La poésie à l' âge baroque

Bouquins Collection.

"For too long, the 17th century was seen as the age of classicism, defined as the reign of order and harmony. This overlooked the fact that it was entirely traversed by a counter-current favoring exuberance and asymmetry. This counterpoint, the Baroque, was recognized by art historians long before literary scholars. Yet, no period of French literature has been richer in poets than that of Henry IV and Louis XIII. This anthology brings together over a hundred authors of very diverse inspiration. While religion still holds a certain place in many of these poems, others are frankly libertine in inspiration. Libertinism of thought as much as of morals, their common trait being irreverence and the rejection of authority, whatever it may be. As for Greco-Latin antiquity, it is certainly still omnipresent, mythology constituting an inexhaustible reservoir of images and subjects; but the modernity of daily life constantly erupts into this poetic world, often more comical than sublime, with personal feelings breaking the shackles of conventions. The Romantics were not mistaken, being the first to rediscover those whom Gautier called the grotesques: it was in the Baroque age that the poet began to say "I." Thus, from Agrippa d'Aubigné to La Fontaine, from the end of the Wars of Religion and the advent of Henry IV to the beginning of Louis XIV's personal reign, the reader will discover, by following the different generations of poets who succeeded each other, all the effervescence of verses signed by Théophile de Viau, Saint-Amant, Bensserade, Maynard, Honoré d'Urfé, Mathurin Régnier, Racan, Malherbe and many others." Robert Kopp.