Ghost stories in late Renaissance France : walking by night / Timothy Chesters.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chesters, Timothy, 1976-

Series:

Oxford modern languages and literature monographs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ghost stories, French--History and criticism.

Ghost stories, French.

Literature and society--France--History--16th century.

Literature and society.

French fiction--16th century--History and criticism.

French fiction.

History.

France.

Physical Description:

xi, 283 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary:

Gripped by savage religious wars, fear of sorcery and the devil, and a deepening crisis of epistemological uncertainty, the late Renaissance in France (c.1550-1610) was one of the most haunted eras in European history.

Although existing studies have attended to the extensive body of writing on witchcraft and demons in the period, they have had little to say of its ghosts. This study combines literary criticism, intellectual history, and the history of the book to consider a large and hitherto unexplored corpus of ghost stories in late Renaissance French writing. Taking in prominent literary, figures including Rabelais, Ronsard, Montaigne, and d'Aubigné, as well as forgotten demonological tracts and sensationalist pamphlets, Ghost Stories in Late Renaissance France sheds new light on the beliefs, fears, and desires of a period on the threshold of modernity. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I Ghosts and Religion

1 A Religions Controversy 21

Ghosts and Purgatory 21

Discretio spirituum and the Medieval Legacy 24

'Try the Spirits': Jean Gerson 24

Mouvements, Marques: Pastoral and Demonological Discernment 29

Narrative Polemic 35

Discretio in Action: Montalembert's Merveilleuse Hystoire (1528) 35

Protestant Responses: The Ghost Hoax 41

Ghosts in the New Testament 51

Walking through Walls: The Locked Room 51

Communing with the Dead: Lazarus and Dives 57

2 Pastoral Demonology 64

Ludwig Lavater, Trois livres des apparitions des esprits (1571) 66

Author and Text 66

Towards a Pastoral Demonology 72

Job under Siege: Inventing the Haunted House 77

Noël Taillepied, Psichologie, ou Traité de l'apparition das esprits (1588) 83

Author and Text 84

Dialogues with the Dead: Memory and 'oubliance' 87

'Un bon personnage sage et discret': The Return of the Priest 91

Epilogue: Inversion and Symmetry 97

Part II Ghosts Beyond Religion

3 Beyond Purgatory 103

The Shibboleth 103

Ghosts, Witches, Kings, War: Rereading Samuel and the Woman of Endor 108

Prodigious Histories: Pierre Boaistuau 116

Ghosts and Friendship: François de Belleforest 128

Ghosts and the Stoic: Bénigne Poissenot 136

4 Spectrology 142

The Birth of the Spectre 144

Ghosts on Trial: Law and the Courtroom 148

Ghosts Abroad: New World/Other World 154

'Science des spectres' or 'conte á plaisir'? 164

Part III Stories

5 The Show of Violence 175

Suffering Ghosts: Psellus after Trent 176

'Le ulement des diables': Panurge the Diabolist 186

Violence 'outre le Loir': Ghostly Ronsard 194

6 Revenant Lovers 205

'Revenez qu'on vous revoye', or The Bride of Christ 206

Eurydice, or the Bride of Satan 211

Philinnion Transformed: From Phlegon to Le Loyer 216

Philinnion's Afterlife: François de Rosset 227

The Haunted Widow 234

Discretion's Indiscretions 237.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199599806

0199599807

OCLC:

648932748