Polemic and Literature Surrounding the French Wars of Religion. Edited by Jeff Kendrick and Katherine S. Maynard

Abstract

The idea that ‘reading and writing are the source of […] conflict’ (p. 2) is the driving force behind this collection of essays. The Wars of Religion are shown to be a war of words; the ‘lexicon of weaponry’ (p. 1) is the subject of investigation, and its impact on warring communities of readers. Such an approach is a very welcome addition to the current interest in polemical literature in this era, coming on the heels of Tatiana Debbagi Baranova’s À coups de libelles: une culture politique au temps des guerres de religion (1562–1598) (Geneva: Droz 2012), and drawing its influence from Luc Racaut’s Hatred in Print: Catholic Polemic and Protestant Identity during the French Wars of Religion (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). The poets and writers considered here are part of the existing canon: Pierre de Ronsard, Agrippa d’Aubigné, Joachim Du Bellay, Théodore de Bèze, Antoine de Chandieu, Marc Lescarbot, and Jean Bégat. The three essays devoted to d’Aubigné are a timely contribution to the field, given Valerie Worth’s new translation of Les Tragiques (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2020). The collection as a whole is thoroughly modern in its approach. The ‘material turn’ is given due consideration; Amy Graves Monroe writes about the importance of paratextual battles, places of publication and title pages, reading the question of anonymity from the perspective of the internet age. Ashley Voeks examines the spatial dimension of Les Tragiques in an elegantly constructed analysis. Katherine S. Maynard introduces an international feature to the collection in her examination of Lescarbot. Other contributions are even more modish: Phillip John Usher takes us into new territory in ‘Atmoterrorism in the Humanist Anthropocene’, using Ronsard and André Thevet to explore contemporary debates on the climate crisis. The category of the ‘polemical’ is thus understood broadly, to include political, juridical, and theological texts and their paratexts, viewed from a literary perspective (p. 2). The advantage of this approach is the close attention paid to the relationship between literature and polemic, as explored in Kathleen Perry Long’s chapter. Students and scholars of the literature of this period will enjoy, and gain a great deal from, this achingly trendy collection of essays that prompt their readers to ask new questions of these established texts. Historians, however, will want to critique the notion that historical events are ‘born of narrative’ (p. 8), and may finish this collection with some questions unanswered. While Christopher M. Flood and Graves Monroe work thoroughly with scriptural sources and confessional difference, others are more removed from the religious context of the wars. Marcus Keller observes that ‘it is necessary to abstract from the religious dimension between French Catholics and Protestants’ in his reading of d’Aubigné (p. 118). Such a level of abstraction neutralizes the confessional dimension of the conflict, which is precisely where the interest lies for many historians of the period. This is not to suggest that historians won’t gain from this collection: they will; but they may find there is more work to do in terms of contextualizing the polemics under consideration here.