Poetics Of Patronage Research Articles

Blood Ties and the Native Son: Poetics of Patronage in Kyrgyzstan by Aksana Ismailbekova

Reviewed by: Blood Ties and the Native Son: Poetics of Patronage in Kyrgyzstan by Aksana Ismailbekova Fengfeng Zhang (bio) and Laiyi Zhang (bio) Aksana Ismailbekova, Blood Ties and the Native Son: Poetics of Patronage in Kyrgyzstan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017). 219 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-0-253-02539-5. Born in Bishkek and trained in Germany, the anthropologist Aksana Ismailbekova studies the transition of Kyrgyzstan from a Soviet Republic to an independent nation-state using a case study of one village in Northern Kyrgyzstan. She uses her ethnographic observations of the intrinsic connection between kinship relations and political patronage to argue that clan politics help sustain rather than undermine democracy in Central Asia. In the course of fourteen months in 2006 and 2007, Ismailbekova observed daily life in the village of Bulak in Chüi Province, conducted interviews with its inhabitants, and participated in their activities. Her study focuses on the rise and fall of a local politician and businessman, Rahim, a "native son" of Bulak raised in Bishkek, who manipulated the ties of kinship and patronage to fulfill his political ambitions at the local level and throughout northern [End Page 304] Kyrgyzstan. Ismailbekova argues that Rahim's strategy was typical of many other Kyrgyz politicians, which made his case paradigmatic for the development of democratic politics in Kyrgyzstan. The book consists of an introduction, seven chapters, and "Concluding Words". The introduction presents the setting of the story and conceptual frameworks used for its interpretation. Chapter 1 discusses the structures of kinship and patronage in Kyrgyz society from the pre-Soviet era to the post-Soviet period. Chapter 2 charts Rahim's place on the genealogical map of local society in Bulak and beyond. Chapter 3 explains the categories of kinship and the operation of patronage networks and kinship practices in the village. Chapter 4 discusses the concept of the "circle of trust" supported by patronage networks, using the example of Rahim's private farm Emgek. Writing about negotiations on the building of a mosque in the village of Orlovka, in chapter 5, the author explicates the link between patronage networks and state structures. Rahim's election to the Kyrgyz parliament from the local election district highlights his return "as a native son" of Bulak. This part of the story is told in chapter 6, which also deconstructs the symbolism of election day to demonstrate how democracy functions in rural Kyrgyzstan and what it really means to ordinary Kyrgyz. Chapter 7 presents Rahim's victory feast as a celebration not only of his election success but also of the power of traditional social ties. The concluding section of the book mentions Rahim's death and the subsequent collapse of patronage networks. The author offers her interpretation of the political meaning of patronage in the modern world and criticizes the normative Western concept of democracy as incompatible with clientelism and tribalism. Ismailbekova speaks of informal social networks in terms of "social poetics": they are omnipresent and deeply ingrained in the society but not formally institutionalized and need to be explicated by a scholar as both violating and adhering to the official norms. Historically, Kyrgyz tribes were organized along common genealogies and hierarchies, and knowledge of family lineage was transmitted through sanjyra (oral genealogical legends). The lineage was organized according to patrilineal descent. Patron–client relations were established between clan leaders (bii or manap) and the poor, but they were not necessarily blood-based. During Soviet times, kinship and patronage networks survived, even if somewhat modified, as many lineage groups were integrated into the kolkhoz structures. The post-1991 period witnessed the revival of interest in genealogies at the private [End Page 305] and state levels, as the foundation for rewriting the country's official history and promoting national culture. The historic rivalry among different lineages in the north and south of the country contributed in part to the escalation of political tensions that brought about the Revolutions of 2005 and 2010. It is against this historical background that the author identifies Rahim's position in the structures of kinship in Bulak village. She argues that Rahim was integrated into the segmentary lineage system (which implies a combination of...

Vasilii Petrov and The Poetics of Patronage

This article seeks to bridge the gap between sociohistorical and aesthetic readings of Russian occasional verse by arguing that patronage itself can be seen as engendering its own poetics. The author focuses on hitherto unanalyzed features of Vasilii Petrov's lyrics addressed to various patrons. The close readings of Petrov’s odes and epistles call attention to the poet’s coordinating syntax as structuring the subordinative relationships between poet and patron, and articulating discourses of friendship, community, and the public, of civic virtue, and of social and lyric interdependence. The essay ultimately arrives at a definition of the poetics of patronage, in which the poet claims agency without insisting on his autonomy (as would his successors in the Romantic period), and in which the lyric voice relies upon an other, drawing inspiration from conditions of relationship rather than isolation.

