La poétique de Battista Spagnoli de Mantoue (Bucoliques, Silves, Parthenices) et sa réception en France au XVIè siècle, à partir de l'édition des Syluarum Sex Opuscula (Paris, Josse Bade, 1503)

The poet B. Spagnoli Mantuanus (1447-1516) had acquired great fame in Renaissance Europe. Often compared to Virgil, he drew his celebrity from his earlier works : the eclogues of Adulescentia, the Parthenice and the Silvae. From the end of the Quattrocento, an original poetic art arises through his works, combining the author's spirituality and the influence of the theory on literary style and emotional inspiration of Angelo Poliziano based upon Statius and Quintilian. In the Silvae - the 1503 anthology providing obvious evidence - Mantuan embraces the Alexandrian tradition brought back into fashion by Poliziano. He does this in order to take for himself the principle of an improvised epideictic writing, adapted to his ingenium and oriented towards self-expression. Arguing for the mediocritas of Horace, he promoted modern virtue and Christian meditation on glory and salvation. He chose to define the simplicity of a spontaneous celebration of faith as a writing principle, as opposed to the high poetic styles he considered to be impersonal and beyond reach. The influence of his poetry on the French poets of the Marot generation and the Pleiade is explained by the freedom of style inherent to the principles that Mantuan selected for his own poetry. These lie inbetween brief extemporary writing and search for erudite variety, as illustrated by the fragile impromptu of the Silvae where a refined celebration arose in his confession about the world and virtue. The afore-mentioned French authors, following Erasmus and various humanists of the 16th century, did consider him as a model of the lyrical poetry of the Renaissance, allying spirituality, praise and familiar inspiration.