Rémi Vuillemin | Université de Strasbourg (original) (raw)

Books by Rémi Vuillemin

Drawing from book history and relying on close reading and textual criticism, this collection off... more Drawing from book history and relying on close reading and textual criticism, this collection offers a nuanced account of the history of the early modern English sonnet. It discusses how sonnets were written, published and received in England as compared to mainland Europe, and explores the works of major (Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser) and minor (Barnes, Harvey) poets alike. Reflecting on current editorial practices, it also provides the first modern edition of an early seventeenth-century Elizabethan miscellany including sonnets presumably by Sidney and Spenser.

Books edited by Rémi Vuillemin

Brepols, 2022

In the early modern period, the humanist practice of translation of sacred as well as secular tex... more In the early modern period, the humanist practice of translation of sacred as well as secular texts created new readerships in the vernacular for authoritative texts, religious or classical. As the circulation of languages within Europe reshuffled hierarchies between classical languages and vernacular tongues, transmission via translation was not only vertical, but also horizontal, and the contacts between European languages enabled the expansion of local lexicons from sources other than Latin or Greek.

This volume focuses on the role of translation and lexical borrowing in the expansion of specific English lexicons (erudite, technical, or artisanal) as evidenced in printed texts from the early modern period. It considers how language shapes identity in social, religious, philosophical, artistic, and literary contexts, and is in turn shaped by claims of social, religious, philosophical, artistic, and literary identity.

The Manchester Spenser, Manchester University Press, 2020

This volume questions and qualifies commonly accepted assumptions about the early modern English ... more This volume questions and qualifies commonly accepted assumptions about the early modern English sonnet: that it was a strictly codified form, most often organised in sequences, which only emerged at the very end of the sixteenth century and declined as fast as it had bloomed, and that minor poets merely participated in the sonnet fashion by replicating established conventions.

Drawing from book history and relying on close reading and textual criticism, this collection offers a more nuanced account of the history of the sonnet. It discusses how sonnets were written, published and received in England as compared to mainland Europe, and explores the works of major (Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser) and minor (Barnes, Harvey) poets alike. Reflecting on current editorial practices, it also provides the first modern edition of an early seventeenth-century Elizabethan miscellany including sonnets presumably by Sidney and Spenser.

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526144393/

Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2018

In the sixteenth century, the ties between Strasbourg and the English Reformation were particular... more In the sixteenth century, the ties between Strasbourg and the English Reformation were particularly close. Many Marian exiles flocked to the Alsatian city to avoid persecution in England, and Strasbourg became an important centre for the printing of polemical religious tracts. Martin Bucer was invited as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and his views on the Eucharist were used in the 1552 revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Bucer’s theology significantly influenced a range of figures from Thomas Cranmer and Stephen Gardiner in their controversy over the doctrine of transubstantiation, to Matthew Parker and Edmund Grindal, both of whom served as Archbishop of Canterbury. Strasbourg church music also found its way across the Channel, notably in the form of a new idiom which combined syllabism and melisma at the end of each musical sentence. Disseminated in England by Miles Coverdale, Jan Laski and Vallerand Poullain, this Strasbourg model of hymnody was eventually adopted by the Church of England.

The present volume offers fresh perspectives on these aspects of Strasbourg and Alsatian reformers’ contributions to the construction of the new Church of England.

Whether real or imaginary, travel stands as a paradigm for the circulation and the production of ... more Whether real or imaginary, travel stands as a paradigm for the circulation and the production of beliefs and ideas, and can have as much to do with education or spirituality as with utopian politics or the development of trade. Ten European researchers focus – in English or in French –on real or fictional, experienced or narrated journeys, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, a period that witnessed the intellectual construction of modern Europe, and the rise to prominence of England and the United Kingdom.