Susanna de Beer, The Poetics of Patronage. Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano

Susanna de Beer, The Poetics of Patronage. Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano

The Poetics of Patronage: Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano by Susanna de Beer (review)

Reviewed by: The Poetics of Patronage: Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campanoby Susanna de Beer Frances Muecke de Beer, Susanna, The Poetics of Patronage: Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano( Proteus, 6), Turnhout, Brepols, 2013; hardback; pp. xxxii, 431; 16 colour, 45 b/w illustrations, 12 b/w line art; R.R.P. €120.00; ISBN 9782503542386. Literary patronage in the Quattrocento and early Cinquecento in Italy has been greatly neglected in comparison with that of the visual arts. There are several reasons for this. Literary patronage tends to involve writers in celebration of their patron and opens them to charges of flattery or adulation, modes that give rise to wariness, at the least. Equally important is the greater difficulty of access and creating a tradition of reading. Works of visual art have not only been widely available longer but they have a longer history of interpretation. Most of the important literary works of this period are in Latin, and many have not been reprinted since the sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth centuries. Often the lesser works that form their context have never been printed. For a pioneering treatment of literary patronage in the Quattrocento, it would be hard to choose a better figure than Giannantonio Campano [End Page 198](1429–1477). Now regarded as the most important Latin poet of the Roman Quattrocento, he was a humanist whose ambitious pursuit of a career saw him writing for a series of important supporters, or hoped-for supporters, presented in five ‘case studies’. First, and discussed in Chapter 1, was Pope Pius II Piccolimini, himself a humanist writer and poet. Campano wooed Pius with his poems and was rewarded with positions as Bishop of Crotone in 1462 and Teramo in 1463, as well as a recognised position in the pope’s entourage, which did him service after Pius’s death. Chapter 2 focuses on Campano’s relationship with Giacome degli Ammanati, whom Pius made Cardinal in 1461. Ammanati initially was asked to help Campano in his approach to Pius. He admitted Campano to his court and his library and recommended him to his next influential patron, Cardinal Pietro Riario, nephew of the new pope, Sixtus IV. The poetry for Riario and Campano’s fortunes and misfortunes under Sixtus are discussed in Chapter 3. Riario died and Ammanati encouraged Campano to try his luck in the court at Naples, with King Ferrante I and his son Duke Alfonso (Chapter 4). Campano had hoped to return to his native Campania, but he failed to win a position with the Neapolitan court. The last supporter to be discussed, but not a new one, is Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino. From 1472, Campano had helped Federico built up his library, and it came to hold four manuscripts comprising Campano’s Opera omnia(Chapter 5). Campano is an ideal subject not just for the wealth of interest these various attachments provide. The corpus of his poetic œuvre is sizeable but manageable, and most of his poems are ‘occasional’ with named addressees. His life is well documented in his letters (like his poems, last printed in 1707, and in facsimile reprint 1969) and this allows the role of individual poems to be teased out in considerable detail. As Susanna de Beer shows, his knowledge of classical poetry was considerable, as befitted a university teacher (he was appointed Professor of Rhetoric at Perugia in 1455) and member of the ‘Academies’ of Pomponio Leto and Cardinal Bessarion in Rome in the late 1460s. This book makes two important contributions. The first is philological and relegated to Appendices I and II: a path-breaking analysis of the textual transmission of Campano’s poetry, with interesting remarks on the circulation of the different, overlapping, collections. Appendix III consists of a critical edition of the poems discussed in the volume, necessary because the early printed editions are unreliable, and also because it is important to be able to read the poems discussed in full. There are no translations here, but all extracts quoted in the case studies are translated. The translations are generally helpful but occasionally suffer from the fact that the author is not using her native tongue. [End...

