Oeurvres completes, vol 3: Le Triomphe de l'Agneau

Modern Language Review, The, Oct, 2003 by T. Peach

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE, OEuvres completes. Ed. by NICOLE CAZAURAN. Vol. III: Le Triomphe de l'Agneau. Ed. by SIMONE DE REYFF. (Textes de la Renaissance, 42) Paris: Champion. 2001. 301 pp. 160 F. ISBN 2-7453-0576-X.

Le Triomphe de l'Agneau, probably dating from before 1540, appeared for the first time in the celebrated Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses of 1547 (Lyons: Jean de Tournes), on which this critical edition is based. Although Marguerite's writings are scarcely homogeneous, Le Triomphe marks a new departure, which a long introduction describes in considerable detail. The poem's 'je' is here the objective, anonymous narrator of an epic on a cosmic theme, derived from the essential intertext of the Apocalypse, where prophetic vision and triumph are indissolubly linked. In effect, the 'apocalyptic' reverberations of Revelations are played down in favour of the 'face lumineuse' (p. 17) of a book 'qui se veut avant tout porteur d'esperance' (p. 19). And so Le Triomphe is not a simple paraphrase of the biblical text but a rerendering of some of its material in a narrower, optimistic focus where the figure of the Lamb triumphant has the central role. A gratifyingly detailed reading of the poem's 1624 lines shows that 'le trace precis qui resume l'histoire du salut a coups de raisonnements ternaires se laisse encombrer par la reiteration presque obsessionnelle des circonstances de la Chute et de la Passion', so that its 'relative harmonie [...] semble en definitive moins riche de signification que les anomalies qui entravent cette limpidite apparente' (p. 54). A constant shifting between the temporal and the eternal, reinforced by dialogic modulations, reflects the state of humanity in the context of salvation, a major motif of the text: 'Insaisissable a partir des categories temporelles, l'eternite ne peut etre devinee et enoncee que dans le temps' (p. 56). The various modalities of intertextual, here scriptural, allusion, stemming from Marguerite's well-known 'innutrition biblique', thoroughly rehearsed by Simone de Reyff, reflect 'une tension vers l'intemporel et l'innommable que contredisent sans cesse les limites de la temporalite et du langage' (p. 72). This expert analysis of Marguerite's striving to say the ineffable, to locate the eternal in human time, throws considerable light on the spiritual context of the 1530s.

The text is followed by compendious annotations, a glossary, a note on unusual grammatical forms, an appendix introducing and providing the highly modified text of Le Triomphe de l'Agneau as it appears in the Annonces de l'Esprit et de l'Ame fidele of 1602 ([Geneva]: heirs of Eustace Vignon), an index of Biblical quotations and allusions, an index of proper names, and finally a copious bibliography. The volume bodes well for this new critical edition of Marguerite's complete works.

T. PEACH UNIVERSITY OF WALES, LAMPETER