Papers by Rémi Vuillemin

Cahiers du Celec, Jun 6, 2023

La tradition vernaculaire anglaise contre les traditions étrangères La logique de l'imitation de ... more La tradition vernaculaire anglaise contre les traditions étrangères La logique de l'imitation de Pétrarque en Angleterre au XVI siècle : quelques exemples Les masques de Pétrarque Autorité et citation : Pétrarque et les autres TEXT e En An gle terre, les an nées 1590 furent mar quées par une vé ri table explo sion du nombre de son nets pu bliés en re cueils, à tel point que les cri tiques parlent de puis plus d'un siècle de « folie du son net » (son net craze 1). Au coeur de la dé cen nie, en 1594, un poète en core re la ti vement peu connu, mais qui joui ra bien tôt d'une grande po pu la ri té 2 , Mi chael Dray ton, pu blie son re cueil de son nets Ideas Mir rour, Amours in qua tor zains. C'est un son net li mi naire de ce re cueil, dédié à Sir Antho ny Cooke, qui nous in té res se ra ici au pre mier chef. En tant que son net de dé di cace fi gu rant dans un re cueil pu blié, il par ti cipe quasi né ces sai re ment d'une stra té gie d'au teur : Dray ton s'y po si tionne visà-vis de son mé cène et y construit son image de poète. Mais on peut éga le ment at tri buer à ce type de pièce un ca rac tère pro gram ma tique vi sant à orien ter la lec ture, et à ca rac té ri ser l'oeuvre dans son ensemble au moins au tant que son au teur. Or cette pièce li mi naire contient plu sieurs in di ca tions, dont une ci ta tion, qui sont au tant d'indices du rap port de Dray ton aux poètes qui l'ont pré cé dé et qui peuvent consti tuer pour lui au tant d'au to ri tés poé tiques : 1 Vouch safe to grace these rude un po lish'd rimes, Which long (dear friend) have slept in sable night, And come abroad now in these glo rious times, Can hard ly brook the pu re ness of the light. « I am no pickpurse of another's wit » But since you see their des ti ny is such, That in the world their for tune they must try, Per haps they bet ter shall abide the touch, Wea ring your name their gra cious li ve ry.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Aug 1, 2018

Le manuscrit d'un traité poétique anglais jusqu'ici inconnu, intitulé The Model of Poesy, et prob... more Le manuscrit d'un traité poétique anglais jusqu'ici inconnu, intitulé The Model of Poesy, et probablement achevé vers 1599, a été redécouvert dans les années 2000, et édité pour la première fois en 2013 par Gavin Alexander. 1 Comme le démontre l'éditeur, il s'agit d'une découverte majeure à plusieurs égards. 2 Dans la perspective de cet article, nous insisterons surtout sur le fait que ce traité clôture le XVIe siècle littéraire anglais de manière magistrale, ce qui, au vu de l'activité théorique qui y a régné, n'avait rien d'une évidence. En effet, ce qui frappe au premier abord lorsqu'on s'intéresse aux traités poétiques anglais, c'est leur caractère extrêmement tardif. Alors que les écrits sur la poésie fleurissent sur le continent, notamment en France et en Italie, l'activité théorique se développe bien plus tard en Angleterre. Ce n'est qu'à la toute fin du siècle que les deux traités majeurs de l'époque seront publiés : The Arte of English Poesie (1589), de George Puttenham, et An Apology for Poetry de Sir Philip Sidney (1595), publié également la même année sous le titre The Defence of Poesie. Les deux traités diffèrent de bien des manières : alors que celui de Puttenham, en partie fortement inspiré des traités de rhétorique, 3 présente les enjeux liés à la poésie de manière systématique, l'ouvrage de Sidney présente

