New interpretations of the ways in which early modern French literature was influenced by, and responded to, the works of Virgil.

New interpretations of the ways in which early modern French literature was influenced by, and responded to, the works of Virgil.

Virgil's works, principally theBucolics, theGeorgics, and above all theAeneid, were frequently read, translated and rewritten by authors of the French Renaissance. The contributors to this volume show how readers and writers entered into a dialogue with the texts, using them to grapple with such difficult questions as authorial, political and communitarian identities. Rather than simply imitating them, the writers are shown as vibrantly engaging with them, in a "conversation" central to the definition of literature at the time.
In addition to discussing how Virgil influenced questions of identity for such authors as Jean Lemaire de Belges, Joachim du Bellay, Clément Marot, Pierre de Ronsard and Jacques Yver, the volume also offers perspectives on Virgil's French translators, on how French writers made quite different appropriations of Homer and Virgil, and on Virgil's receptionin the arts. It provides a fresh understanding and assessment of how, in sixteenth-century France, Virgil and his texts moved beyond earlier allegorical interpretations to enter into the ideas espoused by a new and national literature.

Phillip John Usher is Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Barnard College, Columbia University; Isabelle Fernbach is Assistant Professor of French at Montana State University, Bozeman.

Contributors: Timothy Hampton, Bernd Renner, Margaret Harp, Michael Randall, Stéphanie Lecompte, Isabelle Fernbach, Valerie Worth-Stylianou, Philip Ford, Phillip John Usher, Corinne Noirot-Maguire, Todd W. Reeser, Katherine Maynard

Foreword - Timothy Hampton
Introduction - Phillip John Usher and Isabelle Fernbach
Virgil and Marot: Imitation, Satire and Personal Identity - Bernd Renner
Virgil's Bucolic Legacy in Jacques Yver'sLe Printemps d'Yver - Margaret Harp
On the Magical Statues in Lemaire de Belge'sLe Temple d'honneur et de vertus - Michael Randall
Temples of Virtue: Worshipping Virgil in Sixteenth-Century France (translated by Penelope Meyers) - Stephanie Lecompte
From Copy toCopia: Imitation and Authorship in Joachim du Bellay'sDivers Jeux Rustiques(1558) - Isabelle Fernbach
Virgilian Space in Renaissance French Translations of theAeneid - Valerie Worth-Stylianou
VirgilversusHomer: Reception, Imitation and Identity in the French Renaissance - Philip Ford
TheAeneid in the 1530s: Reading with the Limoges Enamels - Phillip John Usher
At the Helm, Second in Command: Du Bellay and La Mort de Palinure - Corinne Noirot-Maguire
Du Bellay's Dido and the Translation of Nation - Todd Reeser
"Avec la terre on possède la guerre": The Problem of Place in Ronsard'sFranciade - Katherine Maynard