Repatriating Romance: Politics of Textual Transmission in Early Modern France By Linda Danielle Louie A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages and Literatures and the Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Timothy Hampton, Chair Professor Mairi McLaughlin Professor Victoria Kahn Fall 2017 Repatriating Romance: Politics of Textual Transmission in Early Modern France © 2018 by Linda Danielle Louie Abstract Repatriating Romance: Politics of Textual Transmission in Early Modern France by Linda Danielle Louie Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages and Literatures Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Timothy Hampton, Chair This dissertation reveals the central role that transcultural literary exchange plays in the imagining of a continuous French literary history. The traditional narrative of French literary history describes the vernacular canon as built on the imitation of the ancients. However, this dissertation demonstrates that Early Modern French canon formation also depends, to a startling extent, on claims of inter-vernacular literary theft. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a central preoccupation of French authors, translators, and literary theorists was the repatriation of the romance genre. Romance was portrayed as a cornerstone of French literary patrimony that Italian and Spanish authors had stolen. The repatriation of individual romance texts entailed a skillful co-opting of the language of humanist philology, alongside practices of translation and continuation usually associated with the medieval period. By looking at romance translation as part of a project of national canon formation, this dissertation sheds new light on the role that chivalric romance plays in national and international politics. We see that during this period, chivalric romance emerges as a French nationalist alternative to humanist history. The four chapters of the dissertation trace the phenomenon of romance repatriation from its origins in French humanist theories of genre, through its expression in translations of Spanish and Italian romance. In Chapter One, the Renaissance reception of the medieval Pseudo-Turpin is read alongside theories of genre by humanists like Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim Du Bellay, in order to illustrate the tension between two humanist projects: the philological reexamination of historical source texts, and the construction of national canons. In Chapters Two and Three, I trace the use of translation to transform foreign romances into French nationalist histories, looking at French translations of Garcí Rodríguez de Montalvo’s chivalric romance Amadís de Gaula, Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and Matteo Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato. And finally, in Chapter Four I look at how the use of translation as a tool of nationalist annexation broadens beyond romance source texts. This dynamic comes to characterize French-Spanish literary exchange in general, as we see in French translations of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote and a Spanish translation of Alain-René Lesage’s picaresque Gil Blas. By showing that translation played a central role in the construction of the national canon during the Early 1 Modern period, the dissertation challenges myths about the linguistic and literary origins of the French nation that remain potent today. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................................................ II INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. III CHAPTER ONE FORGING THE FRENCH CANON: FICTIONS OF PHILOLOGY FROM THE PSEUDO-TURPIN TO THE PLÉÏADE ..................... 1 I. The Art of Lying: Forgery and Humanist Historiography .......................................................................... 4 II. National History and Selective Philology: The Pseudo-Turpin in France, Spain, and Italy ........ 8 III. Epic Without History: Du Bellay’s Défense et illustration de la langue française ..................... 13 IV. Epic as Pseudo-History: Ronsard’s Franciade ........................................................................................... 17 V. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER TWO THE KING’S SPEECH: ROMANCE, RHETORIC, AND ROYAL POWER IN THE AMADIS DE GAULE ...................................... 28 I. “Poésie en façon d’histoire”: Translation and the Historicizing of Romance ................................. 32 II. Inventing Vernacular Pedagogy: The Trésor des Amadis as Commonplace Book ..................... 39 III. How to Talk Like A King: Nicolas Herberay des Essarts’ Translations of Speeches ................. 44 IV. After Herberay: Gabriel Chappuys and the End of the Amadis .......................................................... 51 CHAPTER THREE VINDICATING TURPIN: FROM ROMANCE TO HISTORY IN FRENCH PROSE TRANSLATIONS OF ORLANDO FURIOSO ................................................................................................................................................................. 56 I. Peripheral Charlemagnes: Turpin in Europe Before the Furioso ........................................................ 60 II. Impossible Genealogies: France and Turpin in Ariosto and Boiardo ............................................... 64 III. Toward an Orlando Cycle: Early French Translations of Ariosto and Boiardo .......................... 70 IV. Return to Roncesvalles: François de Rosset’s Roland Furieux .......................................................... 82 V. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 91 CHAPTER FOUR “REVESTUE À LA FRANÇOISE”: ROMANCE TEXTUALITY AND LITERARY MODERNITY, FROM DON QUIXOTE TO GIL BLAS ............................................................................................................................................. 94 I. “Extravagante, & Barbare”: Hispanomania and Hispanophobia in French Classicism ............... 97 II. Tilting at Turpin: Romance Textual Transmission in Cervantes’ Don Quixote ......................... 106 III. Cide Hamete in France: Romancing Don Quixote ................................................................................. 114 IV. “Robadas a España y adoptadas en Francia”: Repatriating the Picaresque in the Works of Alain-René Lesage ..................................................................................................................................................... 124 CONCLUSION THE COBWEBS IN THE WINE: TOWARD A REVOLUTIONARY ROMANCE ......................................................................... 130 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................................ 134 i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you first of all to Tim Hampton, whose gift for bringing literature to life converted me from a modernist to an Early Modernist in my first year of graduate school, and whose Virgilian insights have led me through the selva oscura of the dissertation. To Mairi McLaughlin, whose generous mentorship and intellectual rigor have inspired me and shaped my aspirations as a scholar. To Vicky Kahn, who has made me a better writer and thinker, and whose class on Renaissance humanism was a formative academic experience. My deepest thanks also to Albert Ascoli, Déborah Blocker, and Ignacio Navarrete, whose teaching and guidance throughout my time at Berkeley made this project possible. I am very grateful for the financial support and intellectual fellowship I received from groups and departments at Berkeley. Many thanks to the Romance Languages and Literatures program, the Departments of French and Italian, the Renaissance and Early Modern Studies Designated Emphasis, the Berkeley Language Center, the Townsend Center Translation Studies Working Group, Digital Humanities at Berkeley, and the Institute of European Studies. A special thank you to Linda von Hoene and my colleagues at the Graduate Division for helping me cross the finish line, and for everything else you do for graduate students at Berkeley. Finally, thanks to Kelly Anne Brown and the UC Humanities Research Institute’s Humanists@Work program, as well as the tremendous student organization Beyond Academia, for helping me understand the many ways that humanists contribute to the world at large. There are many teachers, friends, and colleagues who have made graduate school a deeply meaningful experience. In the French Department, I can’t thank Mary Ajideh enough for her friendship, timely reminders, and wise counsel. One of the greatest pleasures of working at Berkeley has been the opportunity to learn from gifted teachers like Seda Chavdarian, Vesna Rodic, and Rick Kern, whose skill and dedication inspire me daily. My writing partners—Diana Thow, Elyse Ritchey, and Marion Phillips—provided laughter and companionship at many crucial moments. To Mike Arrigo: thank you for being