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2017

am no pickpurse of another's wit" : l'autorité de la citation dans un sonnet élisabéthain En Angl... more am no pickpurse of another's wit" : l'autorité de la citation dans un sonnet élisabéthain En Angleterre, les années 1590 furent marquées par une véritable explosion du nombre de sonnets publiés en recueils, à tel point que les critiques parlent depuis plus d'un siècle de « folie du sonnet » (« sonnet craze ») 1. Au coeur de la décennie, en 1594, un poète encore relativement peu connu, mais qui jouira bientôt d'une grande popularité 2 , Michael Drayton, publie son recueil de sonnets Ideas Mirrour, Amours in quatorzains. C'est un sonnet liminaire de ce recueil, dédié à Sir Anthony Cooke, qui nous intéressera ici au premier chef. En tant que sonnet de dédicace figurant dans un recueil publié, il participe quasi-nécessairement d'une stratégie d'auteur : Drayton s'y positionne vis-à-vis de son mécène et y construit son image de poète. Mais on peut également attribuer à ce type de pièce un caractère programmatique visant à orienter la lecture, et à caractériser l'oeuvre dans son ensemble au moins autant que son auteur. Or cette pièce liminaire contient plusieurs indications, dont une citation, qui sont autant d'indices du rapport de Drayton aux poètes qui l'ont précédé et qui peuvent constituer pour lui autant d'autorités poétiques : Vouchsafe to grace these rude unpolish'd rimes, Which long (dear friend) have slept in sable night, And come abroad now in these glorious times, Can hardly brook the pureness of the light. But since you see their destiny is such, That in the world their fortune they must try, Perhaps they better shall abide the touch, Wearing your name their gracious livery. 1 Dès 1904, on peut trouver chez Sidney Lee l'expression « sonneteering craze » (Elizabethan sonnets, newly arranged and indexed, Westminster, Archibald & co. ltd, 1904, p. lxxxvi). Il est possible que l'expression soit plus ancienne. L'expression a été reprise très fréquemment par la critique universitaire depuisle début du vingtième siècle. 2 Dans Palladis Tamia, par exemple », Francis Meres place Drayton aux côtés des plus grands auteurs grecs et latins, et bien sûr anglais (Sidney, Spenser et Shakespeare, entre autres).

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), May 28, 2021

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Apr 15, 2020

Anthologie phare du xvie siècle anglais, Songes and sonettes (1557) connaît depuis peu un regain ... more Anthologie phare du xvie siècle anglais, Songes and sonettes (1557) connaît depuis peu un regain d'intérêt critique lié notamment aux questions posées par l'histoire du livre. On substitue désormais à une vision téléologique du recueil comme origine de l'âge d'or anglais, voire comme initiateur de la Renaissance anglaise, un ensemble d'interrogations sur ses rapports avec la poésie du continent, sur ses enjeux formels, sociaux, religieux et diplomatiques, et sur la genèse des anthologies.

The early modern English sonnet, 2020

Cette communication se propose de mettre au jour les relations complexes que le premier recueil d... more Cette communication se propose de mettre au jour les relations complexes que le premier recueil de sonnets de Michael Drayton, Ideas Mirrour (1594), entretient avec certains elements codifiant la culture de cour elisabethaine, issus de la tradition poetique petrarquiste ou encore du Livre du Courtisan de Castiglione. Nous demontrerons tout d’abord la prise en charge par Drayton d’une certaine forme de neoplatonisme presente dans le livre IV du Courtisan. Le topos de l’ascension de l’amant vers la contemplation des essences – ou vers la dame – rejoint dans une certaine mesure les propos de Bembo. Mais dans Ideas Mirrour, l’ascension echoue. La forte presence de la topique du feu, entre autres, semble encourager une lecture alchimique et neoplatonisante du recueil : a travers l’ascension puis la chute successives, l’amant se verrait purge de ses passions. Et pourtant, tout indique en fin de recueil que ce processus n’a pas eu l’effet escompte. L’amant demeure victime de ses passions e...

Cet article propose de tenter de comprendre comment, dans les recueils poetiques imprimes entre 1... more Cet article propose de tenter de comprendre comment, dans les recueils poetiques imprimes entre 1557 et la fin du XVIe siecle, le jeu des noms – noms communs, mais aussi surtout noms propres, en toutes lettres ou sous forme d’initiales – s’inscrit dans des enjeux de pouvoir economiques, culturels et sociaux. Le nom, notamment quand il vient authentifier un element de paratexte, participe d’un processus de legitimation de l’œuvre et de son auteur ; il releve aussi, comme d’autres elements de paratexte, d’une tentative de cadrer, d’orienter, voire de determiner la lecture. Apres quelques rappels sur les recueils poetiques anglais du XVIe siecle et sur l’economie de l’imprime, une analyse du caractere strategique du paratexte est proposee, en insistant sur le role specifique des noms sur la page de titre. Deux etudes de cas, portant sur deux recueils de George Gascoigne d’une part (respectivement 1573 et 1575), sur le premier recueil poetique de Robert Tofte d’autre part (1597), vienne...

