Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies

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Professor Hugh Roberts

Professor of French Renaissance Literature

H.G.A.Roberts@exeter.ac.uk

4226

01392 724226

Overview

My interests span various unconventional areas of French literature and thought. I teach a wide range of French literature and philosophy, to explore how major figures through the ages broke out of the rut to challenge complacent ways of thinking. I do research on similar issues, focusing on the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Latest publication freely available through Open Access: 'An exiled poet adapts Plato: Théophile de Viau’s Traité de l’immortalité de l’âme and the Phaedo', International Journal of the Classical Tradition (2021) - I study how the notorious early seventeenth-century poet Théophile de Viau reinvented Plato's celebrated dialogue concerning the immortality of the soul to the consternation and confusion of those who sought to censor and prosecute him. 

Current projects include teaching-led research into altered states of consciousness, including Descartes's dreams in a stove-heated room in Bavaria one night in 1619, when he believed God gave him all philosophy. 

I have ongoing interests in nonsense writing. Emily Butterworth and I were co-editors of Gossip and Nonsense in Renaissance France and England, a special issue of Renaissance Studies, 30 (2016), including our co-authored introduction and my Comparative Nonsense: French Galimatias and English Fustian, all part of our AHRC grant, Gossip and Nonsense: Excessive Language in Renaissance France (2012-15)

Related projects include work on the reception of ancient Cynicism, on the works of the early seventeenth-century comic actor known as Bruscambille, and on obscenity - my review article Obscenity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France is available from French Studies for free download.

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Research

Disreputable, rebellious and nonsensical aspects of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century French literature and thought.

Research Projects

Poetry on Trial: French Libertine Verse

Early seventeenth-century France witnessed an outpouring of collections of lewd or outrageous verse, which gave rise to one of the earliest obscenity trials in modern history, of the notorious poet Théophile de Viau (1590-1626), in 1623-25.

I held a Society for French Studies Prize Fellowship in 2019 to produce a digital critical edition of incriminated verses and corresponding trial records.

My first publication for the fellowship is freely available through Open Access:  'An exiled poet adapts Plato: Théophile de Viau’s Traité de l’immortalité de l’âme and the Phaedo', International Journal of the Classical Tradition (2021)

‘Poetry on Trial’ builds on an earlier project, funded by a British Academy Research Development (2010-13) held in collaboration with Professor Guillaume Peureux (Université Paris Nanterre), to edit poetry collections known as the recueils satyriques. Our edition of one of the earliest of these, Les Muses incognues (1604), was published by Honoré Champion in 2020.

Gossip and Nonsense: Excessive Language in Renassaance France

I was Principal Investigator for an an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) grant, Gossip and Nonsense: Excessive Language in Renaissance France (2012-15), in collaboration with Dr Emily Butterworth (Co-Investigator, King’s College London).

In addition to Gossip and Nonsense in Renaissance France and England, co-edited with Emily Butterworth, the project involved an ongoing collaboration with the artist Dominic Hills documented on our Gossip and Nonsense blog. A chapter on versions of Rabelais's nonsense in Renaissance England is coming out in The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense in spring 2021.

Bruscambille

With Dr Annette Tomarken (Honorary Research Fellow, University of Kent at Canterbury), I edited the complete works of Bruscambile, an early seventeenth-century French comedian and bestseller of his day.

I was awarded a Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust (2009-10) and two Small Research Grants by the British Academy (2008-09) to pursue work on the edition. 

I have published a number of single and co-authored articles and chapters on Bruscambille, including on his nonsense and obscenity.

Obscenity in Renaissance France

Between 2007-2009, I was Principal Investigator for an AHRC-funded international research network on the notion of obscenity in Renaissance France. The network, which included some thirty researchers from the UK, USA, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands, gave rise to two major publications: Obscénités renaissantes, ed. by Hugh Roberts, Guillaume Peureux and Lise Wajeman (Geneva: Droz, 2011) and Obscenity, EMF: Studies in Early Modern France, 14 (2010), ed. by Russell J. Ganim and Hugh Roberts (as guest editor).

Ancient Cynicism in Renaissance France

My research and teaching interests in French literature and philosophy, and more specifically projects on Bruscambile, obscenity and the reception of ancient philosophy, derive from my PhD, revised for publication as Dogs' Tales Representations of Ancient Cynicism in French Renaissance Texts (2006).   

