The Regrets by Joachim Du Bellay
As a member of the mid-16th-century literary group ""La Pleiade"", Joachim du Bellay sought to elevate his native French to the level of the classical languages - a goal pursued with great spirit, elegance, irony, and wit in the poems that comprise ""The Regrets"". Widely viewed as one of the finest sonnet sequences in all of French literature, this Renaissance masterpiece wryly echoes the homesickness and longing of Ovid's poetry written in exile - because du Bellay finds himself lost in Rome, the very home Ovid longed for. In this translation by David R. Slavitt, these performances retain their original formal playfulness as well as their gracefully rendered but nevertheless moving melancholy. In decadent Rome, among hypocrites, thieves, and snobs, du Bellay uses his poetry as an opportunity for social satire and caustic self-criticism; it becomes a salvation of sorts, an approach peculiarly modern in its blending of the classical, the social, and the personal.
Joachim du Bellay (1525-1560) was born in Lirü¾Ž–”¼, a small town in Anjou, orphaned at the age of seven, and raised by an older brother. After studying law at the University of Blois, then attending the College of Coqueret in Paris, du Bellay accompanied Cardinal Jean du Bellay, his father's cousin, to Rome, where he composed the poems that make up The Regrets.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780810119932 |
| ISBN 10 | 0810119935 |
| Title | The Regrets |
| Author | Joachim Du Bellay |
| Series | European Poetry Classics |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Northwestern University Press |
| Year published | 2004-08-30 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |