Description
Book SynopsisGuillaume de Saluste Du Bartas was the most popular and widely-imitated poet in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England and Scotland. C. S. Lewis felt that a reconsideration of his works'' British reception was ''long overdue'' back in the 1950s, and this study finally provides the first comprehensive account of how English-speaking authors read, translated, imitated, and eventually discarded Du Bartas'' model for Protestant poetry.The first part shows that Du Bartas'' friendship with James VI and I was key to his later popularity. Du Bartas'' poetry symbolized a transnational Protestant literary culture in Huguenot France and Britain. Through James'' intervention, Scottish literary tastes had a significant impact in England. Later chapters assess how Sidney, Spenser, Milton, and many other poets justified writing poetic fictions in reaction to Du Bartas'' austere emphasis on scriptural truth. These chapters give equal attention to how Du Bartas'' example offered a route into origin
Trade ReviewLearned and detailed, but accessible and well written study...Auger's compelling study, both scholarly and accessible, opens many doors to future research. * Paul J. Smith, Leiden University, Seventeenth Century News *
The strength of Auger's book is that he has once more established Du Bartas as a vastly influential model and viable third route: indeed, in Auger's estimation, as nothing less than 'essential reading for any student of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary and devotional culture' (226). * Sebastiaan Verweij, The Spenser Review *
...an academic monograph that affords great reading pleasure. * Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation *
Table of ContentsPreface 1: Introduction: The World as a Book Part I: A Jacobean Poet 2: History of a Friendship: James VI and Du Bartas 3: Solidarity and Compliance: Sixteenth-Century Translations 4: Curating the Protestant Imagination 5: Devine Weekes and its Readers Part II: Scriptural Poetry and the Self 6: Little Histories: Patterns for Divine Poetry I 7: Meditations: Patterns for Divine Poetry II 8: Writing for the Inner Eye 9: Retrospectives Appendix: Synopsis of the Semaines
