French Literature

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Frisch
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
French Literature ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Pierre De Ronsard ◽  
French Renaissance ◽  
Religious Controversy ◽  
Vernacular Culture ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Violent Conflicts

The French Renaissance, which in literary studies is more or less taken to span the 16th century, is considered to be a privileged moment in the emergence of a vernacular poetic literature in France. Echoing cultural impulses previously articulated by Italian poets such as Dante and Petrarch, and drawing on the humanist movement of the quattrocento, French poets and scholars, supported by François I (r. 1515–1547), consolidated a program for the enrichment of French vernacular culture through revived study of the Ancients. At the same time, overt religious controversy colored the whole of the 16th century in France, from the Affaire des Placards of 1534, the same year François Rabelais published his second novel, Gargantua, to the bloody civil wars that spanned the reigns of five kings in the second half of the century, when Pierre de Ronsard published his Sonnets pour Hélène, Robert Garnier his tragedies, and Michel de Montaigne his Essais. These violent conflicts attenuated French involvement in overseas exploration and colonization in the period, and had a significant impact on France’s cultural relations with its European neighbors, as Protestants became a conduit for numerous French-to-English translations in the second half of the century.

Pierre de Ronsard

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Maynard
Keyword(s):  
16Th Century ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Pierre De Ronsard ◽  
French Renaissance ◽  
Emerging Media ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Current Events ◽  
French Poetry ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
Catherine De Medici

Perhaps no poet of the French Renaissance has known as much fame, in both his own lifetime and through his legacy, as Pierre de Ronsard (b. 1524–d. 1585). Born at the manor of La Possonnière in the Vendômois region of France to a father who served François I, the noble Ronsard participated in the royal diplomatic corps before turning to poetry under the tutelage of Jean Dorat at his Collège de Coqueret in Paris. Here, Ronsard studied with the poet Joachim Du Bellay, and the two became the founding members of a poetic coterie, “the Brigade,” later known as “the Pléiade.” With Ronsard at the helm, the group inaugurated a poetic movement that aspired to break with French poets of the past by promoting the study of ancient Roman and Greek poetry as a source of inspiration and imitation. In so doing, Ronsard and his comrades hoped to raise the reputation of French poetry to compete with France’s cultural rivals the Italians. From the mid-16th century to his death in 1585, the prolific Ronsard adopted numerous poetic forms from Antiquity and Renaissance Italy and adapted them to French poetry, all the while remaining responsive to contemporary trends and current events. He made waves in 1550 with his first collection of poetry, Les quatre premiers livres des Odes, which was largely inspired by his readings of Pindar and, to a lesser extent, Horace. His first book of Amours, which demonstrated his skill as a Petrarchan sonneteer, followed two years later. Ronsard was also a court poet closely associated with the last Valois kings, and, in particular, Charles IX (b. 1550–d. 1574, r. 1560–1574), the second son of Henri II and Catherine de’ Medici, to whom the poet dedicated an epic poem La Franciade in 1572. Throughout the course of the Wars of Religion, Ronsard supported the king and the royalist Catholic cause, most dramatically in the early 1560s with a series of poems that became the Discours des Misères de ce Temps. Finally, Ronsard is noteworthy for his interest in the emerging media of print. His collected works were published for the first time in 1560, and he continued to edit and republish them throughout his life. In addition, Ronsard published new poems in separate volumes, and he would then revise and re-publish them within his complete works. Ronsard’s practices in safeguarding his poetic legacy thus paint a fascinating picture of the development of printing and editing in the 16th century.

scholarly journals ‘When is a meadow not a meadow?’ : Dark Ecology and Fields of Conflict in French Renaissance Poetry

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Pierre De Ronsard ◽  
Political Body ◽  
French Renaissance ◽  
Agrippa D'aubigne ◽  
Renaissance Poetry ◽  
Dark Ecology

In poetic responses to the French civil wars, the wounded political body of France is aligned with the ravaged body of the physical landscape in an array of arresting ecological images. By tracing a web of profoundly imbricated commonplaces and analogies concerning fields, bodies, and entrails in particular, this chapter investigates the ways in which the verse of Pierre de Ronsard and Agrippa d’Aubigné both rehearses and decries the unnatural twists and turns of that ‘intestine’ conflict. Both poets revive ancient expressions of ecological anxiety that disrupt what Timothy Morton has termed ‘agrilogistic thought’; but I argue that in their distinctive and sometimes challenging styles, their verse presents (and through syntactic violence, uncannily performs) a still more radical vision of human enmeshment in nature.

