Homme d’épée et courtisan de la Renaissance, Brantôme livre au sein des 'Dames illustres' une image de la femme, de la Cour et des arts sous le signe de jeux de contrastes. Décrits à travers le prisme de leurs vertus et de leurs vices, les personnages apparaissent à la fois sombres et lumineux. Si l’auteur se concentre sur ses modèles de premier plan, pour autant il n’oublie pas de les camper sur le fond historique, social et culturel de leur époque. Les Cours étrangères y côtoient ainsi la Cour de France, « vray Paradis du monde ». Certes enchanté par l’éclat et la magnificence de ces univers, Brantôme laisse également entrevoir une facette plus inquiétante, marquée par les jeux de pouvoir, l’hypocrisie et la phallocratie. Enfin, les tableaux littéraires s’enrichissent d’une dimension artistique, tant au moyen des descriptions minutieuses de ses différentes expressions que dans l’art d’écrire brantomien que nous proposons ici de redécouvrir. / Brantôme, nobleman and Renaissance courtier, uses contrast skilfully in 'Dames Illustres' to paint a rich picture of women, the Court and the Arts. Described through the prism of their virtues and vices, the characters appear both dark and light. Although the author concentrates on his subjects in the foreground, he nonetheless also places them firmly in the historical, social and cultural context of their time. So here he shows foreign Courts encountering the French Court, “vray Paradis du monde”. Brantôme is fascinated by the brilliance and magnificence of these worlds but he also gives a glimpse of the more disturbing aspect of power struggles, hypocrisy and male supremacy. Finally, his literary depictions are made more vivid by an artistic dimension, multi-layered and detailed descriptions and Brantôme’s unique style of writing. This is what will be rediscovered here.

Les études consacrées à la représentation du mariage dans les textes narratifs au XVIe siècle cherchent le plus souvent à mettre en rapport l’image du lien conjugal construite par les récits avec les débats de l’époque. Nous avons voulu combiner cette approche, relevant davantage de l’histoire des idées, à une analyse des formes littéraires en nous interrogeant sur le rôle joué par le thème du mariage dans les évolutions du genre narratif à la Renaissance.Nous menons notre enquête sur un ensemble de douze fictions narratives en prose, de composition française, écrites entre 1515 et 1559. Durant cette période, le mariage se trouve au cœur de nombreuses controverses théologico-politiques et les regards portés sur la vie conjugale se modifient. En nous appuyant sur un travail de contextualisation historique, nous croisons une approche thématique avec une réflexion sur la poétique narrative pour étudier la structuration des intrigues, la construction des personnages et les dispositifs didactiques et herméneutiques des textes. La comparaison de nos récits à d’autres œuvres – contemporaines ou antérieures, françaises ou étrangères – fait apparaître, au cours de notre période, un renouvellement de la matière narrative autour du mariage. L’accent mis sur certaines situations matrimoniales et les enjeux spécifiques qui leur sont associés à l’époque se révèlent être un ferment favorable à l’apparition de structures narratives innovantes. Le mariage joue en particulier un rôle déterminant dans l’orientation des récits brefs vers le genre de l’histoire tragique et dans l’apparition de formes romanesques originales à travers lesquelles on voit s’élaborer le genre du roman sentimental. / In most cases, studies devoted to the representation of marriage in narrative texts of the 16th century aim to link the image of the marriage bond as elaborated in the narratives to the controversies of the time. In order to show how the theme of marriage has played a part in the development of the narrative genre in the French Renaissance, we have decided to combine such an approach, which is rather based on the history of ideas, with an analysis of literary styles.We have conducted our survey on a set of twelve prose narrative fictions written in French between 1515 and 1559. Marriage was then at the heart of many theological-political controversies and married life started to be seen in a new light. Basing our work on historical contextualization, we have intertwined a thematic approach with a reflection on narrative poetics so as to study the plot structure and characterization as well as the didactic and hermeneutic systems of the texts. Comparing these narratives with other literary works – contemporary or prior, French or foreign – has enabled us to highlight a renewal of the narrative matter related to marriage themes during that period. The emphasis put on certain matrimonial situations and the related specific challenges in those days created favourable grounds for the advent of innovative narrative structures. Marriage stories have particularly contributed to orienting short stories towards the style of tragic stories and to giving birth to original novelistic forms in which the early stirrings of the style of the sentimental novel can be seen.

This thesis examines the increasing sophistication of sixteenth-century French literary engagement with Virgil's Aeneid. It argues that successive forms of engagement with the Aeneid should be viewed as a single process that gradually adopts increasingly complex literary strategies. It does this through a series of four different forms of literary engagement with the Aeneid: translation, continuation, rejection and reconciliation. The increasing sophistication of these forms reflects the writers' desire to interact with the original Aeneid as political epic and Roman foundation narrative, and with the political, religious and literary contexts of early modern France. The first chapter compares the methods of and motivations behind all of the sixteenth-century translations of the Aeneid into French; it thus demonstrates shifts in successive translators' interpretations of Virgil's work, and of its application to sixteenth-century France. The next three chapters each analyse adaptation of Virgil's poem in a major French literary work. Firstly, Ronsard's Franciade is analysed as an example of French foundation epic that simultaneously draws upon and rejects Virgil's narrative. Ronsard's poem is read in the light of Mapheo Vegio's “Thirteenth Book” of the Aeneid, or Supplementum, which continues Virgil's narrative and carries it over into a Christian context. Next, Agrippa d'Aubigné's response to Virgilian epic in Les Tragiques is shown to have been mediated by Lucan's Pharsalia and its anti- epic and anti-imperialist interpretation of the Aeneid. D'Aubigné's inversion of Virgil is highlighted through comparison of attitudes to death and resurrection in Les Tragiques, the Aeneid and Vegio's Antoniad. Finally, Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas' combination, in La Sepmaine and La Seconde Sepmaine of the hexameral structure of Genesis with Virgil's narrative of reconciliation after civil war is shown to represent the most sophisticated understanding of and most complex interaction with the Aeneid in sixteenth-century France.