Poésie et musique dans l’Harmonie Universelle de Marin Mersenne : une poétique de l’unité

Abstract

Marin Mersenne’s masterpiece, L’Harmonie Universelle (1636), is a late but essential treatise to study the notion of Ut musica poesis in the French Renaissance. Indeed, Mersenne pinpoints the central Renaissance interweaving of music, poetry and philosophy — as all aim at a better understanding of the universe and at leading the soul towards the Platonic perfection of the One. This article proposes to investigate two major aspects of the relationship between music and poetry in the Harmonie Universelle. First, Mersenne presents measured music and measured verse, as inspired by Antoine de Baïf and his Académie, as of paramount importance for the bringing together of music and poetry. Secondly, he describes the close correspondences between rhythmic and metrical patterns in poetry, dance and music as forming a universal language.