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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

The Vocal Physicality of Language in Richard Crashaw’s Sacred Poetry (1612-1649)

Résumé

In the opening stanza of Crashaw’s "Sospetto d'Herode", his translation of the first book of Marino’s epic poem about the Massacre of the Innocents, the reference to the speaker’s “infant lips” combined with the visually powerful and evocative image of a divinely-inspired language deeply rooted in the tormented bodies of the martyrs point to the physicality of language. Although two manuscript versions of “Sospetto d’Herode” currently held at the Bodleian Library prove that the poem was composed as early as 1637, this aspect of Crashaw’s poetics runs throughout his work and culminates in the posthumous Carmen Deo nostro published in 1652. I will strive to demonstrate that the vocal physicality of language testifies to the poet’s indebtedness to Catholic mysticism and was progressively emphasised by the various editors of Crashaw’s poems to highlight his spiritual development and eventual conversion to Roman Catholicism. After briefly presenting the physiological origin of language and Crashaw’s emphasis on its physicality, I will analyse the influence of Catholic mysticism as the prevailing presence of interjections, exclamations, interlocutions, repetitions and syntactic excesses can be seen as a way of overcoming the limitations of language. I will finally explore the links between the various written versions of some poems and the physicality of language.

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hal-03520241 , version 1 (10-01-2022)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03520241 , version 1

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Fabrice Schultz. The Vocal Physicality of Language in Richard Crashaw’s Sacred Poetry (1612-1649). 15th Annual EUCOR English Trinational MA and PhD Conference, 16-17 avril 2021, Strasbourg, Apr 2021, En ligne, France. ⟨hal-03520241⟩

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