French Renaissance literature

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French Renaissance literature is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in French (

Catholics
ravaged the country.

The word "Renaissance"

The word Renaissance is a French word, whose literal translation into English is "Rebirth". The term was first used and defined[1] by French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874) in his 1855 work Histoire de France (History of France).[2] Michelet defined the 16th-century Renaissance in France as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a break from the Middle Ages, creating a modern understanding of humanity and its place in the world.[3] As a French citizen and historian, Michelet also claimed the Renaissance as a French movement.[4] His work is at the origin of the use of the French word "Renaissance" in other languages.

Introduction

The 16th century in France was a remarkable period of literary creation (the language of this period is called

The Courtier was also particularly important in this respect) would profoundly modify the French literary landscape and the mental outlook (or "mentalité") of the period. There is a slow evolution from the rude warrior class to a cultivated noble class (giving rise to the idea of the "honnête homme" in the 17th century). In all genres, there is a great interest in love (both physical and Platonic
) and in psychological and moral analysis.

This period saw a proliferation of pamphlets, tracts, satires, and memoirs; the success of short-story collections ("nouvelles") as well as collections of oral tales and anecdotes ("propos" and "devis"); a public fascination with tragic tales from Italy (most notably those of

Bandello
); a considerable increase in the translating and publishing of contemporary European authors (especially Italians and Spaniards) compared to authors from the Middle Ages and classical antiquity; an important increase in the number of religious works sold (devotional books would exceed the "belles-lettres" as the most sold genre in France at the beginning of the 17th century); and finally, the publication of important works of moral and philosophical reflection.

The history of literature of the Renaissance is not monolithic: the royal court, the universities, the general public, the "noblesse de robe", the provincial noble, and the humanist all encountered different influences and developed different tastes. Humanist theater would come slowly to the general public; the old warrior class discovered court etiquette and polished manners only over time; and the extravagance of the Italian-inspired court was frequently criticized by detractors. Literacy itself is an important issue in the dissemination of the texts of the Renaissance: the culture of the 16th century remains profoundly oral, and the short story, the

chivalric novel and Rabelais's works make this orality a central part of their style. Finally, the Renaissance book was a physical and economic object of great scarcity and – depending on its size and illustrations – of great prestige. A library such as Montaigne's was a rare occurrence for people other than lawyers and members of parliament who had had an elite education in the universities; for the public, the broadsheet or penny press
(with woodcut illustrations) sold door to door by colporters would have been their only access to the written word.

Poetry

Poetry in the first years of the 16th century is characterised by the elaborate sonorous and graphic experimentation and skillful word games of a number of Northern poets (such as

Anacreon) would profoundly modify the French tradition. In this respect, the French poets Clément Marot and Mellin de Saint-Gelais are transitional figures: they are credited with some of the first sonnets
in French, but their poems continue to employ many of the traditional forms.

Pierre de Ronsard

The new direction of poetry is fully apparent in the work of the humanist

Joachim Du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard
.

Around Ronsard, Du Bellay and

muses
akin to romantic passion, prophetic fervor or alcoholic delirium.

The forms that dominate the poetic production of the period are the Petrarchan sonnet (developed around an amorous encounter or an idealized woman) and the

Remy Belleau's poem praising the oyster), the "blason
" of the female body (a poetic description of a body part), and propagandistic verse.

Du Bellay's greatest poems were written during his long stay in Rome; his discovery of the ruined city, dismay at the corruption of the Papal court and loneliness gave rise to a sonnet cycle of remarkable sadness and severity (partially inspired by Ovid's Tristia).

Although Ronsard attempted a long

epic poem of the origins of the French monarchy entitled La Franciade (modeled on Virgil and Homer
), this experiment was largely judged a failure, and he remains most remembered today for his various collections of Amours (or love poems), Odes and Hymnes.

Jean Antoine de Baïf and Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas
(whose Semaine is a Baroque description of the creation of the world).

Agrippa d'Aubigné

Several poets of the period – Jean Antoine de Baïf (who founded an "

poetic meters; these experiments were called "vers mesurés" and "prose mesuré" (for more, see the article "musique mesurée
").

