Figurations of France: Literary Nation-Building in Times of Crisis (1550-1650) - Hardcover

Keller, Marcus

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611490480 ISBN 13: 9781611490480

Publisher: University of Delaware Press, 2011

Synopsis

The century of political, religious and cultural turmoil that shook France after the sudden death of Francis I in 1547 was also a period of intense literary nation-building. This study shows how canonical authors contributed to the creation of the French as an imaginary community and argues that early modern literary texts also provide venues for an incisive critique of the idea of nation. Informed by contemporary theories of nationhood, the original readings of Du Bellay's Defense, Ronsard's Discours and d'Aubigne's Tragiques, Montaigne's Essays, Malherbe's odes, and Corneille's Le Cid and Horace demonstrate the critical function of allegories such as Mother France or tropes like the graft and reveal the pertinence of these early modern figurations for current debates about the nation-state in a postmodern era and globalized world.

About this title

Review:

Though Marcus Keller likewise chooses to begin his exploration of literary nation-building with Du Bellay's treatise, his objective is happily original. Rather than situate Du Bellay and the Renaissance literary moment in a longer genealogy of French national identity, as so much of the scholarly literature has sought to do, Keller instead proposes to explore the contours and constitutive figurative elements of early modern representations of nationhood....Keller's book constitutes a stimulating reflection on the multiplicity of ways in which early modern French men of letters imagined and described their national community. It reminds us that we still have a great deal to learn about how early modern societies imagined nationhood, and that Renaissance and Grand siècle writers could be every bit as self-reflective and critical of the nation-form as modern cultural critics.--H-France Review

About the Author:

Marcus Keller is associate professor of French and comparative literature at the University of Illinois.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Delaware Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1611490480
• ISBN 13: 9781611490480
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312