The will to burn one's own creation in Baroque biographical discourse: moral and parodic modulations
Abstract
Poets in their mortuary chambers asking for their verses to be delivered to the flames is a commonplace started by the first biographers of Virgil. The scene does not only seek to justify the Virgilian concern for having to leave the Aeneid unfinished. Precisely the various modulations and interpretations of the desire to destroy one’s own creation allow the topos to be transferred to multiple creators of the Modern Age, even to those who disseminated their writings through the printing press. Besides the prestige conferred by the emulation of the Virgilian gesture, the story is used to show the demand for formal perfection by the creators, their intellectual depth and ethical dimension. The first biographers of Giovan Battista Marino (Giovan Battista Baiacca, Girolamo Preti) and of Vicent Garcia (Manuel de Vega) use the topos to justify the sensualism and lust of some of the best compositions of the Baroque period, since these poems would have been allegedly disseminated against the will of their authors. The desire to destroy one’s own work also admits an ironic distancing, as when the story maximizes the transcendence of the burning, reveals its absurdity or exhibits the errors of those in charge of executing the author’s demands.
Keywords
Lives of Poets, Baroque, Bookburning, Moral Modulation, Parodic Modulation, Giovan Battista Marino, Vicent GarciaReferences
ARGUEDAS, Juan Manuel de, “Censura”, en Francisco Quevedo, Obras posthumas y vida, parte tercera, Madrid, Antonio Sanz, 1729.
BACARDIT, Ramon, “Frederic Soler (Pitarra) i els nous autors del teatre català”, en Literatura contemporània (I): El Vuit-cents, dir. Enric Cassany, Josep M. Domingo, Barcelona, Enciclopèdia Catalana, Ed. Barcino, 2018, pp. 253-284.
BLANCO, Mercedes, “La agudeza en las Rimas de Tomé de Burguillos”, en Otro Lope no ha de haber, ed. Gaetano Chiappini y Maria Grazia Profeti, Firenze, Alinea editrice, pp. 219-240.
BRUGNOLI, Giorgio, NAUMANN, Heinrich, “Vitae Virgilinae”, en Enciclopedia Virgiliana, ed. Francesco Della Corte et alii, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1990, vol. VI, pp. 570-588.
CARMINATI, Clizia, Vita e morte del Cavalier Marino, Bologna, Casa editrice Emil di Odoya, 2011.
CHIARO, Francesco, Vita del cavalier Marino descrita dal signor canonico napoletano, suo nipote, Napoli, Ottavio Beltrano, 1632.
FRARE, Pierantonio, “La nuova critica della meravigliosa acutezza”, en Storia della critica letteraria italiana, dir. Giorgio Baroni, Torino, Utet, pp. 223-277.
GARCIA, Vicent, Harmonia del Parnàs, més numerosa en les poesies vàries de l’Atlant del cel poètic, lo Doctor Vicent Garcia, Rector de la parroquial de Santa Maria de Vallfogona, recopilades i emendades per dos Ingenis de la molt il·lustre Acadèmia dels Desconfiats, Barcelona, Rafel Figueró, 1703.
GRILLO, Angelo, Lettere, Venezia, appresso Giovan Battista Ciotti, I, 1616.
HERRERA, Arnulfo, “Textos burlescos y satíricos de la Nueva España aurisecular”, en Antología de la literatura burlesca del Siglo de Oro. Burla y sátira en los Virreinatos de Índias. Una antologia provisional, ed. de Carlos F. Cabanillas, New York, Instituto de Estudios Auriseculares, 2020, pp. 207-317.
HORSFALL, Nicolas, A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Leiden, Brill, 1995.
KREVANS, Nita, “Bookburning and the poetic deathbed: the legacy of Virgil”, en Classical Literary Careers and their Reception, ed. Philip Hardie y Helen Moore, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 197-208.
LAIRD, Andrew, “Recognizing Virgil”, en Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, Artists and Biography, ed. Richard Fletcher y Johanna Hanink, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 75-99.
LOREDANO, Francesco, Vita del Cavalier Marino di Francesco Loredano, nobile veneto, Venezia, Giacomo Sarzina, 1633.
LOREDANO, Francesco, “Il Marino viverà” en Edizione commentata della Vita del Cavalier Marino di Giovan Francesco Loredano, a cura di Simona Bortot, Venezia, Edizioni Ca’Foscari, 2015.
MARINO, Giovan Battista, Adone, a cura di Emilio Russo, Milano, Bur Classici, 2013.
MESTRES, Salvador, “Poesias perdidas de Vallfogona. Poetas ignorados: fragmento de un libro manuscrito titulado Curiositat Catalana”, Memorias de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, II (1868), pp. 385-412.
MONTEMAYOR ACEVES, Martha Elena, “Suetonio. Vida de Virgilio”, Nova Tellus, 27/2 (2009), pp. 205-234.
NAVARRO LÓPEZ, Joaquin Luis, “La Vergilii Maronis vita de Pietro Crinito: las Ediciones de 1513 y 1516 de Juan Sobrarias”, Excerpta philologica, 3 (1993), pp. 285-312.
POWELL, Anton, HARDIE, Philip R., eds., The Ancient Lives of Virgil. Literary and Historical Studies, Swansea, The Classical Press of Wales, 2017.
ROSSICH, Albert, “Francesc Vicent Garcia: tres segles i mig de referències escrites”, ATCA, 3 (1984), pp. 259-276.
ROSSICH, Albert, Francesc Vicent Garcia, Història i mite del Rector de Vallfogona, Barcelona, Ed. 62, 1987.
ROSSICH, Albert, L’obra de Francesc Vicent Garcia i l’Acadèmia de Bones Lletres. Discurs llegit el dia 10 de febrer de 2022 en l’acte de recepció pública (...) a la Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, Barcelona, Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, 2022.
RUSSO, Emilio, Marino, Roma, Salerno editrice, 2008.
SEGURA, Juan Antonio de, Poemas varios que a diversos asuntos compuso el P. M. Fray Juan Antonio de Segura [Ms., 1718, Biblioteca Nacional de México].
SOLER, Frederic (Serafí PITARRA), Lo Rector de Vallfogona, Barcelona, Eudald Puig, 1874.
SOLERVICENS, Josep, La poètica del Barroc. Textos teòrics catalans, Barcelona-Lleida, Ed. Punctum, 2012.
SOLERVICENS, Josep, ESTEVE, Cesc, “Discurso biográfico y poética barroca: la vida de Vicent García (1703) de Manuel de Vega”, Bulletin Hispanique, 121/2 (2019), pp. 629-644.
STOK, Fabio, “Virgil’s Biography between Rediscovery and Revision”, Renaessanceforum, 9 (2015), pp. 63-86.
SUETONIO ET AL., Biografías literarias latinas, introducción de Yolanda García, Madrid, Ed. Gredos, 1985.
TARSIA, Pablo Antonio de, Vida de don Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, caballero del Orden de Santiago, secretario de su Majestad y señor de la villa de la Torre de Juan Abad, Madrid, Pablo de Val, 1663.
VIDAL, José Luis, “La Vita vergiliana de Focas, biografía y poesía de escuela”, Excerpta Philologica, 1/2 (1991), pp. 801-812.
VIDAL, José Luis, “Por qué Virgilio quería quemar la "Eneida"..., si es que quería”, en Humanitas in honorem Antonio Fontán, Madrid, Ed. Gredos, 1992, pp. 479-484.
Published
How to Cite
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2025 Josep Solervicens
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