Although the royal court was the center of much of the century's poetry, Lyon, the second-largest city in France in the Renaissance, also had its poets and humanists, most notably Maurice Scève, Louise Labé, Olivier de Magny, and Pontus de Tyard. Scève's Délie, objet de plus haulte vertu, composed of 449 ten-syllable ten-line poems (dizains) and published with numerous engraved emblems, is exemplary in its use of amorous paradoxes and (often obscure) allegory to describe the suffering of a lover.

Similarly, Madeleine Des Roches and her daughter Catherine Des Roches were the center of a literary circle based in Poitiers between 1570 and 1587, and which included the poets Scévole de Sainte-Marthe, Barnabé Brisson, René Chopin, Antoine Loisel, Claude Binet, Nicolas Rapin and Odet de Turnèbe.[5]

Poetry at the end of the century was profoundly marked by the civil wars: pessimism, dourness and a call for retreat from the world predominate (as in Jean de Sponde). However, the horrors of the war were also to inspire one Protestant poet, Agrippa d'Aubigné, to write a brilliant[clarification needed] poem on the conflict:Les Tragiques.

Principal French poetry collections published in the 16th century:

Long prose fiction

In the first half of the century, the novel in France was still dominated by the chivalric novels of the Middle Ages (in their prose versions) such as:

Orlando furioso) by Ludovico Ariosto (and, at the end of the century, Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered) were also enormous successes (French translations of these works were often in prose). Finally, the Italian Luigi Pulci
's Morgant le géant, a comic version of the chivalric novel, was an important model for Rabelais's giants.

François Rabelais

The most notable French novels of the first half of the century are

Gargantua and their sequels. Rabelais's works blend both humanism (Erasmus, Thomas More
) and medieval farce (giants, heroic battles, scatological humor) in a manner that is grotesquely extravagant (the language and humor were often viewed as coarse by later centuries), but along with the buffoonery there is a keen satire of religious hypocrisy, political injustice and human doubt.

Alongside the chivalric, French literary tastes of the period were drawn to the amorous and pathetic, especially as depicted in the novels of Spaniards Diego de San Pedro and Juan de Flores, themselves inspired by Boccaccio's Lady Fiammeta and its psychologically insightful portrayal of a woman spurned. This sentimental vein would find admirable expression in parts of Hélisenne de Crenne's Les Angoisses douloureuses qui procèdent d'amours which blends sentimental and chivalric elements, humanist scholarship, orality and eloquence.

The foreign adventure novel would start to face competition from domestic French production in the second half of the century in the long works of authors

Jorge de Montemayor
).

The novelty and inventiveness of the last years of the century are best seen in the anonymous La Mariane du Filomene (1596) which mixes the frame-tale, amorous sentiment, dreams, and pastoral elements to tell the story of a man wandering through the Parisian countryside trying to forget the woman who betrayed him.

Notable works of long prose fiction, including translations (preceded by an --) published in France in the 16th century:

The short story

The French Renaissance is dominated by the

frame tale
(with its fictional speakers discussing each other's stories) lies in their "performability" by someone reading out loud to a non-literate public and in their grab-bag and (frequently) digressive structure: these tales are capable of taking on all kinds of material, both sophisticated and vulgar.

The

Decameron, the short story collection by the Italian author Boccaccio, with its frame tale of nobles fleeing the plague and telling each other stories, had an enormous impact on French writers. The sister of Francis I, Marguerite of Navarre, who was the center of a progressive literary circle, undertook her own version (the Heptaméron) which, although incomplete, is one of the masterpieces of the century. Other important writers of short stories include Noël du Fail and Bonaventure des Périers
. As the century progressed, the use of oral discourse, multiple voices and table talk led to a dialogued form which often seems revolutionary and chaotic to modern ears.

The French reading public was also fascinated by the dark tragic novellas ("

Bandello which were avidly adapted and emulated into the beginning of the seventeenth century (Jacques Yver, Vérité Habanc, Bénigne Poissenot, François de Rosset, Jean-Pierre Camus
).

