Œuvres complètes by Jean Second. Vol. I: Basiorum liber et Odarum liber ed. by Roland Guillot

Abstract

MLR, 102.1, 2007 229 epistle to the king from exile inFerrara in the context of the contemporaneous legal arguments between theCollege and theFaculty ofTheology allows Ahmed to inter pret the letternot only as self-justification onMarot's part and an appeal forclemency and restitution/redemption, but also as an exhortation to theking to defend the right of theLecteurs Royaux to lecture on sacred texts,unhindered and uncensored by the Faculty ofTheology. Ahmed's thirdchapter discusses Marot's identificationof the 'Treschrestien'-but humanist-King Francois with the shepherd: with Pan, and with the shepherd-king David, which again leads toa parallel with Christ theGood Shepherd. This he does in a study of threepoems, including the I54 I epistle in which Marot dedicates his Psalm translations to FranSois. Ahmed thus argues thatMarot was trying to demonstrate that itwas eminently fittingfor the king to be associated with the French version of the Psalms ofDavid, thus legitimizing their translation, expressly forbidden by Parlement and theSorbonne in 1525. The firstchapter includes relatively few quotations fromMarot's work, Ahmed preferring instead to direct his readers toDefaux's editions (Clment Marot: cEuvres poetiques, 2 vols (Paris: Garnier, 1990-93)). However, theprovision throughout of the volume number and line numbers of a poem alone, with no page number, does not facilitate location of the poem inquestion. The occasional error in page numbering of references to notes poses an additional obstacle to the reader.Although Defaux's edition of the complete works includes, evidently, thePsalm translations,Ahmed has chosen tomake reference to a differentDefaux edition of those works (Cinquante pseaumes deDavid mis en franfoys selon la verite hebraique (Paris: Champion, I995)), but gives no reason for the decision. Ahmed's reading of, itmust be said, a small selection ofMarot's poetry por traysaman whose primarily humanist views were neither orthodox nor unreservedly Evangelical; whose view of the quasi-divine nature of his monarch equated with an acceptance of the tenets of theCatholic mass, yetwho denied being Lutheran invery Lutheran terms.Such a reading contributes to a nuanced, complex view of thepoet, his beliefs, and his output, rather than attempting to categorize him as a Humanist on theone hand or as an Evangelical on theother, or even as amedieval courtier.This study is thus an interesting and informative adjunct to the existing interpretations of the corpus ofMarot's work. UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS HONOR ALDRED ?Euvrescompletes. By JEANSECOND. Vol. i:Basiorum liber etOdarum liber. Ed. by ROLAND GUILLOT. (Textes de laRenaissance, 97) Paris: Champion. 2005. 438 pp. ?79. ISBN 978-2-7453-I243-3. This firstvolume of what will become the complete works of Jean Second offers much more than just a critical edition of the Basia and the odes. The copiously annotated text, based on the posthumous I54I Utrecht edition of Ioannis Secundi Hagiensis opera, includes, in addition to the usual critical apparatus, a face-to-face French translation of thepoems, and a substantial appendix of French verse by later sixteenth-century poets inspired by Second's Neo-Latin Basia, comprising works by Ronsard, Belleau, and Baif, as well as by a plethora ofminor poets writing in the I570S-I590s, including Brach, Beaujeu, Birague, Cotel, Courtin de Cisse, Habert, Jamyn,Claude de Pontoux, Guy de Tours, and Scevole de Sainte Marthe. Much greater attention ispaid to theBasia than to the twelve poems of theOdarum liber.In the twentypages of the iI 8-page introductionwhich are devoted to the odes, Guillot analyses theirmetric patterns and themes, and stresses that inboth varietas 230 Reviews is a key feature,but nevertheless detects a recurrent theme ofCharles V, 'pour lequel ce recueil represente un monument de gloire' (p. 79). In the notes accompanying the odes Guillot identifiesSecond's significant debt toHorace, and also traces (as he does with theBasia) subsequent echoes of Second's Neo-Latin odes inFrench verse composed later in the century, including again thatofRonsard and Baif. But under standably Guillot's main preoccupation iswith the nineteen poems of theBasia, in which again attention isdrawn toSecond's diverse metric and thematic range and to his poetic virtuosity. Each Basium, with its facing French translation, isaccompanied by detailed notes on metre, sources, and-most weightily-by references to imita tions of Second...