Background
Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas was born in 1544 in Montfort, France, into a family of wealthy merchants. His father, François Salustre, was a prosperous merchant.
(La sepmaine, ou Création du monde, de G. de Salluste, sei...)
La sepmaine, ou Création du monde, de G. de Salluste, seigneur Du Bartas Date de l'édition originale: 1578 Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF. HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande. Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables. Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérèt scientifique ou historique. Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu. Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.fr http: //gallica.bnf.fr/ark: /12148/bpt6k1175722
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Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas was born in 1544 in Montfort, France, into a family of wealthy merchants. His father, François Salustre, was a prosperous merchant.
Du Bartas possibly attended to the Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux. From 1563 to 1567 he studied law in Toulouse under Jacques Cujas.
Du Bartas was employed by Henry of Navarre (Henry IV) as ambassador to England and Scotland. He also commanded a troop of horse in Gascony, under the marshal de Martingan. His first epic, Judith, appeared in a volume entitled La Muse chrdtienne (Bordeaux, 1573). This was followed five years later by his principal work, La Sepmaine, a poem on the creation of the world. Its religious tone and fanciful style made it a great favourite in England, where the author was called the "divine" du Bartas, and placed on an equality with Ariosto. King James VI of Scotland tried his "prentice hand" at the translation of du Bartas's poem L'Uranie, and the compliment was returned by the French writer, who translated, as La Lepanthe, James's poem on the battle of Lepanto.
Du Bartas began the publication of the Seconde Semaine in 1584. He aimed at a great epic which should stretch from the story of the creation to the coming of the Messiah. Of this great scheme he only executed a part, marked by a certain elevation of style, but he did not succeed in acclimatizing the religious epic in France.
The work was spoiled by a constant tendency to moralize, and was filled with the indiscriminate information that passed under the name of science in the 16th century.
The popularity of du Bartas among English poets in the period 1590-1640 was considerable. He, perhaps more than any other writer, brought the Ronsardist tradition into dispute. He introduced many unwieldy compounds foreign to the genius of the French language, and in his borrowings from old French, from provincial dialects and from Latin, he failed to show the sure instinct and prudence of Ronsard and du Bellay. Du Bartas died in July 1590 in Paris from wounds received at the battle of Ivry.
(La sepmaine, ou Création du monde, de G. de Salluste, sei...)