SOURCE: “Poetic Fury and Prophetic Fury,” in Renaissance Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, June, 1989, pp. 106-14.

In the following essay, Britnell probes the connection between poetic and prophetic inspiration, using Ronsard as a principal example.

In the Renaissance the poet's claim to divine inspiration was usually made in the context of Plato's four divine furies—poetry, the mysteries, prophecy, love. In this paper I shall look at certain aspects of the relationship between poetic fury and just one of the other forms of fury, prophecy. These two modes of inspiration are linked by the fact that in both cases the inspired person must express his inspiration in the form of verbal communication. Apollo, the god of prophecy, is also the patron of the Muses.

For both classical and later writers wishing to describe inspiration as divine fury, it was always rather easier to deal with prophecy than with poetry. Any...