Les Tragiques

Abstract

This is a reprint in a single volume of the two-volume edition of Les Tragiques published in 2003 and which is a revised edition of that published in 1995. The text is based on Tronchin manuscript no. 158 (of which a parallel copy, sent after d'Aubigné's death by his widow to her brother in London, is now in the Harley Collection at the British Library) whereas previous editors (for example, Plattard, 1932; Weber, 1969; Lestringant, 1994) preferred that of the printed second edition. Fanlo defends his choice in great detail (pp. 147–215), examining closely the various sources and variants. In fact, the first 215 pages of this weighty tome are devoted to a defence of the editor's position concerning not only the choice of edition but also of his hypotheses on the date of the composition of the various components of the poem. He disagrees with the dates proposed by previous editors and exposes the difficulties involved in finding reliable indicators. Fanlo is of the opinion that the poem was composed in three major stages: ‘la première […] commencerait au début du règne d'Henri III, la seconde après l'abjuration d'Henri IV, et elle se prolongerait à peu près jusqu'en 1602. La troisième est postérieure à la mort du roi’ (p. 116). He concludes that Les Tragiques, to be understood, need to be read in the light of the ideological context of the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, a conclusion which he then proceeds to illustrate (pp. 119–45). The text is accompanied by a wealth of annotation — historical, linguistic, iconographic (a number of relevant emblems, engravings and manuscript/printed pages are reproduced); the variants are to be found in a separate section; there is a chronological table of D'Aubigné's life and allied events; there are also four indexes (‘Vocabulaire, Noms propres, Auteurs cités, Références bibliques’) plus a full bibliography (the text and copious footnotes occupy 51% of the volume). This edition is a ‘must’ for the academic but others may find the single-volume version a little unwieldy and the presentation may prove discouraging for undergraduates — which is unfortunate as both could have been avoided.