360 pp. / Softcover / 2010 / ISBN 978-0-7727-2065-8 / $39.95
Edited by Karen Simroth James and translated by Marta Rijn Finch.
In 1545, the first edition of the Rymes presented the young Pernette du Guillet (long identified as muse and pupil of Maurice Scève in Lyon’s lively literary circle) as a model of feminine virtue and learning for ladies to emulate. Such views have profoundly shaped the reading of her work, yet the poems reveal complex responses to lyric traditions and theories of love that transformed conventions and influenced many Renaissance writers. With her unique voice, du Guillet moved beyond the silence imposed on sixteenth-century women: expressing admiration and jealousy, awe and dismay, solemnity and playfulness, confusion and confidence, her poems evoke a young woman’s experience with love and her own birth as a writer. This first complete English edition provides a fully annotated bilingual text and a fresh perspective from which to appreciate her poetry.
To view an excerpt of this work, please click here (PDF).
Karen Simroth James teaches and is Language Program Director in the Department of French at the University of Virginia, where she also directs the digital archive, The Renaissance in Print: Sixteenth-Century French Books in the Douglas H. Gordon Collection.
Marta Rijn Finch is a Vermont poet who wrote her first verse at age five. An early fascination with languages led to the study of French, Latin, Greek, Russian, and Chinese. She lived in France for six years, attended the Sorbonne, and translated the poetry of philosopher Simone Weil during her stay in Lyon.
Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 6 (2011): 288-290. Reviewed by Deborah Lesko Baker.
Renaissance Quarterly 64, 1 (Spring 2011): 249-250. Reviewed by Robert J. Hudson.
The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies no longer sells or distributes books in “The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series.” Starting July 2015, volumes can be purchased by individuals and institutions from the Chicago Distribution Center. Contact CDC by email (orders@press.uchicago.edu), by fax (800-621-8476 or 773-702-7212), or by phone (800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000).
360 pp. / Softcover / 2010 / ISBN 978-0-7727-2065-8 / $39.95
