Joachim Du Bellay , Olivier Millet (review)

Abstract

812 Reviews L'Arcadie. By Jacques Sannazar. Trans. by Jean Martin. Ed. by Jean-Claude Ternaux. (Publication du Centre de Recherche sur la Transmission des Modeles Litteraireset Esthetiques) Reims: Presses Universitaires de Reims. 2003. 209 pp. ?18. ISBN 2-904835-94-6. The importance of Sannazar's Arcadia forthe pastoral tradition throughout Renais? sance Europe cannot be overstated. From Tasso to Sidney, Cervantes to Du Bellay, smaller and larger echoes are rife.However, the French taste for Sannazar owes a debt to the version published in 1544?forty years after the firstfull text of the poem had appeared in Naples?by Jean Martin, a noted translator of Latin and Italian authors (including Ariosto), on whom a volume of studies appeared in 1999 (Jean Martin, un traducteur au temps de Francois Ier et de Henri II, ed. by M.-M. Fontaine (Paris: Presses de I'Ecole Normale Superieure)). In this edition Jean-Claude Ternaux reproduces the 1544 French text (including also a translation of Horace, Epodes, 1. 2). Surprisingly, the volume has only a short introduction (pp. 9-16). In so faras it goes, Ternaux's analysis is succinct and informative, treating Sannazar, subsequent pas? toral writings in his tradition, and the work of Martin. He particularly draws attention to the 'travail de marqueterie litteraire' which he finds characteristic of Sannazar, and to Martin's scholarly bent, which led him to add a glossary of 212 items treated in the manner of an encyclopaedia (reproduced on pp. 168-91). However, Martin's style as a translator receives only cursory treatment. Ternaux is interested in certain details of his techniques of versification, and indicates the fluent nature of his rendering of descriptive prose passages (the start of prose V particularly caught my eye), yet it is only on the back cover of the book that we glean the important fact that 'Jean Martin s'eloigne du texte italien dans les eglogues, caracterisees par la variete'. Since Ternaux has not reproduced even part ofthe Italian text, the volume does not allow us to judge this for ourselves. Equally disappointing is the absence of any notes on the translation, which might have encouraged Ternaux to engage properly with this key issue. This seems a lost opportunity, and it is unlikely that another edition of this translation will be forthcoming in the near future to make good the fault. According to the translator's prefatoryepistle, he anticipated a readership drawn especially from the 'gentilz hommes et dames vivans noblement en leurs mesnages aux chammpz' (p. 20). I would suspect that the work also found favour among the rising generation of French poets. For today's market, it is most likely to be confined to specialists of the European pastoral tradition and/or of the development of the French language. In brief,a useful and inexpensive volume for research libraries, but one which missed the opportunity for a full critical study of translation in practice. Oxford Brookes University Valerie Worth-Stylianou (Euvres completes,Vol. i: La Deffence,etillustrationde la languefrancoyse. By Joachim Du Bellay. Ed. by Francois Goyet and Olivier Millet. (Textes de la Re? naissance, 71) Paris: Champion. 2003. 461 pp. ?45. ISBN 2-7453-0874-2. This is the firstvolume to appear in Champion's new multi-volume edition of the complete works of Du Bellay, edited by an international team of Renaissance scholars. The obvious question for specialists is whether it is destined to replace the Chamard edition (last republished, by STFM, in 1997). As far as the text itself is concerned, Francois Goyet and Olivier Millet have the advantage in that they have scrupulously reproduced the punctuation and capitalization ofthe 1549 Arnoul l'Angelier edition (hence the comma after Deffence, above). However, they make clear from the outset their debt to Chamard's voluminous notes, and in no way seek to offera substitute for his tomes. Indeed, the format ofthis edition is quite different.Like many Renaissance MLRy 100.3, 2005 813 works, the title-page disguises the relationship between text and paratext. The Def? fence is reproduced first(pp. 11-85), with no notes or critical apparatus. There follow an extensive 'commentaire' upon the text (pp. 89-370), a modest section...