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D'Aubigne's Les Tragiques: A Protestant Apocalypse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Richard Regosin
Richard Regosin*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H.
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Extract

Recent Studies on d'Aubigné's Les Tragiques have tended to bear out Henri Trénel's assertion in 1904 that the poet is “le plus biblique des écrivains français.” Since Trénel's catalogue of Scriptural references and Hebraisms in the poem (by which he sought to prove his point), d'Aubigné critics have given more thought to the significance of this accumulation of Biblical imagery, focusing particularly on d'Aubigné's continuing correlation of characters and events in Old Testament, early Christian, and contemporary sixteenth-century history. Henri Weber, whose view represents the most generally accepted interpretation, explains that this correlation provides the temporal dimension required by the epic poem. Moreover, by showing contemporary events to be a repetition of Biblical history, it raises those events to a symbolic level consistent with d'Aubigné's notion that the fortunes of the Protestants represent the working out of God's providential design for His modern-day chosen people. Henry Sauerwein suggests that the Biblical imagery represents d'Aubigné's attempt to approximate the style of the Bible in order to achieve a form suited to Les Tragiques as God's revelation of the destiny of the Protestant people to the divinely inspired poet.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , October 1966 , pp. 363 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1966

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References

1 Henri Trénel, L‘Élément biblique dans l‘œuvre poétique d'Agrippa d'Aubigné (Paris, 1904), p. 1.

2 Henri Weber, La Création poétique au XVIe siècle en France de Maurice Scève à Agrippa d'Aubigné (Paris, 1955), pp. 605–608; cf. also J. A. Walker, “D'Aubigné's Les Tragiques: A Genre Study,” UTQ, xxxiii (1964), 109–124.

3 Henry Sauerwein, Agrippa d'Aubigné's Les Tragiques (Baltimore, Md., 1953), pp. 173–212.

4 Sauerwein, p. 136; Imbrie Buffum, Agrippa d'Aubigné‘s Les Tragiques (New Haven, 1951), pp. 62–63; Jean Plattard, Une Figure de premier plan dans nos lettres de la Renaissance: Agrippa d'Aubigné (Paris, 1931), pp. 63–67; Weber, p. 732. Cf. also Robert Griffen, “The Rebirth Motive in Agrippa d'Aubigné‘s Le Printemps,” French Studies, xix (1965), pp. 227–238, for apocalyptic notes in Le Printemps.

5 Agrippa d'Aubigné (Paris, 1910), p. 82; Édition du Centenaire (Paris, 1930), pp. 162–163.

6 Les Tragiques is divided into seven books: “Misères,” “Princes,” “Chambre Dorée,” “Feux,” “Fers,” “Vengeances,” “Jugement.” The plea is repeated in “Misères” (ll. 1377–80), “Chambre Dorée” (ll. 1059–62), “Fers” (ll. 360–362), and “Vengeances” (l. 271). Quotations from Les Tragiques are taken from the edition edited by A. Garnier and J. Plattard (Paris, 1932). Both book and line references are given.

7 Biblical quotations are taken from the Tremellius Biblia Sacra (1579) and are referred to by chapter and verse.

8 Henri Bullinger, Cent Sermons sur l'Apocalypse de Jésus Christ (Geneva, 1558), p. 12.

9 Rocheblave, p. 83.

10 Bullinger, p. 54.

11 Pierre de Launay, Paraphrase et exposition sur l'Apocalypse (Geneva, 1651), p. 416.

12 Bullinger, pp. 230, 452, and 250.

13 Bullinger, p. 767.

14 Cf. Sauerwein, pp. 206–207.

15 Bullinger, pp. 864 and 246.

16 Charles Bost, Histoire des Protestants de France (Paris, 1957), p. 127.