Short story collections in France in the Renaissance:

  • Anon.
    Cent nouvelles nouvelles
     (1462)
  • Philippe de Vigneulles Nouvelles (c. 1515) - most are lost
  • Anon. Le Paragon des nouvelles honnestes et délectables (1531)
  • Nicolas de Troyes Le grand paragon des nouvelles nouvelles (c1533-37)
  • Bonaventure des Périers Cymbalum mundi (1537)
  • Giovanni Boccaccio Le Décaméron - Antoine Le Maçon, translator (1545)
  • Noël du Fail Propos rustiques de maistre Léon Ladulfi (1547)
  • Noël du Fail Les Baliverneries ou contes nouveaux d'Eutrapel (1548)
  • La Motte-Roullant 'Les fascetieux devitz des cent nouvelles nouvelles, tres recreatives et fort exemplaires... (1549) - (109 tales, mostly versions of Cent nouvelles nouvelles)
  • Bonaventure des Périers Les Nouvelles récréations et Joyeux devis (90 tales) (1558)
  • l'Heptaméron
    (67 tales) without dialogues between the stories
  • L'Heptaméron
    Claude Gruget, ed. (1559)
  • Bandello
    .
  • Bandello
    .
  • Pierre Viret Le Monde à l'empire (date?) satirical pamphlet
  • Pierre Viret Le Monde démoniacle (1561) satirical pamphlet
  • Bandello
    , published with Boaistuau's (1566–1583)
  • Jacques Tahureau Les dialogues, Non moins profitables que facetieux (1565)
  • Henri Estienne Apologie pour Hérodote (1566) (includes 180 tales)
  • Estienne Tabourot des Accords
    Les Bigarrures (1572)
  • Jean Bergier Discours modernes et facecieux (1572) - (13 tales)
  • Jacques Yver Le Printemps d'Yver, contenant plusieurs histories discourues en cinq journées (1572)
  • Duroc Sort-Manne (pseudo. for Romannet Du Cros) Nouveaux recits ou comptes moralisez (1573)
  • Jeanne Flore Comptes amoureux (1574) (7 tales)
  • Antoine Tyron Recueil de plusieurs plaisantes nouvelles, apaphthegmes et recreations diverses (1578)
  • Bénigne Poissenot L'été (1583)
  • Gabrielle Chappuys Cent excellentes nouvelles (1583) - translation of the Hecatommithi by Italian Giovanni Battista Giraldi (also known as Cintio)
  • Gabrielle Chappuys Les facétieuses journées (1584) - translation of Italian tales
  • Antoine du Verdier Le compseutique ou Traits facétieux (1584) - mostly lost
  • Guillaume Bouchet Les sérées (1584, 97, 98)
  • Estienne Tabourot des Accords
    Apophtegmes du Sieur Gaulard (1585)
  • Noël Du Fail
    Les contes et discours d'Eutrapel (1585)
  • De Cholières Les matinées (1585)
  • Vérité Habanc Nouvelles histoires tant tragiques que comiques (1585).
  • Bénigne Poissenot Nouvelles histoires tragiques (1586).
  • De Cholières Les après-dînées (1587)
  • Estienne Tabourot des Accords
    Les Escraignes dijonnaises (1588)

Theatre

16th-century French theater followed the same patterns of evolution as the other literary genres of the period.

For the first decades of the century, public theater remained largely tied to its long medieval heritage of

miracle play was no longer in vogue. Public performances were tightly controlled by a guild system. The guild "les Confrères de la Passion" had exclusive rights to theatrical productions of mystery plays in Paris; in 1548, fear of violence or blasphemy resulting from the growing religious rift in France forced the Paris Parliament to prohibit performances of the mysteries in the capital, although they continued to be performed in other places. Another guild, the "Enfants Sans-Souci" were in charge of farces and soties, as too the "Clercs de la Basoche" who also performed morality plays. Like the "Confrères de la Passion", "la Basoche
" came under political scrutiny (plays had to be authorized by a review board; masks or characters depicting living persons were not permitted), and they were finally suppressed in 1582. By the end of the century, only the "Confrères de la Passion" remained with exclusive control over public theatrical productions in Paris, and they rented out their theater at the Hôtel de Bourgogne to theatrical troupes for a high price. In 1599, they abandoned this privilege.