Reading(s) / across / Borders, 2020

Borders and liminal spaces in 16th-century collected poetry: a spatial approach to the advent of ... more Borders and liminal spaces in 16th-century collected poetry: a spatial approach to the advent of the English sonnet sequence in print In terms of the history of the lyric, the 16th century was as much an age of border crossing as an age of proto-nationalism. As William J. Kennedy has shown, the poetry of Petrarch, in particular, was the basis for the development and the expression of "early national sentiment" not just in Italy, but also in such countries as France or England. This happened in particular through commented editions of Petrarch that, according to Kennedy, laid the foundations for the affirmation of identities throughout Europe.1 Circulating thanks to the portability of the early modern printed book and the development of commercial and diplomatic networks, Petrarchism crossed the national borders to be appropriated and reencoded in different cultural contexts, paradoxically being used to generate local identities on the outskirts of, or even sometimes quite far away from, the cultural centre that Italy was believed to be. As I hope to show, the Petrarchan poetic collection, in its very physical embodiment, was a locus where the tensions between cultures was negotiated. This is a wellknown fact as far as the texts are concerned, but as I will argue, the analyses of the texts, which too often extract them from the material contexts in which they appear, need to be complemented by a focus on the forms of the book-in the case of this study, page layouts and typography-which participate in the construction of a cultural identity. More specifically, the in-betweenness of those poetic collections also appears in their very liminal spaces, in the forms that embody and determine the boundaries of book, page and poem;2 what the borders of and within books and national borders have in common is that they do not so much enclose pre-existing entities (text or territory) as produce them as entities in their own rights. One of the reasons why the Elizabethan sonnet sequence is regarded as a canonical form today is probably that it seems particularly well-defined and well-established: nothing is more straightforward than the sonnet, with its fourteen lines in decasyllabic verse, generally

Brepols, 2022

The Manchester Spenser, Manchester University Press, 2020

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526144393/

Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2018

The present volume offers fresh perspectives on these aspects of Strasbourg and Alsatian reformers’ contributions to the construction of the new Church of England.

Cahiers du Celec, Jun 6, 2023

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Aug 1, 2018

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2017

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), May 28, 2021

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Apr 15, 2020

The early modern English sonnet, 2020

Reading(s) / across / Borders, 2020

Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare, 2015

XVII-XVIII, 2010

Cécile Alduy’s and Daniel Maira’s recent works on the French canzoniere have prompted the writing... more Cécile Alduy’s and Daniel Maira’s recent works on the French canzoniere have prompted the writing of this article. Its aim is to tackle the issue of the materiality of the English sonnet sequences, exploring how they were shaped as books, and raising hypotheses about the significance of editorial forms. The sonnet sequence originated in Tottel’s Miscellany, a poetic collection first published in 1557. A lesser-known major event in the history of the sonnet sequence was the 1582 publication of Thomas Watson’s Hekatompathia or a Divine Centurie of Love, in which the codes of the published sonnet sequence are established. The 1590 sonnet sequence is then characterized by a desire for unity, and by an increased visual dimension conveyed by the use of ornament. The book then becomes akin to a precious object. If there was any mannerism in the sonneteer’s writing, it was matched by the stationers’ desire for recognition as craftsmen.

XVII-XVIII, 2008

Vuillemin Rémi. De l’idéalisation à la fragmentation : les voies de la séduction du lecteur dans ... more Vuillemin Rémi. De l’idéalisation à la fragmentation : les voies de la séduction du lecteur dans les sonnets de Michael Drayton. In: XVII-XVIII. Revue de la société d'études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. N°65, 2008. Les Formes de la Séduction. pp. 209-232

Cet article porte sur The Model of Poesy de William Scott, art poetique anglais ecrit vers 1599 e... more Cet article porte sur The Model of Poesy de William Scott, art poetique anglais ecrit vers 1599 et recemment redecouvert. Premier traite poetique anglais a faire reference aux poetes de « l’Age d’Or » elisabethain, il consiste en une reprise, voire une amplification du traite de Sir Philip Sidney, An Apologie for Poetry (1595). L’article se concentre sur les ambiguites de la theorie de Scott, qui concoit la poesie en termes de generation, mais redoute l’effemination, qui ne peut que prendre en compte la poesie (notamment italienne) de son temps, mais craint ses effets deleteres. William Scott defend ainsi la poesie par une delimitation stricte de ses conditions d’exemplarite, pour la poesie a venir autant que pour ses modeles, d’Ovide a Du Bartas en passant par l’Arioste, le Tasse, Sidney et Spenser.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2020

