Aspects du lyrisme conjugal à la Renaissance (review)

This composite volume focuses on treatments of marital life and love in various neo-Latin texts, plus the vernacular works of such as Bouchet, Des Masures, and Pierre de Brach. Steering refreshingly far from the Petrarchan lover's endless torments, it meanwhile provides significant insights into the humbler realities of contemporary childcare, education, and even gardening — themes that consciously challenge higher genres like epic and tragedy. Propertius and Ovid do provide relevant classical models, but the key precedents are Pontano's De amore conjugali and Salmon Macrin's various works dedicated to his wife Guillone: treated thoroughly by Anne Bouscharain, John Nassichuk, and Suzanne Laburthe, both figure often in other contributions. Catherine Langlois-Pézeret considers Dolet's Genethliacum (a poem on a child's birth), a collective work concerned more with Dolet's reputation than with his son; and Virginie Leroux handles Scaliger's Poematia, where anti-feminist topoi mix with praise of virtuous women in a significant contribution to the Querelle des femmes. By contrast, Jean Lecointe's analysis of Bouchet's Epistres morales reveals an anti-Protestant polemic concerning the sacramental nature of marriage, at once a gift of God and a road to God. Philip Ford turns to Dorat, another author whose image scarcely evokes personal poetry, but who does express strong family sentiments, emphasizing particularly the education of girls. George Hugo Tucker and Jean Vignes treat Dorat's two pupils Du Bellay and Baïf: as tonsured clerics, both remained celibate, yet also developed a lyrisme conjugal, as the former's Tumuli of 1558 reflect undying love between spouses, a theme that Baïf adopts vicariously concerning the deaths of Henri II and François II, although Marie Stuart's devotion to the latter is not represented unambiguously; Loris Petris also considers widowhood in appraising the legend of Artemisia, builder of the Mausoleum, and whose dutiful mourning connects with eulogies of Catherine de Médicis. Nassichuk's second contribution concerns Des Masures, translator of Virgil, from whom he draws material like the examples of Orpheus and Eurydice to express a bereavement, which, moreover, he views positively by envisioning his deceased wife's salvation and the future of their surviving offspring. Anne-Pascale Pouey-Mounou underlines similar originality in De Brach, whose Amours d'Aymée defy several contemporary commonplaces by insisting on sexual equality and a reciprocal love reservedly expressed. Michel Jourde analyses the Occitan poet Auger Gaillard, whose parodic consolations of the widower propose immediate remarriage, and whose persona's fears of wedlock, mirroring Panurge's, have important psychological implications. Perrine Galand presents the entire text of Micyllus's Epicydium on his wife's death, noting the powerfully Lutheran emphasis on piety and humility in a (less than beautiful) spouse. Walther Ludwig evaluates Chytraeus's Carmina et epistolae de coniugio as similarly puritanical in bias: procreation occurs without sexual pleasure, and kissing is taboo. Aline Smeesters's concluding chapter examines how three Netherlandish poets view paternity variously as perpetuating family virtues (Rycquius), threatening virile self-respect (Scholirius), and fulfilling conjugal love via shared childcare duties (Bultelius). The occasional typos one encounters hardly impair the benefit and enjoyment afforded by these deeply researched and illuminating contributions, which reveal the rich rewards offered by the corpus of Renaissance Latin poetry.