Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romanischen Philologie. Erich Auerbach
be found in the anthologies or in Raby’sRaby, F. J. E. History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages.9 As for vernacular poetry, GmelinGmelin, H. has quoted (pp. 130–131) some introductory passages from ChrétienChrétien de Troyes de Troyes’ Cligès and Ivain, and from the Chanson d’AspremontChanson d’Aspremont (Plaist vos oïr bone cançun vallant …). Such addressesMittelalterAnrede im MA are very frequent in the Chansons de gesteChanson de geste,10 as they are in ancient Germanic poetry. One may add the beginning of the Passion of Clermont-FerrandPassion v. Clermont-Ferrand, or of Aucassin et NicoleteAucassin et Nicolete. In this latter poem, there is also the recurrent formula si com vos avés oï et entendu. Observe, finally, that the first chronicler in vernacular prose, VillehardouinVillehardouin, G. de, constantly addresses his narrative to the reader, using phrases such as: Or oiez … or Lor veïssiez. Most of these forms are not very emphatic; they help give to Villehardouin’s prose that air of solemn story-telling which is one of its charms. The tradition continued with many later chroniclers in the vernacular; it may have some importance for our problem, since VillehardouinVillehardouin, G. de was, like DanteDante, a man who tells the story of a journey to those who have remained at home.11
There appears in the Middle Ages another type of address to the reader, less casual and more urgent: the religious appeal. It is, obviously, nearer to DanteDante’s style than anything we have hitherto encountered. For if DanteDante’s sublimity is VergilianVergil, his urgency is AugustianAugustinus.12 Most of the medieval examples are not addressedMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader as such; but to mankind in general, or to the hearers of a sermon. They are very numerous, typical specimens are Bernard of Morlaix’sBernhard v. Morlaix De contemptu mundi or Alexander Neckham’sAlexander Neckham De vita monachorum. Similar forms occur also in the vernaculars. One may recall the beginning of Marcabru’sMarcabru crusade-song, basically nothing but the usual call for attention; however, the subject confers upon it much greater intensity:
Pax in nomine Domini !
Fetz Marcabrus lo vers e’l so.
Auiatz que di !
Before ending this rapid inventory, let me say a few words regarding ancient and medieval theories of rhetoricRhetorik. The theorists have never described or listed the addressMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader as a special figure of speech. That is quite understandable. Since the ancient orator always addresses a definite public – either a political body or the judges in a trial – the problem arises only in certain special cases, if, with an extraordinary rhetorical movement, he should address someone else, a persona iudicis aversus, as QuintilianQuintilian says. He may, in such a moment, call on somebody who is present, e. g. on his opponent, as did DemosthenesDemosthenes with AeschinesAeschines, or CiceroCicero with CatilineCatilina – or on someone absent, e. g. the gods, or any person, living or dead – or even an object, an allegorical personification – anything suitable to create an emotional effect. This rhetorical figure is called apostropheApostrophe,13 and it very often has the character of a solemn and dramatic invocation,14 which interrupts a comparatively calmer exposition of the facts. The classical apostrophe no doubt exercised a deep influence on DanteDante’s style; it was in his mind and in his ears. But it is not identical with the address to the reader; this address constitutes a special and independent development of the apostrophe.
Nor did the medieval theorists mention the addressMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader as a special figure of speech, for they did nothing but imitate or adapt their precursors in Antiquity to their needs and to their horizon. They do describe the apostrophe; one of the most important, Geoffroi de VinsaufGeoffroi de Vinsauf, devoted some two hundred verses to such a description.15 He considers the apostropheApostrophe as a means of amplification and uses it for moral purposes: his examples are meant to serve as an admonition against pride and insolence, as an encouragement in adversity, as a caution against the instability of fortune, etc. They are highly, indeed pedantically, rhetorical; the purpose of ‘amplification’ is unpleasantly evident throughout. But they are put in the second person, and thus directly addressed to the persons or groups or countries which are supposed to invite criticism or admonition (Geoffroi uses the word castigare). In this respect they closely resemble ‘addresses to the reader’.
DanteDante’s address to the reader is a new creation, although some of its features appear in earlier texts. For its level of style, i. e. its dignity and intensity, it is nearest to the apostrophe of the ancients, – which, however, was seldom addressedMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader. The compositional schema of DanteDante’s addresses recalls the classical apostrophe, especially the apostrophe of prayer and invocation (Musa, mihi causas memora …). In both cases the basic elements are a vocative and an imperative (Ricorditi, lettor, or Aguzza qui, lettor). Both may be paraphrased and, in some instances, replaced by other forms. The most frequent paraphrase of the vocative is the solemn invocation known from classical poetry: O voi che …, or its humbler variant, the simple relative clause: (Immagini) chi bene intender cupe (much as in the Old French introductions Qui vorroit bons vers oïr). The vocative is an essential element of the address to the reader as well as of the apostrophe in general; the imperative is not essential. The ancient invocational apostropheApostrophe can be complete without any verbal addition (μὰ τοὺς Μαραϑῶνι προϰινδυνεύσαντας …). The address to the reader may be introduced into any discourse or statement whatsoever. There are passages in DanteDante where the imperative is paraphrased by a rhetorical questionRhetorische Frage or by some other expression of the poet’s intention, as in the following verses from the Vita Nuova:
Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore,
i’ vo’ con voi de la mia donna dire, …
Others are even without any imperative intention at all (Inf. xxv, 46: Se tu se’ or, lettore, a creder lento; Purg. XXXIII, 136: S’io avessi, lettor, più lungo spazio …; Par. XXII, 106ff.: S’io torni mai, lettor. …). But these passages too possess the specific intensity of DanteDante’s addresses.
There are two passages in the Commedia where DanteDante uses the noblest and most suggestive pattern, the O voi che form with the imperative: one in Inf. ix: O voi ch’avete li intelletti sani, and the other in Par. II: O voi che siete in piccioletta barca … / Voi altri pochi che drizzaste il collo. … It is definitely a classical pattern; DanteDante knew many passages (apostrophesApostrophe, not addresses to the reader) from classical Latin poets which may have inspired him. There are frequent examples in earlier medieval Latin poetry also (see fn. 9), but DanteDante’s Italian verses have much more of the antique flavor and of what was then called ’the sublimesublimitas’ than any medieval Latin passage I happen to know. DanteDante has used this form long before he wrote the Commedia, at the time of his youthful Florentine poetry. The earliest example seems to be the second sonnet of the Vita Nuova (7). It is not addressed to the reader (no readers are mentioned in the Vita Nuova; the corresponding addressesMittelalterAnrede im MA in this work are either the Donne amorose or, more generally, the fedeli d’amoreFedeli d’amore, and, on one occasion, the pilgrims who pass through the city of Florence). This second sonnet begins as follows:
O voi che per la via d’Amor passate,
attendete e guardate
s’elli e dolore alcun, quanto ’l mio, grave.
This is, obviously, not a classical inspiration, but a paraphrase, or even a translation, of a passage from the Lamentations of Jeremiah (1, 12): O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte, si est dolor sicut dolor meus. Indeed, DanteDante has in some way diverted its meaning from the prophet’s original intention; he does not address everyone who happens to pass, but only those who pass by the rather esoteric way of love: the fedeli d’ AmoreFedeli d’amore. But a little later, in the final chapters after the death of Beatrice (29 and ff.), when he again quotes the Lamentations (Quomodo sedet sola civitas …), the development leads to a new address and apostropheApostrophe, this time directed to a much larger group of persons: Deh peregrini che pensosi andate … (Sonnet 24, ch. xli). And after