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  • La Renaissance des mots : de Jean LeMaire de Belges à Agrippa d'Aubigné
  • Abigail Alexander (bio)
Floyd Gray . La Renaissance des mots : de Jean LeMaire de Belges à Agrippa d'Aubigné. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008.

For Floyd Gray, sixteenth-century France heralds a revolutionary self-realization of literature as an art form. This entails a corresponding self-actualization; however, before such a "birth" could become possible, a "rebirth" of the tools necessary for literature would have to take place. This prior rebirth—a rebirth preceding a birth, interestingly enough—would occur in the domain of words themselves. The transition in France from Latin to vernacular French as the chosen language commences in the sixteenth century, unleashing a plethora of linguistic forms in the absence of standardized orthographical references. Alongside this relative linguistic liberty, Gray explores the relationship between words and things (mots et choses) within the works of a number of writers. Having emphasized the importance of the context of a work as an integral factor in literary appreciation, one not to be ignored or subjected to the context of the reader, Gray begins his book with an overview of the literary and linguistic climates of the period, providing an account steeped in fascinating details pertaining to the development of French. The greatest changes in linguistic development stemmed from the monumental invention of the printing press, which provoked radical change in both the production and the availability of texts. As a consequence, words were not only being (re) born, but also reproduced at a previously unimaginable rate.

In accordance with the disciplined clarity that marks the book, Gray precisely delineates his project: "Notre but sera de relire un choix d'écritures du XVIe siècle selon un point de vue essentiellement littéraire, c'est-à-dire en soulignant l'apport et la participation des mots à la promotion du sens" (25). Fortunately for Gray and his readers, word makers and players abounded in sixteenth-century France. Gray focuses primarily upon selected works of François Rabelais, Joachim DuBellay, Michel de Montaigne, Pierre de Ronsard [End Page 915] (along with two of his critics), Jean Lemaire de Belges, Jeanne Flore, and Agrippa d'Aubigné. The languages of each of these writers are unique, many of which stem from that of a predecessor. The different meanings of the word invention, a favorite of Gray's, aid in understanding the process of writing at this time. In the sixteenth century, invention did not connote invention in terms of novel creation, rather it pointed toward the finding or uncovering of a pre-existing chose: "Selon cette perspective, le travail du poète consiste à 'inventer' un matériau qui existe déjà et à lui conférer une forme aussi parfaite que possible" (224). To understand this phenomenon in terms of lexical production, we can turn to another schema of Gray's in which words serve as the intermediary between sounds and meanings in order to conjure things. A series of intermediaries emerges in Gray's work: words, readers, writers (who are also readers), narrators, texts, critics, publishers, etc., all act as intermediaries to facilitate the intertextuality at the heart of sixteenth-century invention.

This aspect of exchange exerts primacy in the progression within Gray's book. In the case of Rabelais, Gray finds such exchanges among his various personae, including the pseudonymous writer Alcofribas Nasier, the doctor, the humanist, and the ludic linguistic inventor who pushed the limits of taste in his time. According to Gray, Rabelais fields a host of entities that find reflection in his choice of words: "Une bonne lecture de son oeuvre demande en effet que l'on tienne compte de la duplicité d'une écriture où les mots et les choses s'affrontent brutalement et se complètent mutuellement, pour former un tout" (149). These complexities lead to a writing that refuses to expose itself entirely, a writing that, like its creator, alternates between revealing and distancing its selves from the text and its readers. Gray's analysis of Rabelais' writing focuses upon its innovative nature. He attributes the ludic aspects of Pantagruel to the fact that the novel's novelties surge not from the known, but rather the unknown. With...

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