Powerful Connections: The Poetics of Patronage in the Age of Louis XIII by Peter W. Shoemaker

passe alors à la question de l’influence de l’humanisme sur les sciences expérimentales : anatomie, botanique, ethnologie, géographie, tératologie, zoologie, sans oublier la magie qui informe à l’époque la conception de la nature et la parent é ontologique entre les signes et les choses. On en conclut que si la théologie n’est pas mise de côté, elle n’occupe plus généralement la première place dans l’explication des phénomènes naturels. Sans doute les ambitions d’un tel ouvrage sont-elles disproportionnées, surtout quand l’auteur se propose de rendre compte des rapports de l’humanisme avec “la littérature” (261) aussi bien qu’avec “les arts” (327). Et pourtant, malgré les raccourcis obligés, l’on acceptera l’hypothèse finale selon laquelle le développement de l’humanisme coïnciderait avec l’émergence d’une nouvelle réalité sociologique qui deviendra aux siècles suivants “le pilier de la culture européenne: la République des Lettres” (360). Princeton University (NJ) François Rigolot SHOEMAKER, PETER W. Powerful Connections: The Poetics of Patronage in the Age of Louis XIII. Newark: UP of Delaware, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87413-993-8. Pp. 291. $60.00. In order to understand the evolving nature of literary discourse, it is, according to Peter Shoemaker, key to realize the centrality of patronage because of the way “it shaped the relationship between writer, text and audience” (23). In Powerful Connections, a study on “the exchanges between patronage and literary practice” (23), Shoemaker relies on literary texts and treatises on conversation and etiquette. In his first chapter, “Theorizing Patronage”, Shoemaker argues that patronage is neither exclusively an affective bond that binds patron and artist nor a relationship based solely on self-interest. Shoemaker emphasizes the precarious and dynamic nature of patronage where “[b]oth the client and the patron are [. . .] free agents who can choose to renegotiate or abandon the relationship” (29). As such, they can both vie for the favors or services of the other group and abandon the relationship if it doesn’t serve their purposes. Both parties benefit from the association : the artist is introduced into “polite society” and makes useful connections while the patron increases his standing among his peers and superiors. Shoemaker discusses at length the contribution of Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac and his complex relationship to rhetorical tradition and political power. In Mecenas, a reflection on patronage, Guez de Balzac praises the personal connection allowed by such a relationship and considers it a more civilized venue for political debate than the public sphere. Shoemaker argues that this ideal society will be partly realized in Versailles. In the liberal use of hyperbole, for which Balzac became known and disparaged, Shoemaker sees “a symptom of hesitation vis-à-vis the dilemma of how to modernize eloquence” (91). The flaws in Balzac’s style thus reflect the problems inherent in patronage and its “ambivalent nature” (55). The third and fourth chapters deal with the position of poets who wrote on behalf of patrons and offer a case in point for the claim of the ambivalent nature of patronage. Who is the real author of some of the texts written for a patron? As Shoemaker reminds us, “authorship is a tricky matter in seventeenth-century France” (94). Whereas Malherbe saw in this close relationship with the patron an opportunity to refine style and expression, Théophile de Viau rejected such 380 FRENCH REVIEW 84.2 experience as “submission to convention” (132). The works of authors deemed ‘irréguliers’ or libertines reflect their uneasy relationship with the patronage model. Shoemaker regards their sometimes bitter reflection on their dependence on patrons as an attempt to find different “models of literature and authorship” (151). The same contrasting strategies and claims permeate the theater world. In chapter 5, “The Public and Private Lives of the Theater,” Shoemaker exposes the conflict between Corneille and Mairet as part of the effort to define the position of the theater. While Corneille placed his emphasis on personal choice and achievement, Mairet argued for the “role of the aristocrats as arbiters of good taste” (190). The increasing use of theater by Richelieu...

:Enabling Engagements: Edmund Spenser and the Poetics of Patronage

:<i>Enabling Engagements: Edmund Spenser and the Poetics of Patronage</i>

Enabling engagements: Edmund Spenser and the poetics of patronage

Enabling Engagements contributes to current critical debates regarding early modern subjectivity and early modern cultural capital. In stressing the boldness of Edmund Spenser's poetics of patronage, Judith Owens shows that Elizabethans could and did exercise agency within a wide range of institutions. By consistently challenging assumptions of courtly hegemony in early modern society, Owens suggests a new appraisal of the processes of cultural commodification. Enabling Engagements challenges conventional assessments of Spenser as court-centred and of patronal relations in the early modern period as asymmetrical and prescriptive. Owens demonstrates that Spenser exercised a vigorous sense of agency within the close quarters of patronage and courtly culture, fashioning his laureate's role and envisioning nationhood in resistance to the centre. She shows that his independence from court-centred values and tropes informed his poetics from the start of his publishing career, not just as a result of increasing disillusionment with the court. Owens develops detailed readings of Spenser's poetry and his paratextual material in The Shepheardes Calender, the 1590 Faerie Queene, and Complaints, providing contexts that are both broader and more varied than those usually accorded Spenser's poetry. She extends the horizons of The Faerie Queene in particular to include not only court and sovereign but also London, the material conditions of early modern publishing, and Ireland. Bringing together concerns usually approached individually, she shows us a Spenser who is neither the careerist of much recent criticism nor the Elizabethan propagandist of long-standing custom.

