, por mi mal halladas,
dulces y alegres cuando Dios quería,
juntas estáis en la memoria mía
y con ella en mi muerte conjuradas!
RH concludes his Chapter 5 (p. 55) by repeating that “the new poetry of sixteenth-century Europe is a poetry deeply at odds with itself.” It was not easy for the poets of Petrarchan love to sing straight-forward epic praises of the new nation states and their worldwide empires.
Chapter 6 is entitled “Boscán,” which is the first word of the sonnet that has been explicated; this chapter is a study of the pioneering pair of innovative Spanish poets, who closely paralleled, as prime agents of change, the French pair Ronsard and Du Bellay and the English pair Sidney and Spenser. “Garcilaso provided what Boscán most needed, not just encouragement but also collaboration.[...] The very intensity of such friendship –the two of us against the world– lend the rare energy to their shared enterprise that we hear echoed a decade and a half later in Boscáńs memory [...]” (p. 57), when he wrote his Sonnet 129, beginning “Garcilaso, que al bien siempre aspiraste,” and had it published as part of his joint edition of their poetry. RH takes this male friendship to its affective limit, and perhaps beyond, when he says (p. 59) “The love Garcilaso most intensely cherishes, the support he most insistently craves, and the abandonment he most fears are, quite simply, those of Boscán.” He supports this statement by citing Garcilasós “Epistle to Boscán” with its mention of “el vínculo d́amor, que nuestro genio / enredó sobre nuestros corazones” (lines 53-54). He finds similar feelings expressed in Garcilasós elegy addressed to Boscán. In the rest of this chapter he makes a strong case for the special relationship between the two innovative poets.
In his brief epilogue, “Poetry of the New” (pp. 66-70), RH shows how Garcilasós single poem from Carthage is “the unique epitome” of “a program of literary renewal” in the vernacular poetries of Spain, France, and England, with the Italian sonnet at its center. For all of these not unfamiliar ideas Garcilasós sonnet from Carthage has provided a sort of aleph through which the writer shows us that whole world with a new freshness and clarity of vision.
To conclude this review I return to the preface, which provides the reader with the booḱs genesis and rationale. As planned in July of 2005, this essay, says RH (pp. ix-xvii), was to have been part of a large, comparative study on the self-consciously ́new poetrý of sixteenth-century Europe. But with a radical change in his available time, our author decided to limit himself to Garcilasós sonnet, which he had first read only three years before. (Prior to his 1970 Ph.D. in English at Johns Hopkins, he had studied in France and in Italy, but for Spanish he needed the help of a native reader of that language.) We professional Hispanists owe him a new and wider perspective on our field. He could have profited somewhat from more recent improved editions of Garcilaso such as Alcinás (Madrid: Espasa, 1989) and Morrośs (Barcelona: Crítica, 1995), but their notes would not have changed this book in any substantial way. I have read it with pleasure, profit, and admiration.
Elias L. Rivers
SUNY at Stony Brook