French Renaissance Tragedies
GARNIER, Robert.
Les tragedies de Robert Garnier conseiller du roy, lieutenant general criminel au siege presidial et seneschaussee du Mayne … Rouen, Jean Crevel, 1611.
12mo, pp. 646 [recte 648]; woodcut device to title, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces; quire D coming slightly loose, very small wormtrack to blank lower corners of quire R, occasional very light marginal dampstaining; very good in contemporary vellum, title in ink at head of spine; slightly cockled and marked, ties wanting, a little worming to upper hinge; ink note facing title ‘Ex libris Joannis Jennin parochi Sti Eligii Catalaunensis testamento suo congregationi Salvatoris nostri legatis 1648’, ink inscription to title ‘Can. Reg. Mussip. S. 104 1717'.
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Les tragedies de Robert Garnier conseiller du roy, lieutenant general criminel au siege presidial et seneschaussee du Mayne …
Very uncommon Rouen printed edition of the tragedies of the great French Renaissance playwright Robert Garnier (1545–1590).
‘Of his seven tragedies, three (Hippolyte, 1573; La Troade, 1579; Antigone, 1580) are on subjects from Greek epic or tragedy, three (Porcie, 1568; Cornélie, 1574; Marc-Antoine, 1578) from Roman history, and one (Les Juives, 1583) from the Bible. He also wrote a tragicomedy, Bradamante (1582), derived from Ariosto’ (New Oxford Companion to Literature in French). All eight are collected here. ‘Although he had some acquaintance with Greek dramatists, his main dramatic model was Seneca … Variety is provided by a rich range of rhetorical effects, by contrasts between strongly stylized speakers, and by the use of a diversity of lyric metres in the choric poems. Garnier’s prefaces [also here] make clear that several of his subjects are chosen for the parallels they offer to the contemporary Wars of Religion’ (ibid.). In Les Juives, the tyrant Nabuchodonosor murders the Jewish royal children and blinds king Zedekiah. The Jewish women who form the chorus are a remarkable embodiment of grief, and the choric poems, some modelled on the Psalms, display Garnier’s lyric talent.
Provenance: among the books bequeathed in 1648 by Jean Jennin, of the parish of St Eloi in Châlons-en-Champagne, to the Congregation of Our Saviour. It subsequently travelled east, coming into the possession of the Canons Regular at Pont-à-Mousson in 1717.
USTC 6811141. No copies traced in the US; only 1 copy found in the UK (Wadham College Oxford).