It is of note that, alongside the numerous writers of these traditional works (such as the farce writers Pierre Gringore, Nicolas de La Chesnaye and André de la Vigne), Marguerite of Navarre also wrote a number of plays close to the traditional mystery and morality play.

As early as 1503 however, original language versions of

Marc Antoine Muret which would leave a profound mark on the members of La Pléiade
. From 1550 on, one finds humanist theater written in French.

The influence of Seneca was particularly strong in humanist tragedy. His plays — which were essentially chamber plays meant to be read for their lyrical passages and rhetorical oratory — brought to many humanist tragedies a concentration on rhetoric and language over dramatic action.

Humanist tragedy took two distinct directions:

  • Biblical tragedy : plots taken from the bible — although close in inspiration to the medieval mystery plays, the humanist biblical tragedy reconceived the biblical characters along classical lines, suppressing both comic elements and the presence of God on the stage. The plots often had clear parallels to contemporary political and religious matters and one finds both Protestant and Catholic playwrights.
  • Ancient tragedy : plots taken from mythology or history — they often had clear parallels to contemporary political and religious matters

During the height of the civil wars (1570–1580), a third category of militant theater appeared:

  • Contemporary tragedy : plots taken from recent events

Along with their work as translators and adaptors of plays, the humanists also investigated classical theories of dramatic structure, plot, and characterization.

Jean de la Taille's Art de la tragedie (1572). Italian theater (like the tragedy of Gian Giorgio Trissino) and debates on decorum (like those provoked by Sperone Speroni's play Canace and Giovanni Battista Giraldi
's play Orbecche) would also influence the French tradition.

In the same spirit of imitation — and adaptation — of classical sources that had informed the poetic compositions of La Pléiade, French humanist writers recommended that tragedy should be in five acts and have three main characters of noble rank; the play should begin in the middle of the action (in medias res), use noble language and not show scenes of horror on the stage. Some writers (like Lazare de Baïf and Thomas Sébillet) attempted to link the medieval tradition of morality plays and farces to classical theater, but Joachim du Bellay rejected this claim and elevated classical tragedy and comedy to a higher dignity. Of greater difficulty for the theorists was the incorporation of Aristotle's notion of "catharsis" or the purgation of emotions with Renaissance theater, which remained profoundly attached to both pleasing the audience and to the rhetorical aim of showing moral examples (exemplum).

Étienne Jodelle's Cléopâtre captive (1553) — which tells the impassioned fears and doubts of Cleopatra contemplating suicide — has the distinction of being the first original French play to follow Horace's classical precepts on structure (the play is in five acts and respects more or less the unities of time, place and action) and is extremely close to the ancient model: the prologue is introduced by a shade, there is a classical chorus which comments on the action and talks directly to the characters, and the tragic ending is described by a messenger.

Mellin de Saint-Gelais's translation of Gian Giorgio Trissino's La Sophonisbe — the first modern regular tragedy based on ancient models which tells the story of the noble Sophonisba's suicide (rather than be taken as captive by Rome) — was an enormous success at the court when performed in 1556.

Select list of authors and works of humanist tragedy:

  • Théodore de Bèze
    • Abraham sacrifiant (1550)
  • Étienne Jodelle
  • Mellin de Saint-Gelais
  • Jacques Grévin
    • Jules César (1560) - imitated from the
      Marc Antoine Muret
  • Jean de la Taille
    • Saül, le furieux (1563–1572)
  • Guillaume Le Breton
    • Adonis (1569)
  • Robert Garnier
    • Porcie (published 1568, acted in 1573),
    • Cornélie (acted in 1573 and published in 1574)
    • Hippolyte (acted in 1573 and published in 1574)
    • Marc-Antoine (1578)
    • La Troade (1579)
    • Antigone (1580)
    • Les Juives (1583)
  • Pierre Matthieu (1563–1621)
    • Clytemnestre (1578)
    • Esther (1581)
    • Vashti (1589)
    • Aman, de la perfidie (1589)
    • La Guisiade (1589)
  • Nicolas de Montreux
    • Tragédie du jeune Cyrus (1581)
    • Isabelle (1594)
    • Cléopâtre (1594)
    • Sophonisbe (1601)

(See the playwrights Antoine de Montchrestien, Alexandre Hardy and Jean de Schelandre for tragedy around 1600-1610.)

