Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of essays by ten leading British and French Renaissance specialists explores, for the first time, differing conceptions of Europe in Renaissance France. Four essays concentrate on problems of definition in ideological, chronological, geographical and linguistic terms, concentrating on the relationship between Christendom and Europe, Antiquity and its Renaissance heirs, and Latin and the vernacular languages of south-western France. A further three essays address cultural exchange and political collaboration (and, inevitably, conflict) between France and England at the time of the Wars of Religion,exploring Catholic and Protestant reactions to the battle of Lepanto, Anglo-French Protestant espionage and pragmatic conceptions of the state based on geography rather than religion. The final three contributions focus on the construction of a European identity in the early modern period that defines itself in contrast to a significant other, be it Islamic or ‘Atlantic’, with particular reference to the presentation of Turkish characters in the work of Christian writers, exotic travel in the work of François Rabelais and the genre of the Livre des contrariétés. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of French Renaissance literature and to those interested in the prehistory of our contemporary conception of Europe.
Table of ContentsDavid COWLING: Introduction Notes on contributors 1. Problems of definition: ideological, chronological, linguistic Jean BALSAMO: ‘Voici venir d’Europe tout l’honneur’: identité aristocratique et conscience européenne au XVIe siècle Ian MORRISON: Rabelais: Christendom and Europe Margaret M. MCGOWAN: Interpreting the past: the Commentaries of Blaise de Vigenère and ‘l’enrichissement de nostre parler’ David TROTTER: ‘Si le français n’y peut aller’: Villers-Cotterêts and mixed-language documents from the Pyrenees 2. Cultural exchange and political collaboration between France and England at the time of the Wars of Religion Yvonne BELLENGER: Sur La Lepanthe de Du Bartas Marie-Madeleine FRAGONARD: Aubigné et l’Angleterre, après Elizabeth: esquisse de rencontres problématiques Yvonne ROBERTS: Towards a pragmatic recognition of religious diversity: the struggle to form a royalist consensus in the early poems of Jean-Antoine de Baïf 3. Alterity and the construction of a European identity Michael HEATH: Foolish or fearsome Franks? The supposed Ottoman view of European Christians in the sixteenth century Françoise CHARPENTIER: Le périple des Pantagruéliens, ou l’ancien et le nouveau Frank LESTRINGANT: Le Livre des Contrariétés: l’Occident, le Turc et les autres
