A Rhetorical Pattern in Renaissance and Baroque Poetry

Abstract

Thanks especially to the work of Professor Dámaso Alonso, the study of correlative poetry has made notable strides in recent years. He has concentrated mainly on Spanish and Italian poetry, but has made an excursus into Greek and Latin verse as well. It goes without saying that the phenomenon is universal in its scope.In this paper I am concerned with only one of the aspects of this poetry, the disseminative-recapitulative type, because both chronologically and geographically information on it can be extended further than hitherto, and because the influences that have played a primary role in establishing its vogue are still in need of being traced with a greater degree of precision. I shall deal with this type chiefly in connection with its vogue in the Romance-speaking countries and England during the Renaissance and baroque periods.