Les Rencontres des Muses: italianisme et anti-italianisme dans les lettres françaises de la fin du XVIe siècle (Geneva, Slatkine, 1992)

Abstract

In this enlightening and comprehensive study, Jean Balsamo questions several traditional notions concerning Italy's influence on French Renaissance literature, notably the view that although it was at first positive, towards the end of the sixteenth century it served only to corrupt. He focuses on three major aspects: the rivalry between French and Italian writers, translation's role in the assimilation of Italian influences, and the related aspiration to a linguistic and cultural renewal underlying French literary initiatives of the period. Balsamo's examination is well supported by reference to works of the time, and although it concentrates on the period 1570-I600, when anti-Italianism was supposedly particularly intense, these parameters are modified with discernment.