Origins of a New Poesy in Late Medieval Europe: Proto-Renaissance Rhymes by Giacomo da Lentini and the Dolce Stil Nuovo

Abstract

The article reviews the historical and literary background of a new poesy that appeared to be an outcome of the accumulation and release of the new poets’ creative energy in late medieval Europe. We primarily deal with the poesy of the Sicilian school and the Dolce Stil Nuovo (‘sweet new style’). The interest of literary criticism in the historical and cultural background of influential literary phenomena, which have not lost their relevance, is defined by the need for reinterpreting them in new paradigms. The methods of cultural, historical, biographical, hermeneutic, and comparative analyses as well as the method of generalisation have been exploited for this research. The European poetic tradition has passed a long way in searching for new forms and means of the artistic representation of reality. The emergence of the Sicilian School on the Apennine Peninsula in the 13th century became the initial stage of the literary and linguistic history of the Old World. It marked the beginning of Italian poesy the development of the Dolce Stil Nuovo and was largely the forerunner of Dante’s and Petrarch’s poems, laying the foundations of the philosophy of lyric poetry. The Sicilians gave a powerful impetus to the further development of poetic theory, images, and themes, which would be pivotal in stilnovismo, as well as to the assimilation of many authors of the Renaissance in Europe. The appeal to certain themes and motives as well as their transformation highlighted the idea of Sicilian authors about poetry as a specific kind of philosophy. We emphasise that the time of origination and a highly cultured environment have caused the refinement of art forms and stylistic devices for revealing the conceptual content of such verses. Giacomo da Lentini reconceptualised the approaches to rhyming and poetising, and most importantly — to the psychological perception of reality and understanding of love in the metaphysical dimension. The ideological and aesthetic unity of the poets of the Dolce Stil Nuovo, who developed the innovations of da Lentini, made it possible to relate them with the writers of the early Renaissance. The article also focuses on the specifics of literary activity during the expansion of new European poetry leading to the invention of a sonnet as the poetic form that follows a particular rhyming pattern.