Language Commonality and Literary Communities in Early Modern England

According to Arthur F. Marotti, in 16th-century England, “people perceived [lyrics] as ephemeral ... more According to Arthur F. Marotti, in 16th-century England, “people perceived [lyrics] as ephemeral artifacts, rather than as enduring literary monuments to be preserved in print.” Such a statement might seem surprising to readers who are more accustomed to seeing the sonnet, for instance, as a “moment’s monument”. But it could also surprise anyone who might have consulted original editions of late-Elizabethan printed sonnet sequences which, despite their small size, allowed for a certain form of monumentality. This paper will examine the changes that occurred in the edition of Elizabethan sonnet sequences. It will take into account lyric collections published in England from Tottel’s Miscellany (1557) to the late 1590s, with a focus on page layouts. Close analyses of the use of space, blanks and ornament in these collections lead one to qualify the idea that the imitation of manuscripts progressively gave way to the production of specifically editorial forms. But the main assumption to be questioned here is that the shift in editorial practices necessarily corresponded to a move from occasional (and thereby social) poems to literary ones.
Clearly, the isolation and encasement of the poem on the page—which can be mostly observed in the sonnet sequences of the 1590s—conveyed a certain amount of autonomy to each piece of poetry. Such material and visual autonomy, however, can be explained by multiple factors, including the influence of contemporary editorial forms such as the emblem book. Perhaps more interestingly, it could be suggested that the new arrangement of the printed material in late Elizabethan sequences aimed to offer the reader—especially if he/she did not belong to certain aristocratic circles—to experience the material sensations of reading an occasional poem passed on to them in a prestigious social circle. This would be consistent with the idea that the printed sonnet was designed to be read in multiple ways, either as part of a sequence or in isolation from the other poems, in which case the collection could also work as an already compiled commonplace book ready to be used for any occasion that might have required it.
The new editorial framing of the poems therefore favoured a discontinuous reading of the sequences for distinctively social uses.

Language Commonality and Literary Community in Early Modern England, 2022

The focus of the present chapter will be on the rewritings and translations of one specific sonne... more The focus of the present chapter will be on the rewritings and translations of one specific sonnet in several European languages, especially Italian, French, and English. While much scholarship has understandably been mostly interested in the specificities of English Petrarchism, sometimes running the risk of singling out features that are in no way specific to it, we hope that considering the dynamics of rewriting in several different contexts will enable us to draw a nuanced picture in which English culture is not isolated from this large European cultural phenomenon. We will take Petrarch’s sonnet 248 as a case study, trying to show how its use as a deep source produced Petrarchism not just as a common set of tropes and topoi, but also as a process of cultural translation.

Fleurs et jardins de poésie : les anthologies poétiques au XVIe siècle (domaine français, incursions européennes), dir. Adeline Lionetto et Jean-Charles Monferran, 2021

Anthologie phare du XVIe siècle anglais, Songes and sonettes…(1557) connaît depuis peu un regain ... more Anthologie phare du XVIe siècle anglais, Songes and sonettes…(1557) connaît depuis peu un regain d’intérêt critique lié notamment aux questions posées par l’histoire du livre. On substitue désormais à une vision téléologique du recueil comme origine de l’âge d’or anglais, voire comme initiateur de la Renaissance anglaise, un ensemble d’interrogations sur ses rapports avec la poésie du Continent, sur ses enjeux formels, sociaux, religieux et diplomatiques, et sur la genèse des anthologies.

