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VENUS AND ADONIS
In the
Renaissance
poetry of
France.
Melin de
St. Gelais.
Passerat.
Gabriel le
Breton.
In the
Renaissance
poetry of
Spain.
of Adonis was not completed till 1523 — long after Shake-
speare's poem was published. The history of his endeavour,
however, affords salient proof that the topic persisted in
Italian literature throughout Shakespeare's career.
A like story has to be told of the history of the tale in
France. It gained its first hold on French readers, when
Melin de St. Gelais published in i ^47 a beautiful rendering
in French of Bion's Lament. This was probably completed
ten years earlier, and was constantly reprinted. Before i j74
a graceful lyrist, Jean Passerat, penned a short poem in 1 34
lines of riming couplets called Adonis.^ mi la Chasse du Sanglier,
It is a simple narration on Ovidian lines of Adonis' beauty,
of Venus' infatuation, of her warnings of the boy against
devotion to the chase, of his impetuous challenge of the
boar, of his death, and his transformation into a flower.
Subsequently the fable was turned by another French
writer to more complex uses. It was made the basis of a
tragedy called Adonis^ by Gabriel le Breton, a Paris lawyer,
who published his work in ifzp. The play was designed
as an allegorical elegy on the death of King Charles IX
of France, on May 30, 1^7 \* Adonis represents the dead
king, and Venus typifies grief-stricken France. Venus'
lamentations show more tragic power than appears in any
contemporary adaptation of the theme. l"he machinery
involves the introduction of characters like Mars, Diane,
Cupidon, L'Ombre d'Adonis, and two shepherds, Montan
and Sylvain, in addition to the hero and heroine. But the
conventional lines of the tale are generally respected, and
there are no intricacies of plot.
In Spain it was Italian example which directly inspired
the treatment of the story. One of the most accomplished
of Spanish statesmen, Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza,
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