Epic Arts in Renaissance France studies the relationship between epic literature and other art forms such as painting, sculpture, and architecture. Why, the book asks, the epic heroes and themes so ubiquitous in French Renaissance art are widely celebrated whereas the same period's literary epics, frequently maligned, now go unread? To explore this paradox, the book investigates a number of epic building sites, i.e. specific situations in which literary epics either become the basis for realisations in other art forms or somehow contest or compete with them. Beginning with a detour about the appearance of epic heroes (Odysseus and Aeneas) on marriage chests in fifteenth-century Florence, the study traces how French communities of readers, writers, translators, and artists reinvent epic forms in their own—or their patron's—image. Following extended discussion of three galleries in different regions of France, which all depicted key scenes from the classical epics of Homer, Virgil, and Lucan, the book turns to epics written in the period. Chapters of Epic Arts focus on Etienne Dolet's Fata, which praise the victories (but also failures) of François Ier in ways that make it both a continuum of Fontainebleau and a response to the celebration of French defeat in foreign paintings; on Ronsard's Franciade, whose muse was depicted on the façade of the Louvre and whose story was eventually taken up in a long series of paintings by Toussaint Dubreuil; and on Agrippa d'Aubigné's Protestant Tragiques, which allude to, and frequently function as graffiti over, Catholic works of art in Paris and Rome. Situated at the frontier of literary criticism and art history, Epic Arts in Renaissance France is a compelling call for a revaluation of French epic literature and indeed of how we read.

'Epic Arts in Renaissance France' examines the relationship between art and literature in 16th-century France, and considers how the epic genre became 'public' via realisations in various other art forms.

Itineraries in French Renaissance Literature brings together a full score of essays by established and rising American-based scholars of the early modern. Arranged according to five themes or genres: Tales and their Tellers, Poets and Poetry, Religious Controversy, Montaigne, and Knowledge Networks, they offer both fresh perspectives on canonical authors such as Marguerite de Navarre, Rabelais, Montaigne, Marot, Labé, and Hélisenne de Crenne, as well as original interpretations of less familiar works of sixteenth-century moment: confessional polemics, emblems, cartography, geomancy, epigraphy, bibliophilism and even ichthyology. Inspired by and gathered together here to honor the eclectic career of Mary B. McKinley, this anthology integrates many of the most pertinent topics and contemporary approaches of early modern French scholarly inquiry. Contributors are: Pascale Barthe, Leah L. Chang, Edwin M. Duval, Gary Ferguson, George Hoffmann, Robert J. Hudson, Karen Simroth James, Scott D. Juall, Virginia Krause, Kathleen Long, Stephen Murphy, Corinne Noirot, Jeff Persels, Bernd Renner, Nicolas Russell, Nicholas Shangler, Cynthia Skenazi, Kendall Tarte, Cara Welch, and Cathy Yandell.

Polemic and Literature Surrounding the French Wars of Religion demonstrates that literature and polemic interacted constantly in sixteenth-century France, constructing ideological frameworks that defined the various groups to which individuals belonged and through which they defined their identities. Contributions explore both literary texts (prose, poetry, and theater) and more intentionally polemical texts that fall outside of the traditional literary genres. Engaging the continuous casting and recasting of opposing worldviews, this collection of essays examines literature's use of polemic and polemic's use of literature as seminal intellectual developments stemming from the religious and social turmoil that characterized this period in France.

"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. It is demonstrated how Virgil's works are more than Ancient models to be imitated. They reveal themselves, instead, to be part of a vibrant moment of exchange central to the definition of literature at the time."--Back cover.

This collection explores different modalities of storytelling in sixteenth-century France and emphasizes shared techniques and themes rather than attempting to define narrow kinds of narratives categories. Through studies of storytelling in tapestries, stone, and music as well as in historical, professional, and literary writing that addressed both erudite and common readers, the contributors evoke a society in transition.

This volume offers perspective on modern French society and culture through thematic chapters on topics ranging from geography to popular culture. Ideal for students and general readers, this book includes insightful, current information about France's past, present, and future. France is the country most visited by international tourists. Aside from clichéd images of baguettes and the Eiffel Tower, however, what is French society and culture really like? Modern France is organized into thematic chapters covering the full range of French history and contemporary daily life. Chapter topics include: geography; history; government and politics; economy; religion and thought; social classes and ethnicity; gender, marriage, and sexuality; education; language; etiquette; literature and drama; art and architecture; music and dance; food; leisure and sports; and media and popular culture. Each chapter contains an overview of the topic and alphabetized entries on examples of each theme. A detailed historical timeline covers prehistoric times to the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. Special appendices offer profiles of a typical day in the life of representative members of French society, a glossary, key facts and figures about France, and a holiday chart. The volume will be useful for readers looking for specific topical information and for those who want to develop an informed perspective on aspects of modern France.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.

The Italian romance epic of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with its multitude of characters, complex plots, and roots in medieval Carolingian epic and Arthurian chivalric romance, was a form popular with courtly and urban audiences. In the hands of writers such as Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, works of remarkable sophistication that combined high seriousness and low comedy were created. Their works went on to influence Cervantes, Milton, Ronsard, Shakespeare, and Spenser. In this volume instructors will find ideas for teaching the Italian Renaissance romance epic along with its adaptations in film, theater, visual art, and music. An extensive resources section locates primary texts online and lists critical studies, anthologies, and reference works.

Literary allegory has deep roots in early reading and interpretation of Scripture and classical epic and myth. In this substantial study, Mindele Treip presents an overview of the history and theory of allegorical exegesis upon Scripture, poetry, and especially the epic from antiquity to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, with close focus on the Renaissance and on the triangular literary relationship of Tasso, Spenser, and Milton. Exploring the different ways in which the term allegory has been understood, Treip finds significant continuities-within-differences in a wide range of critical writings, including texts of postclassical, patristic and rabbinical writers, medieval writers, notably Dante, Renaissance theorists such as Coluccio Salutati, Bacon, Sidney, John Harrington and rhetoricians and mythographers, and the neoclassical critics of Italy, England and France, including Le Bossu. In particular, she traces the evolving theories on allegory and the epic of Torquato Tasso through a wide spectrum of his major discourses, shorter tracts and letters, giving full translations. Treip argues that Milton wrote, as in part did Spenser, within the definitive framework of the mixed historical-allegorical epic erected by Tasso, and she shows Spenser's and Milton's epics as significantly shaped by Tasso's formulations, as well as by his allegorical structures and images in the Gerusalemme liberata. In the last part of her study Treip addresses the complex problematics of reading Paradise Lost as both a consciously Reformation poem and one written within the older epic allegorical tradition, and she also illustrates Milton's innovative use of biblical "Accommodation" theory so as to create a variety of radical allegorical metaphors in his poem. This study brings together a wide range of critical issues—the Homeric-Virgilian tradition of allegorical reading of epic; early Renaissance theory of all poetry as "translation" or allegorical metaphor; midrashic linguistic techniques in the representation of the Word; Milton's God; neoclassical strictures on Milton's allegory and allegory in general—all of these are brought together in new and comprehensive perspective.