Virgilian Identities in the French Renaissance

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 the Bucolics, the Georgics, and above all the Aeneid, 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