Transmuting Dido: Marot, Du Bellay and the Displacement of Ovidian and Virgilian Authority in Translatio

Abstract

Among classical heroines, the figure of Dido pervades the works of Renaissance writers and contemporary reflections on exemplarity. French humanist poets Clement Marot and Joachim Du Bellay exploit this ambivalent and topical figure to emulate and displace as authors Virgil and Ovid (Aeneid III–IV; Heroides VII). Beyond translation as transcription (traductio), the poetic, political and ethical appropriations penned by Marot and Du Bellay reveal clear ties to translatio studii et imperii. In Marot’s Epistre de Maguelonne (1532) and Du Bellay’s verse triptych centred on Dido (1552), traditional points of praise and blame are subverted and displaced, while conflicting themes and ends surround the polysemy of translatio and the related question of poetic authority in the French sixteenth century. Pagan love, the locus of strong ambivalence (mad vs. virtuous), is transmuted. A dynamic of conversion (Marot) and compensation (Du Bellay) emerges. It bolsters a new French appropriation of ancient models driven by fantasies of moral superiority, political autonomy, literary legitimacy (minors/auctores), and individual mastery. More generally, the interplay between poetic creation, power, and displacement, offers a glimpse into how ambitious vernacular translations frame and appropriate major works.