Ciaran Ross (ed.), Reading(s) / across/ Borders - Studies in Anglophone Borders Criticism (Leiden: Brill), 2020

This chapter deals with the page layout of several early modern printed poetic collections to sho... more This chapter deals with the page layout of several early modern printed poetic collections to show how political, social and cultural issues are embedded in the very spatial arrangement of the book. Three examples are analysed: Vellutello's very influential 1525 commented edition of Petrarch's vernacular poetry, a central publication in the history of European Petrarchism; the 1557 English poetic collection commonly known as Tottel's Miscellany, which established the tradition of the printed lyric collection in England; and Samuel Daniel's 1592 Delia, which to a large extent ushered in the sonnet sequence as an editorial genre in England. I wish to demonstrate that the editorial shape of the English sonnet sequence was invented through a careful management of space based on European and English precedents.

https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004417885/BP000010.xml

The Early Modern English Sonnet: Ever in Motion (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 2020

This chapter focuses on a neglected sonneteer, Barnabe Barnes, who published Parthenophil and Par... more This chapter focuses on a neglected sonneteer, Barnabe Barnes, who published Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Sonnettes, Madrigals, Elegies and Odes, in 1593, and A Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets in 1595—a unique example of an author releasing two printed sonnet sequences, one secular, one sacred, in two years’ span. The first sonnet of the second sequence presents it as a recantation of Barnes’s previous poems. The chapter therefore interrogates the relationship between the two works, and focuses on the echoes between them—an approach that previous studies have envisaged, but never explored in details. It argues that they might be understood as a Petrarchan diptych consistent with Barnes’s authorial strategy.
Parthenophil and Parthenophe is an experimental sequence in which Barnes displays his poetic and rhetorical ability—an endeavour favoured by the topic of love which requires, in Puttenham’s words, ‘a forme of Poesie variable, inconstant, affected and most witty of any others’. The sequence is obviously marked by excess, as it ends with Parthenophil’s rape of Parthenophe. The networks of topoi in the two sequences echo one another. A Divine Centurie… seems devised to remind the reader of Parthenophil and Parthenophe and to highlight the connection between the two works. The purpose of such intricacy was probably for Barnes to produce a representation of himself as having undergone a moral conversion. Such a pattern of conversion and recantation echoes not only Petrarch’s Canzoniere and Epistle to Posterity, but also the careers of the ‘Elizabethan prodigals’ as analysed by Richard Helgerson.
Barnes’s staged conversion was probably targeted at the Bishop of Durham, Tobie Matthew, to whom Barnes offered a copy of A Divine Centurie…, and from whom he was seeking favour. However, the fact that his second sonnet sequence was printed, and therefore aimed at a wider readership, calls for further hypotheses. Barnes’s connections with Gabriel Harvey and printer John Wolfe, which suggest that he might have had a say in the editorial process and in the designing of the book, also underline his involvement in the feud between Nashe and the Harvey brothers. Barnes’s recantation might therefore have had to do with his desire to protect his reputation from the damaging effects of the quarrel. By analysing the articulation of Barnes’s two sequences in terms of authorial strategy, this chapter offers new possibilities for understanding the relationship between secular and divine sonnets.

The Early Modern English Sonnet: Ever in Motion (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 2020