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage

Evans, R. C., &lt;italic&gt;Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage&lt;/italic&gt;

Evans, R. C., Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage R. C. Evans, Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage Pp. 334. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1989. £30.00. Michael G. Brennan Michael G. Brennan The University of Leeds Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 38, Issue 1, March 1991, Pages 108–109, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/38.1.108 Published: 01 March 1991

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage

Jonson's Copy of Seneca

Jonson's Copy of Seneca Robert C. Evans Ben Jonson has been called "one of the most Senecan of English writers in style and often in temper,"l and his numerous allusions to Seneca's writings certainly confirm this claim. The standard edition of Jonson's works records scores of echoes from passages in Seneca.2 The English poet had obviously read and appreciated many writings by the Roman moralist in a wide variety of genres, including plays, epistles, and essays. In fact, even the motto Jonson usually inscribed in copies of books he owned—"tanquam explorator"—derives from an epistle by Seneca.3 Thus the very motives that guided Jonson's reading were informed by Senecan example. We know that Jonson had access to Seneca's dramatic works in a comprehensive anthology devoted to classical Latin poets, and he probably also read Seneca's works in other collections presently lost or unknown.4 Surprisingly, however, his ownership of a volume devoted exclusively to Seneca's writings is not reported in any of the standard descriptions of his library. As it happens, such a volume does exist. Presently housed at the Glasgow University Library, it is a 1599 edition of Seneca's philosophical writings. It bears all the standard indications of Jonson's ownership, including his distinctive marginalia. His motto appears in its typical location on the title page, as does a recognizable version of his signature.5 The existence of this book confirms what was already obvious—that Seneca exercised a powerful fascination for Jonson and provided a strong stimulus to the poet's own thinking and writing. Jonson's marginal markings, which run throughout the book, indicate that he responded with considerable interest to a wide variety ROBERT C. EVANS, Associate Professor of English at Auburn University in Montgomery, is author of Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage and Jonson, Lipsius, and the Politics of Renaissance Stoicism (forthcoming) as well as of numerous articles on Jonson and other Renaissance figures. 257 258Comparative Drama of Seneca's thoughts and works. His marks suggest the sorts of ethical and political principles as well as the kinds of psychological insights and generalizations that made Seneca an important influence on Jonson's own thinking. The book offers valuable new evidence of the poet's enthusiastic response to a writer who was one of the chief exemplars of what has been called "the Roman frame of mind."6 A summary of the philosopher 's life may help clarify his significance for Jonson. Seneca was born in Cordova, Spain, around 4 B.C., during the reign of Augustus. While he was still a young boy, his wealthy, well established family moved to Rome. His father was a respected rhetor; his mother was a forceful personality in her own right. Physically delicate as a youth, Seneca focused on his studies, developing a strong interest in rhetoric and an even stronger passion for philosophy. He visited Egypt as a young man, and then with the help of family connections he obtained a number of public offices during the reign of Tiberius. His literary and oratorical skills soon brought him renown, although they also earned him the jealousy of the emperor Caligula. During the early reign of Claudius, Seneca was important at court; then the emperor's wife accused him (unjustly, it seems) of an illicit affair with one of her rivals. Although condemned to death, Seneca instead was banished; he spent his next eight years exiled in Corsica. In 49 A.D., however, he was summoned by Agrippina, Claudius's new wife, who made him tutor to her son Nero. She also obtained other offices for him, and in general his wealth grew as his fortunes flourished. When Nero succeeded to the throne, Seneca (along with Burrus, prefect of the imperial guard) helped steer the young emperor along the path of good government for the first five years of his reign. Thereafter Seneca's influence began to decline as Nero began to assume—and abuse—independent power. Following Burrus's death, Seneca began a kind of unofficial retirement , and his relations with Nero were now exceedingly strained. Accused of conspiracy and sedition in the year...

:Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage

:<i>Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage</i>

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage by Robert C. Evans

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage by Robert C. Evans

Ben Jonson and the poetics of patronage

Ben Jonson and the poetics of patronage

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage by Robert C. Evans (review)

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage by Robert C. Evans (review)

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage

Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage