(Re)visiting Délie: Maurice Scève and Marian Poetry*
Si iracunda, aut avaritia, aut carnis illecebra naviculam concusserit mentis, respice ad Mariam. — Bernard, In laudibus Virginis Matris Factat animam Vulcanus, vestes aptat Pallas, fucat Venus, & cesto cingit, ornant cteterte Den, docet pessimos mores Mercurius. Et quia omni genere rerum a Diis donata esset, Pandoram appellat. — Jean Olivier, Pandora Celle qui est la Vertu, et la Grace … Monstre, qu'en soy elle a plus, que de femme. — Délie, D354 and 284 This study proposes a new reading of Delie and tries to shed a new light on the poet himself. Sceve appears here not only as the humanist we all know, but as a Christian poet, a poet as much interested in biblical and other religious sources as in Classical and Italian ones. In his canzoniere, Scève follows very closely, and even sometimes imitates, a corpus of fixed-form poems — rondeaux parfaits, ballades, and chants royaux — written by poets of the two previous generations for poetic contests known as Puys. And he constantly expresses his love and describes his idol in terms, images, and symbols directly borrowed from Marian poetry. To the Christian cult of the Virgin Mary corresponds for the Lover the pagan cult of Délie.