Loyola's Bees: Ideology and Industry in Jesuit Latin Didactic Poetry by Yasmin Haskell (review)

Abstract

188 Reviews a study of mystical expression and religious subjectivity spanning the late medieval and early modern periods. They are furtherunited, if perhaps somewhat tenuously, by a common association with the Iberian peninsula. Four were Iberian by origin; the works of the Flemish Hadewijch and the Italian Catherine were translated into Castilian in the early sixteenth century. Given the neat and cohesive nature of the book's first seven chapters, then, the reader might understandably be surprised to encounter, in the final chapter, Miguel de Cervantes: Iberian to be sure, but hardly an author who could be classed as a mystic or indeed as a religious writer of any kind. Courcelles has included this seemingly anomalous figure in her study because she sees him as participating, albeit in a differentmanner, in the same overall movement towards modern humanistic thought. Like the mystical writers studied here, Cervantes can be seen to be deeply concerned with the power of the imagination, the nature of the individual, the effectiveness of language to express the self, and the desire that motivates the individual to seek contact with some form of transcendence. The book focuses to a large extent on the power and limitations of language, both written and spoken, as well as that of silence as a kind of language of intuition. Courcelles looks at the impact of the spoken or written word on the individual, as for example in scenarios of religious conversion: that of Augustine, with the famous 'tolle, lege' command, and the imitation and internalization of his formative example by subsequent readers of the Confessions. Equally central is the pervasive notion of the Word as an image of God, the Word made flesh,object of contemplation, love, and desire. In conclusion, Courcelles argues for the fundamental role of mysticism in the production and articulation ofcultural trends thatwould prove central to modernity: a fascination with language, a cultivation ofvernacular expression, an all-encompassing curiosity and desire for knowledge, and an intense consciousness of the self. Pembroke College, Cambridge Sylvia Huot Loyola's Bees: Ideology and Industry in Jesuit Latin Didactic Poetry. By Yasmin Haskell. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2003. x + 353pp. ?50. ISBN o19 -726284-8. The foundation of the Jesuit Order in the sixteenth century, with its strong belief in the educational value of rhetoric, history, and poetry, and the great emphasis placed upon fluency in Latin, coupled with the writing of original Latin in the schools and colleges under its control, resulted in an enormous increase in the numbers of original Latin plays, poems, and prose treatises that were produced in the Latinate world for the following two hundred years or more. Obscure volumes of Jesuit Latin verse were perhaps among the most commonly found items on the shelves and in the catalogues of second-hand and antiquarian booksellers until a decade or two ago. Elegies, encomia , personal and devotional poetry, descriptions of landscape, hymns, and biblical paraphrases are common topics for such verse, and are found in all formats, from dumpy octavos to elaborately printed quartos which would grace a splendid library. The present volume is devoted to some representative examples of but one section of this poetry, Latin didactic poetry. The author has identified some 250 Latin didactic poems by Jesuits, out of a wider corpus of 350 such poems. After an introduction in which she elucidates the reasons for writing this type of poetry and the theory which lay behind it, the author divides her book into five lengthy chapters, each devoted to a discussion of some representative didactic poems. Most neo-Latin poetry had a classical model, and didactic is no exception here. The firstchapter is devoted to 'Jesuit Georgic in the Age of Louis XIV, and discusses first MLRy ioo.i, 2005 189 Rene Rapin's Hortorum libri IV (Paris, 1665) and Jacob Vaniere's Praedium rusticum libri XVI (Toulouse, 1730), immensely popular poems with many later editions and translations, both ultimately inspired by Virgil's Georgics, the formerconcerned prin? cipally with formal gardens, the latter containing much practical advice. The chapter concludes with a short section on some less well-known poems, including Francois Champion's poem on fishing, Stagna (Paris, 1689). The second...