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SEDUCTIVE TOPOGRAPHIES: THE LANGUAGES OF LANDSCAPE IN LA PUCE DE MADAME DES-ROCHES
Romanic Review, May 2004 by Tarte, Kendall
52. Sixteenth-century definitions of fureter include the idea of aggressive searching: Huguet includes "fouiller" and "chercher comme le furet dans le terrier, donner la chasse à" along with more neutral definitions (Edmond Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle, 7 vols. [Paris: Didier, 1925-67], 4: 239). Couler can designate "glisser, se faufiler," as in the following example: "s'estant coulé dans le camp ennemi;" other definitions include "fuir" and "plonger, enfoncer" (Algirdas Julien Greimas and Teresa Mary Keane, Dictionnaire du moyen français [Paris: Larousse, 1992], 154).
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53. These are central images in the anatomical love poetry of the Italian petrarchists. For example, Angelo Poliziano describes a woman's eyes, which hold the lover in flames: "Occhi cagion del fuoco in cui sempre ardo." For Nocturno the beloved's hair becomes a hangman's noose, made by Love, that traps the lover in its knots: "O chiome relucente piu ehe lo avoro / di ehe mi fece amor al collo un laccio" (quoted in Saunders, The Sixteenth-Century Blason Poétique, 92-93). Ronsard adopts both images in a sonnet from the 1552 Amours (OEuvres complètes, 4: 20-21, Sonnet XVII).
54. "La Pvce d'Odet de Tovrnebv," 33^sup r^.
55. Ibid., 33^sup r^-33^sup v^.
56. Ibid., 34^sup r^.
57. Taster implies attentive, exploratory touching; couler suggests close contact between two bodies.
58. As with couler, some sixteenth-century meanings of taster suggest search and attack: these include "toucher; frapper," and "fouiller." Another usage, "faire l'exploration (d'un territoire)," implies a less violent exploration, the discovery of a new world (Dictionnaire du moyen français, 617). For couler, see note 52 above. For jouir de-"[v]enir à bout de, maîtriser, dompter, dominer"-see Huguet (Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle, 4: 725). Michel de Certeau uses jouir to refer to the pleasure of seeing the city from an elevation. see my discussion of Certeau above.
59. "A Madame des Roches. Sonet," 31^sup r^.
60. In 1573 La Rochelle had capitulated to the king on advantageous terms, retaining its religious privileges. The statement that the city gives the appearance of-"se monstre"-loyalty may be wishful thinking rather than reality. At Catherine de Medicis's order, the troops of the Duc de Montpensier had destroyed Lusignan in 1574.
61. Gail Kern Paster discusses the convention of the personification of the city as a woman in her introduction to English Renaissance representations of the city. She notes that the association of the female with the urban originated in classical antiquity: "Because the city is walled for most of its history, it is early associated with the female principle.... As a fortified place subject to siege and assault, this personified city becomes associated with sexual possession" (The Idea of the City in the Age of Shakespeare [Athens, GA: Georgia Universtiy Press, 1985], 4).
62. The most recent series of religious wars had ended in 1577 with the Edit de Poitiers, which favored Catholics by restricting Protestants' earlier gains. Protestantism was, however, legally recognized; no trials during the 1579 Grands jours directly concerned the practice of religion. see Félix Pasquier, Grands Jours de Poitiers, 61-62.
