Epithalames et Odes by Jean Salmon Macrin , Georges Soubeille (review)

Abstract

MLR, 96. , 2001 MLR, 96. , 2001 Epithalameset Odes. By JEAN SALMON MACRIN. Ed. by GEORGES SOUBEILLE. Paris: Champion. I998. 754 pp. 680F. Jean Salmon Macrin (1490-I 557)was one of the best and most interestingof French Renaissance poets. He wrote in Latin, at a time when Frenchpretensions to rival and even to surpassthe brilliantliterarycultureof Italyrestedalmostentirelyon the Latin productions of local humanists. Macrin mastered to perfection the language and lyric modes of Horace, Catullus, and their neo-Latin imitators. He gave a Frenchhabitat to the imaginary natural and mythological universe inheritedfrom the ancients and inhabited by the Italians. He explored the urbane and socializing epistolarygenre of poetry aspraise and conversation,and he adapted it to a French context and a wide circle of addressees. He brought Christian subjectswithin the compass of this language and this style, with psalm renderings and new hymns. Most interesting of all, like that of his Italian predecessor, Pontano, his poetry frequently takes himself as subject, but in a domestic, family context. The most appealing of his poems are about his much younger wife, their marriedhappiness, her pregnancies, their children, and her death in I550 that occasioned his last collection, hisNaeniae. Georges Soubeille has produced the only modern edition of any of Macrin's poetry. It comprises the book of marriagepoems for his wife firstprinted in 1528 (Soubeille'sedition is based on the slightlyenlarged second edition of I53I) and the four books of odes, the Carmina of 1530. The Latin text and a very accurate, stylish translationappearon facingpages, and thereare abundantnotes that set thepoems in their linguistic, metrical and cultural context (with due regard to neo-Latin parallels, as well as ancient ones). Unfortunately, given Macrin's importance, this edition is not quite the good thing it might appear. It is in fact an almost exact reproductionof the edition Soubeillepublishedin 1978, thoughwith the additionof the two last books of the Carmina, absent in 1978. The long and usefulintroduction has not been reworked,except for three short supplements.No attempt has been made to modernize the criticalapproach,which was alreadyold-fashionedin 1978. Two of the additional items accommodate material from articlesby Soubeille on Macrin's life and his relationships with vernacular writers. The third addition describes the Jaeniae,and so hints that Soubeille has a sense of what might most interestthe modern reader.Wouldthat he had devoted his editorialand translating skillsto thatwork,ratherthan to thisrepeatperformance!The volume isverynicely produced, except for dots that appear from time to time as if to indicate that something has been omitted, but this is not the case. UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM ANN Moss Le TiersLivre.Colloque deRome. Ed. by FRANCO GIACONE. (EtudesRabelaisiennes, 37)Geneve:Droz. I999. I39PP. 8i.85SwF. These are the proceedings of a conference held in 1996 to mark the 45oth anniversaryof the publication of the TiersLivre, although some contributionsare on otherworks.The volume containsan introductionby FrancoGiacone, eightpapers, a conclusion by Marie-MadeleineFragonard,and an index of names. In the firstpaper, 'Le banal et l'exotique: le vocabulaire comme instrument de l'imagination',Fragonardexamines devices thatimparta sense of strangenessto the lists of weapons (TiersLivre,Prologue) and, above all, of plants (Chapters49-52). Even if one may hesitate over the critic's admiration for the latter chapters, this meticulous, informativepaper usefullyrecallshow odd the text probablylooked in Epithalameset Odes. By JEAN SALMON MACRIN. Ed. by GEORGES SOUBEILLE. Paris: Champion. I998. 754 pp. 680F. Jean Salmon Macrin (1490-I 557)was one of the best and most interestingof French Renaissance poets. He wrote in Latin, at a time when Frenchpretensions to rival and even to surpassthe brilliantliterarycultureof Italyrestedalmostentirelyon the Latin productions of local humanists. Macrin mastered to perfection the language and lyric modes of Horace, Catullus, and their neo-Latin imitators. He gave a Frenchhabitat to the imaginary natural and mythological universe inheritedfrom the ancients and inhabited by the Italians. He explored the urbane and socializing epistolarygenre of poetry aspraise and conversation,and he adapted it to a French context and a wide circle of addressees. He brought Christian subjectswithin the compass of this language and this style, with psalm renderings and new hymns. Most interesting of all, like that of his Italian predecessor, Pontano, his poetry frequently takes himself as subject, but...