Cosmos and Image in the Renaissance

Banks (French, Durham University UK) explores the ways in which late sixteenth-century French poetry illuminates the changing concepts of the interrelation among humans, the divine and the cosmos. While she draws on many authors, her main focus is on Du Bartas' natural-philosophical poem sepmaine and Sceve's romantic Delie. Banks argues that poetry is under valued as a source for contemporary attitudes, particularly at this time in France, when the Catholic crown was battling a Protestant tidal wave. This is most apparent in her study of Seve, in which she compares his idealization of his love with the work of the religious mystic, Marguerite of Navarre. She notes how the human and the divine have altered positions in term of cosmic references. Banks closes by encouraging others to examine poetry through this lens. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)