Les Poètes français de la Renaissance et leurs “libraires.” Actes du Colloque international de l’Université d’Orléans

Abstract

Denis Bjai and Francois Rouget (eds.). Les Poetes frangais la Renaissance et leurs Actes du Colloque international l'Universite d'Orleans. Geneva: Droz, 2015. Pp. 552. The twenty-one chapters of this volume, which began as a conference held in Orleans (June 5-7, 2013), offer a rich and variegated study of the complex relationships between Renaissance poets and their libraires. Taken as a whole, the volume demonstrates the material, economic, intellectual, and human networks at the heart of how poetic texts came into print in Renaissance France. All chapters are focused, erudite, and illuminating. Michele Clement opens the first part, on editorial strategies, with a mini-history of the privilege, showing how de la prevention d'un deni justice fait a l'auteur, son premier usage [...] il va evoluer dans sa valeur symbolique vers la reconnaissance d'un service rendu au royaume (50). Isabelle Pantin studies typography in books of poetry, looking in particular at the special case of Sceve's Delie. Jean Balsamo examines the networks of libraires around the Paris Parliament, adding to what we know of the Palais's intimate connections with poets and publishers, as recently shown with great insight by Marie Houllemare in her Politiques la parole (2011). Francois Rouget, with the same perspicacity as he did for Ronsard (in his two-part Ronsard et le livre), brings to light the careful and intelligent ways that Philippe Desportes managed his relationship with libraires. The second part--La Pleiade et ses libraires--features three chapters: Genevieve Guilleminot-Chretien studies books published by la veuve Maurice La Porte, especially by Ronsard and Baif, showing in particular their proximity to the style bellifontain; Daniel Menager elucidates how close French Renaissance poets were to those libraires most responsible for printing classical texts; and Emmanuel Buron studies how, despite publishing only his Recueil des inscriptions, Jodelle is central to the world of the libraires via the liminary texts he wrote for other volumes. Part 3 focuses specifically on the publishing practices of poetes province. Denis Bjai analyzes the practices of Orleans-based Eloi Gibier. Nicolas Ducimetiere's chapter is groundbreaking in its presentation of a galerie portraits (212) of precocious and mainly forgotten Renaissance student-poets, who clearly did have their own place in the publishing world, both in the provinces (e. …