French Literature

1963 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-110
Author(s):  
W. L. Wiley
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
French Literature ◽  
French Renaissance ◽  
The Past

Scholars in the field of French literature of the Renaissance have been quite active during the past year, in keeping with a rising trend of interest that has been obvious for more than a decade. The various bibliographies—the Studies in Philology bibliography, the bibliography of the Revue d'Histoire littéraire de la France, Professor Robert Taylor's listing of books in Renaissance News, etc.—all confirm, I believe, a healthy and growing concern for the sixteenth century in France. The SP bibliography, for example, included in 1949 some 202 items that related to the French Renaissance; the SP bibliography for 1962 contained 423 entries of books and articles involving the Renaissance in France, a pleasing statistical detail for seizièmistes on both sides of the Atlantic. As for journals, the Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance— in keeping with its ancestral connection with Abel Lefranc's Revue des études Rabelaisiennes and the later Revue du seizième siècle—continues to be the publication devoted primarily to the French Renaissance.

Empire and Economic Growth: the Case of 18th Century France

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Butel ◽  
François Crouzet
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Small Companies ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Foreign Wars ◽  
Francis I

Among the colonial powers of the early modern period, France was the last to emerge. Although, the French had not abstained from the exploration of fhe New World in the 16th century: G. de Verrazano discovered the site of New York (1524), during a voyage sponsored by King Francis I; Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence to Quebec and Montreal (1535). From the early 16th century, many ships from ports such as Dieppe, St. Malo, La Rochelle, went on privateering and or trading expeditions to the Guinea coast, to Brazil, to the Caribbean, to the Spanish Main. Many French boats did fish off Newfoundland. Some traded in furs on the near-by Continent. Moreover, during the 16th century, sporadic attempts were made to establish French settlements in «Equinoctial France» (Brazil), in Florida, in modern Canada, but they failed utterly. Undoubtedly, foreign wars against the Habsburgs, during the first half of the 16th and of the 17th centuries, civil «wars of religion» during the second half of the 16th century, political disorders like the blockade of La Rochelle or the Fronde during the first part of the 17th century, absorbed the attention and resources of French rulers, despite some ambitious projects, like those of Richelieu, for overseas trade. As for the port cities they tried to trade overseas but they were isolated and not strong enough (specially during die wars of religion) to create «colonies». Some small companies, which had been started in 1601 and 1604, to trade with the East Indies, were very short-lived, and the French did not engage seriously in Asian trade before 1664.

scholarly journals Contribution of historical and literary works to the understanding of political phenomena

2005 ◽  
pp. 93-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vojislav Stanovcic
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Ethical Orientation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
Literary Works

The paper presents a series of arguments which indicate that significant historiographic works describing and analyzing bygone political phenomena as well the literary works which picturesquely depict political situations and human destinies - with their specific approaches and methods - contribute to the better insight and understanding of the phenomena in the political life which philosophy and social sciences express by notions. Social and political life have their bright and dark sides. It is less arguable that political sciences - in the study of phenomena included in their topic -find great help in history, if it is - as Leopold von Ranke advised - oriented only to "show what really happened". Historical studies, specially the ones of the socalled great historians, present to us the images of the situation in a certain period or event with all significant details and contribute to the understanding of that phenomenon, helping to clarify its essence. Thus for example, Appian's Roman Civil Wars or Tacitus' descriptions in The Annals of the suffering of the innocent victims in the power struggle during civil wars and during the ferocious persecution of Christians -innocent, but accused of all possible crimes. What astonishes the reader is the grea similarity between the phenomena, processes, actions happening two millennia ago and in the 20th century. Philosopher and political thinkers (like Aristotle), but also some historians (like Thucydides) offer explanations why some patterns repeat and why they would "keep repeating". In Khalil Inalcik's work, we find detailed descriptions of brutal mutual killings among the sons of the majority of the Turkish sultans in the power struggle after their fathers' death. Generalizing on the basis of the material provided by history, we reach an entire string of general notions in political and social sciences. Great thinkers and writers, from the oldest Eastern and the greatest antique philosophers till the ones from the 20th century, used found inspiration and drew ideas and incentives or material from the sources with which they supplemented their theoretical categories, notions and explanations, including the images of political life. These sources are represented in the great literary works. Contradictory opinions about the character and significance of ail and literature are found in Plato's and Aristotle's writings. Aristotle, who analyzed this problem, presented arguments why literary insights - precisely because of the character of insights they offer - deserve to stand in the same pedestal with philosophy. He used the expression he himself introduced to mark one aspect of the effect of art and literature - and that is catharsis. Psychology facilitates our insights into the motives and consequences of the participants' behavior social psychology being particularly important, but also ethics. The means used to convey a certain truth is less important, its essence is more important. Several Greek philosophers (Parmenides, Empedocles, Xenophon) even the Roman ones (for example, Lucretius Cains) wrote their philosophical treatises in verse. Kant's famous words Sapere aude! with which he asks people to have courage to use their own mind and thus become enlightened originate from the Roman poet Horace, and Michel de Montaigne also used them. Plato and Aristotle referred not only to the available sources about preceding philosophical ideas and political systems, including the first Greek historians, but also to the tragedians, primarily Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, to the comedy writers (like Aristophanes), to the lyricists (Solon, Simonides, Archilochus). When Aristotle expounds one of the key categories of his political theory about man as a political animal (zoon politikon), he refers to Homer to confirm what he himself believes. Anica Savic-Rebac quotes Strabo's formulations about poetry as "the first philosophy", as well as about Homer's work as "poetic philosophy" and as a source of every kind of wisdom, even every kind of knowledge. With his ideas and images he presented in his literary works, Dostoyevsky influenced several philosophers (Nietzsche, Camus and others) and scientists (Freud, Adler and others). "The philosophy of existence" and its ethical orientation were presented not only in the philosophical, but also in the literary works (Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus). The so called philosophy of the absurd and "the literature of the absurd" mutually merge and supplement. Not even the best 20th century theoretical treatise about the nature of power - like those by Charles Merriam, Bertrand Russell, Bertrand de Jouvenel or Harold Lass well can depict what man gets to know through the tragedies of Marlowe Shakespeare, Goethe, in which main participants are driven and urged by the yearning to achieve absolute power. "The Great Inquisitor", "The Iron Heel" "Dark at Noon", but also the personalities like Raskolnikov or Verhovensky from the novel The Possessed help us to understand many things. "Gulag" became a political notion because of the title of the novel Gulag. Literature-antiutopia pointed to the dangers of the closed mind and of the technological society before scientific studies had done that.

