RomLitt - Scientific poetry by Du Bartas (La Sepmaine, 1581) and contemporary ecological thought

Seminar

Date: Friday 24 November 2023

Time: 14.15 – 15.45

Location: Room B471 - Romklass

In this seminar Bengt Novén will briefly present so called "scientific poetry" that emerged in French Renaissance at the end of the sixteenth century, and centre my analysis upon "La Sepmaine" (1581) by Du Bartas in order to confront contemporary ecological thought and ecocriticism: the theoretical ecocritical framework has been elaborated with almost exclusively British romantic literature, and thus my purpose is to introduce material from the French Renaissance into contemporary ecocriticism dealing with nature writing.

Image: Gallica.bnf.fr /Bibliothèque nationale de France
Image: Gallica.bnf.fr /Bibliothèque nationale de France

The title of the poem draws on the theological treatise “Hexameron” that describes God’s work on the six days of Creation. La Sepmaine amplifies the scarce narrative in Genesis with neo-aristotelian science (physics, astronomy, biology, anatomy, medecin, zoology…).

My close readings of the descriptions of the creation of the sublunary world in La Sepmaine reveal the essential characteristics of the emerging universe: configuration of matter, representation of space and of temporality, and God’s immanence in sublunary world. I compare these findings with concepts used within the framework of contemporary ecocriticism: Anthropocene, the Mesh, Anthropocentrism and the Non-Human. The results of the study show that the Bartasian poem, while describing the Creation of the world by God, reprocesses neo-aristotelian scientific material which in several respects is close to contemporary ecologism.

Bengt Novén

Colleagues who may wish to attend the seminar via zoom should contact anthony.lappin@su.se for the link