Figurations of France

Though Marcus Keller likewise chooses to begin his exploration of literary nation-building with Du Bellay’s treatise, his objective is happily original. Rather than situate Du Bellay and the Renaissance literary moment in a longer genealogy of French national identity, as so much of the scholarly literature has sought to do, Keller instead proposes to explore the contours and constitutive figurative elements of early modern representations of nationhood….Keller’s book constitutes a stimulating reflection on the multiplicity of ways in which early modern French men of letters imagined and described their national community. It reminds us that we still have a great deal to learn about how early modern societies imagined nationhood, and that Renaissance and Grand siècle writers could be every bit as self-reflective and critical of the nation-form as modern cultural critics. * H-France Review *