Maurice Scève, Microcosme

Elizaveta Lyulekina (CUNY Graduate Center)

Ed. by Robert J. Hudson, Brigham Young University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.02: French Writing and Culture in the Renaissance, 1400-1600.
Vol. editors: Robert J. Hudson (Brigham Young University), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), Phillip John Usher (New York University), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1562

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem

Resources

Maurice Scève’s Microcosme, a long encyclopedic poem that describes the technical and moral progress of humanity, was published by Jean de Tournes in 1562, yet its final verses indicate that it was completed in 1559. The poem is divided into three books of 1,000 alexandrines each, followed by a three-line stanza spatially separated from the body of the poem, and is accompanied by an opening and a closing sonnet, also composed by Scève. Such meticulous organization is a characteristic of Scève's poetic production: one might recall his Délie (1544), a highly symmetrical collection of 449 love poems separated into groups by fifty elaborate emblems. Likewise, the syntax of …

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1664 words

Citation: Lyulekina, Elizaveta. "Microcosme". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 May 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38905, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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