This chapter investigates theoretical discourses produced on the sonnet in the second half of the... more This chapter investigates theoretical discourses produced on the sonnet in the second half of the 16th century, when the fashion for sonnets reached a peak in Italy, France and England. Theory is envisaged as a mode of reception that gives indications not only on the sonnet, but also on its significance within the period’s cultural production. The approach adopted in this chapter highlights the comparatively secondary significance of the sonnet in the English context until the very end of the century; a thorough investigation of English poetic treatises (including William Scott’s recently rediscovered Model of Poesy) provides up-to-date information on the specificities of English theories of the sonnet.
The Italian sonnet had already been strictly defined by a long poetic tradition, and had been codified in the first half of the 16th century. In the second half of the century, the Italians were concerned with finding how such a defined form could allow some room for innovation so that new poets could compete with the masters of the past. The sonnet was strictly set apart from the epigram; it was more and more often published in collections that included only, or at least mostly, sonnets. In France, by contrast, the sonnet was very quickly and strictly codified, as if theorisation was used to compensate for the absence of a local tradition. The sonnet was precisely meant to mark a break from the French poetry of the past by imitating the Italian sonnet, especially Petrarch’s. The period of experimentation was relatively short (less than two decades), and though the poetic treatises were not entirely prescriptive (they left the rhyme structure of the sestet undetermined, for example), the features of the French sonnet were strict enough that the freedom left to poets mostly relied on variation. While French theorists tended to insist on the epigrammatic (rather than lyric) dimension of the sonnet, the question of poetic collections was left unattended.
In England, the sonnet took a much longer time to be codified, and retained during and after the considered period its original meaning of ‘little song’, or short lyric poem. George Gascoigne’s account of the poetic form in his Certayne Notes of Instruction (1575) remains an isolated example of the way the features of the sonnet could be defined. Not only was the period of experimentation much longer (roughly, from the late 1520s to the 1580s): the standardisation of the form that occurred at the end of the century was short-lived and did not concern the totality of the poetic production. The fact that poetic treatises were late to appear in England probably played a role. What is more, addressing general questions of poetics related to the prosody and vocabulary of the English language seems to have held more stakes than determining the specificities of the English sonnet. While it is tempting to see the late explosion of the English sonnet as the result of a cultural distance caused by geographical distance, there are therefore more significant factors to take into account. It is only at the end of the century that the sonnet became more strictly defined, and that we find explicit indications of the constraints imposed by the form in theoretical works. Late 16th- and early 17th-century treatises insist on those constraints. In Scott’s words, the sonnet is connected to satire and to the epigram, as in French accounts—confirming the notion that French culture mediated the English appropriation of the Italian form. It is also at the end of the 16th century that the sonnet became explicitly associated with love and included in the genre of ‘songs and sonnets’, i.e. poetic collections modelled on Tottel’s Miscellany. The very last decade of the century was the moment when our textbook perception of the sonnet (a love poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter with an ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme) became relevant to a significant proportion of the poetic production.
The comparative approach allows the authors to bring some qualifications to the narrative of the sonnet moving in chronological succession from Italy to England through France. More significantly, it puts the English ‘sonnet craze’ into perspective by showing that the features now recognised as essential components of the English sonnet mostly correspond to one part of sonnet production, the love sonnet sequences of the 1590s and early 1600s.

The Early Modern English Sonnet: Ever in Motion, dir. Rémi Vuillemin, Laetitia Sansonetti, Enrica Zanin, coll. The Manchester Spenser (Manchester : Manchester University Press)., 2020

This volume questions and qualifies commonly accepted assumptions about the early modern English ... more This volume questions and qualifies commonly accepted assumptions about the early modern English sonnet: that is was a strictly codified form, most often organised in sequences, which only emerged at the very end of the 16th century and declined as fast as it had bloomed at the turn of the century, and that minor poets merely participated in the sonnet fashion by replicating established conventions.

Drawing from book history and relying on the tools of textual criticism, this collection offers a more nuanced picture of the so-called ‘sonnet craze’ in early modern England by exploring the works of major poets such as Shakespeare, but also lesser-studied sonneteers such as Barnabe Barnes and Gabriel Harvey. It discusses how sonnets were written, published and received in England as compared to mainland Europe. The volume also provides the first modern edition of an early 17th-century Elizabethan miscellany including sonnets presumably by Sidney and Spenser.

This chapter examines John Ozell’s 1719 English translation of Henri Misson’s 1698 French travelo... more This chapter examines John Ozell’s 1719 English translation of Henri Misson’s 1698 French travelogue entitled 'Mémoires et Observations faites par un voyageur en Angleterre'. Ozell’s translation is taken as a case study of a growing trend in early eighteenth-century England, itself initiated in the 1710s by Addison and Steele’s 'The Spectator': the impetus to scrutinise and debate English custom and character. Through close textual analysis, it considers how Ozell reinvests Misson’s original objectives as he seeks at once to champion ‘Englishness’ and challenge the utility of travel of the English nobility to the continent in the ‘Grand Tour’. In so doing, this study draws on recent scholarship on the crafting of discourses in ethnography and travel writings. It also engages with scholarly debates on the emergence of an English national identity in the early modern period, as well as with the new field of study of travel writings in translation.

This chapter features in the volume 'Voyages Réels, voyages imaginaires, XVIe-XVIIIe Siècles/Real and Imaginary Travels 16th-18th Centuries', ed. by Anne Bandry-Scubbi and Rémi Vuillemin (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2015).