Guillaume de Saluste Du Bartas was the most popular and widely-imitated poet in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England and Scotland. C. S. Lewis felt that a reconsideration of his works' British reception was 'long overdue' back in the 1950s, and this study finally provides the first comprehensive account of how English-speaking authors read, translated, imitated, and eventually discarded Du Bartas' model for Protestant poetry. The first part shows that Du Bartas' friendship with James VI and I was key to his later popularity. Du Bartas' poetry symbolized a transnational Protestant literary culture in Huguenot France and Britain. Through James' intervention, Scottish literary tastes had a significant impact in England. Later chapters assess how Sidney, Spenser, Milton, and many other poets justified writing poetic fictions in reaction to Du Bartas' austere emphasis on scriptural truth. These chapters give equal attention to how Du Bartas' example offered a route into original verse composition for male and female poets across the literate population. Du Bartas' Legacy in England and Scotland responds to recent developments in transnational and translation studies, the history of reading, women's writing, religious literature, and manuscript studies. It argues that Du Bartas' legacy deserves far greater prominence than it has previously received because it offers a richer, more democratic, and more accurate view of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English, Scottish, and French literature and religious culture.

About the Author
Peter Auger is Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of Birmingham. He previously held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Queen Mary University of London, and taught at Exeter College, Oxford. His work has addressed Franco-British literary relations, translation and imitation practices, literary reception, manuscript studies, epic and religious poetry, and language learning.

Reviews
Learned and detailed, but accessible and well written study...Auger's compelling study, both scholarly and accessible, opens many doors to future research. * Paul J. Smith, Leiden University, Seventeenth Century News *
The strength of Auger's book is that he has once more established Du Bartas as a vastly influential model and viable third route: indeed, in Auger's estimation, as nothing less than 'essential reading for any student of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary and devotional culture' (226). * Sebastiaan Verweij, The Spenser Review *
...an academic monograph that affords great reading pleasure. * Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198827818
Author Peter Auger
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 560g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 161mm * 21mm