scholarly journals Michel de Montaigne and the Power of Language

Verbum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 156-165
Author(s):  
Svetozar Poštić
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Russian Philosopher ◽  
Power Of Language ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Main Instrument ◽  
Style Of Writing

This essay argues that the main instrument Montaigne, 16th-century French thinker and writer, used for creating a “new ontology,” as Nicola Panichi calls it (2004, 278), was language and a special style of writing. He, first of all, created – or revived from the Antiquity – a new genre most suitable for a new discourse, and christened it essai. Then he applied a method known in humanist schools of the Renaissance as ultraquem partem to relativise all previous thought. Finally, he employed a thorough, frank examination of his own behaviour, habits and preferences, adorned with Latin sentences, to promote self-analysis as a path to personal contentment. This article applies the theory of Bakhtin, a 20th-century Russian philosopher and sociolinguist, especially his essay “Discourse in the Novel” (“Слово в романе”), in the analysis of the peculiarity of Montaigne’s composition and its purposefulness in expressing at that time dangerous, but already prevalent worldview. Since battling medieval Christian thought was the paramount assignment of his endeavour, the quotes are mostly taken from Montaigne’s only essay – and by far the longest in the three-volume collection – entirely dedicated to religion, “Apologie de Raimond Sebond.”

George Buchanan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Reid
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Complete Collection ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
French Renaissance ◽  
Revolutionary Party ◽  
History Of ◽  
George Buchanan ◽  
The Right

Although his name is now virtually unknown beyond academia, George Buchanan (b. 1506–d. 1582) was one of the foremost humanists and Neo-Latinists of the 16th century. His work as a writer, polemicist, and educator had a Europe-wide impact in his own lifetime, and a cultural afterlife so great that it resulted in a large obelisk being erected in his memory in his hometown of Killearn, Scotland, and year-long public celebrations of the four-hundredth anniversary of his birth at the Universities of Glasgow and St. Andrews in 1906. Buchanan is best known to early modern historians as the polemicist for the revolutionary party that forced Mary Stuart to abdicate from the throne of Scotland in 1567 in favor of her infant son, James. It was in this context that he produced a scurrilous account of her reign (the De Maria Regina Scotorum, published in English as the Detectioun), an explosive treatise on the nature of Scottish kingship and the right to resist and kill tyrants (the De Iure Regni apud Scotos Dialogus), and a history of Scotland (Rerum Scoticarum Historia) that acted as a “proof text” of sorts for his theories on monarchy. Buchanan was also tutor to Mary’s son, who as James VI and I would become arguably the most literary British monarch ever to sit on the throne. To scholars of the French Renaissance, Buchanan is more famous—and has been studied in comparatively much greater depth—as the author of Neo-Latin works across an impressive range of genres, many of which strongly influenced early French vernacular literature. These included religious tragedies and translations of ancient Greek plays (Jephthes, Baptistes, Alcestis, Medea), and secular and anti-clerical poetry (the Franciscanus, written in Scotland for James V around 1537, being the most famous example). His crowning poetic achievement, the Latin versification and paraphrasing of the complete Hebrew Psalter, was begun while he was imprisoned by the Inquisition in Portugal, where he had been one of the first teachers at the newly established University of Coimbra. Once safely back in France and then Scotland, the complete collection was published in stages, and it enjoyed exceptional critical acclaim and international dissemination. The psalm paraphrases would see Buchanan receive the epithet (at least according to his publisher) of “easily the prince of poets of our age” (poetarum nostri saeculi facile princeps). He died in 1582, but his works and ideas circulated among poets, intellectuals, and revolutionary parties alike for centuries after.

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