Alongside tragedy, European humanists also adapted the ancient comedic tradition and as early as the 15th century, Renaissance Italy had developed a form of humanist Latin comedy. Although the ancients had been less theoretical about the comedic form, the humanists used the precepts of Aelius Donatus (4th century A.D.), Horace, Aristotle and the works of Terence to elaborate a set of rules: comedy should seek to correct vice by showing the truth; there should be a happy ending; comedy uses a lower style of language than tragedy; comedy does not paint the great events of states and leaders, but the private lives of people, and its principal subject is love.

Although some French authors kept close to the ancient models (Pierre de Ronsard translated a part of Aristophanes's "Plutus" at college), on the whole the French comedic tradition shows a great deal of borrowing from all sources: medieval farce (which continued to be immensely popular throughout the century), the short story, Italian humanist comedies and "La Celestina" (by Fernando de Rojas). The most prolific of the French Renaissance comedic authors, Pierre de Larivey, adapted Italian comedies of intrigue by the authors Ludovico Dolce, Niccolò Buonaparte, Lorenzino de' Medici, Antonio Francesco Grazzini, Vincenzo Gabbiani, Girolano Razzi, Luigi Pasqualigo, and Nicolὸ Secchi.

Select list of authors and works of Renaissance comedy:

  • Étienne Jodelle
    • L'Eugène (1552) – a comedy in five acts
  • Jacques Grévin
    • Les Ébahis (1560)
  • Jean Antoine de Baïf
    • L'Eunuque (1565), a version of Terence's Eunuchus
    • Le Brave (1567) – a version of
      Miles gloriosus
  • Jean de la Taille
    • Les Corrivaus (published in 1573) – an imitation of Boccaccio and other Italians
  • Pierre de Larivey – Larivey was an important adapter of the Italian comedy
    • Le Laquais (1579)
    • La Vefve (1579)
    • Les Esprits (1579)
    • Le Morfondu (1579)
    • Les Jaloux (1579)
    • Les Escolliers (1579)
  • Odet de Turnèbe
    • Les Contents (1581)
  • Nicolas de Montreux
    • La Joyeuse (1581)
    • Joseph le Chaste (?)
  • François d'Amboise (1550–1619)
    • Les Néapolitaines (1584)

In the last decades of the century, four other theatrical modes from Italy — which did not follow the rigid rules of classical theater – flooded the French stage:

By the end of the century, the most influential French playwright — by the range of his styles and by his mastery of the new forms — would be Robert Garnier.

All of these eclectic traditions would continue to evolve in the "baroque" theater of the early 17th century, before French "classicism" would finally impose itself.

Other literary forms

Michel de Montaigne

The French Renaissance was rich in a whole body of moral, literary, philological and philosophical writing. Michel de Montaigne was the first essayist of modern times (The Essays) and a remarkable writer on the human condition. Étienne Pasquier's Recherches de la France was another monumental compendium of historical, political and cultural observations.

Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme wrote biographical sketches of the men and women of the court.

Jean Bodin wrote a number of important works on political science.

Henri Estienne and his son Robert Estienne were among the most important printers in France in the 16th century, and Robert Estienne's edition of the Bible was the first to use chapter and verse divisions.

The Catholic/Huguenot and civil/political conflicts of the last half of the century—the French Wars of Religion—generated a great deal of political, religious and satirical writing, including the Monarchomachs' libels.

The Satire Ménippée (1593/1594) written by Nicolas Rapin, Jean Passerat and Florent Chrestien, and edited/revised by Pierre Pithou was a political and satirical work in prose and verse which criticized the excesses of the Catholic League during the Wars of Religion.

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 978-0-500-20008-7
  2. ^ Michelet, Jules. History of France, trans. G. H. Smith (New York: D. Appleton, 1847)
  3. ^ Brotton, Jerry (2002). The Renaissance Bazaar. Oxford University Press. pp. 21–22.
  4. ISBN 0-19-280163-5
    .
  5. ^ Simonin, 351.

References

External links
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