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Supervision

I am happy to discuss research proposals on any subject relating to my research and teaching interests.

Research students

2012-16: Dr Anna Blaen, 'The theory and practice of comic sexual euphemism: a comparative study of English and French texts, c.1532-1616' (PhD), AHRC funded.

2010-12: Dr Catrin Francis, ‘The Politics of Appropriation in French Revolutionary Theatre’ (PhD awarded 2012; supervision by Professor Thomas Wynn, 2009-10).

2005-06: Dr Alice King, '"More faces than Proteus": The Genesis and evolution of the French Court Ballet 1581-1669' (supervised final year of PhD, following supervision by Dr Elizabeth Woodrough).

2009-10: Zara Green, MRes (co-supervised with Dr Sara Smart).

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2007 | 2006 | 2004 | 2003 |

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

  • Roberts HGA. (2018) "Anatomisant anatomiculicollliconiquement": blasons et contreblasons dans les prologues de Bruscambille, Anatomie d'une anatomie: Nouvelles recherches sur les blasons anatomiques du corps féminin, Droz, 621-638.
  • Roberts HGA, Tomarken AH. (2018) Bruscambille auteur dramatique et défenseur du théâtre, Le Dramaturge sur un plateau: Quand l’auteur dramatique devient personnage, Classiques Garnier, 285-299, DOI:10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-07786-2.p.0285.

2017

  • Roberts HGA. (2017) "Capitaine Galimatias, homme obscur, et né de la lie du peuple" (Furetière). Le galimatias, vice de style et genre littéraire (fin XVIe-première moitié du XVIIe siècle), Vices de style et défauts esthétiques XVIe-XVIIIe siècle, Classiques Garnier, 361-375.

2016

  • Roberts HGA, Butterworth E. (2016) Introduction: Gossip and Nonsense in Renaissance France and England, Renaissance Studies, volume 30, no. 1, pages 9-16, DOI:10.1111/rest.12199.
  • Roberts HGA, Butterworth E. (2016) Special Issue: Gossip and Nonsense. Renaissance Studies: Journal of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 30 (1), John Wiley & Sons Ltd. [PDF]
  • Roberts HGA, Butterworth E. (2016) Special Issue: Gossip and Nonsense. Renaissance Studies: Journal of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 30 (1), John Wiley & Sons Ltd. [PDF]
  • Roberts HGA. (2016) Comparative Nonsense: French Galimatias and English Fustian, Renaissance Studies, volume 30, no. 1, pages 102-119, DOI:10.1111/rest.12205.

2014

2013

  • Roberts H. (2013) PRESENT STATE OBSCENITY IN SIXTEENTH-AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE, FRENCH STUDIES, volume 67, no. 4, pages 535-542. [PDF]
  • Roberts HGA, Tomarken AH. (2013) « L’animal le plus parfaict de la nature » ? L’androgynie dans les prologues de Bruscambille, L'hermaphrodite de la Renaissance aux Lumières, Classiques Garnier, 241-255.
  • Roberts HGA. (2013) État Présent: Obscenity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France, French Studies: a quarterly review, volume 67, pages 535-542, DOI:10.1093/fs/knt153.

2011

  • Roberts HGA, Peureux GJ, Wajeman L. (2011) Obscénités renaissantes, Droz.
  • Roberts HGA. (2011) Emblem Books, Obscénités renaissantes, Droz, 93-100.
  • Roberts HGA. (2011) L’euphémisme comique au début du XVIIe siècle et les limites de l’obscénité, Obscénités renaissantes, Droz, 247-261.
  • Roberts HGA. (2011) Erasmus, Obscénités renaissantes, Droz, 100-105.
  • Roberts HGA, Butterworth E. (2011) 'L'Obscène' in French Renaissance Texts, Obscénités renaissantes, Droz, 87-92.

2010

  • Roberts HGA, Birberick AL, Ganim RJ. (2010) Obscenity, Rockwood Press.
  • Roberts HGA. (2010) A Devils’ Banquet: Apologies for Obscenity in Late Renaissance French Texts, EMF: Studies in Early Modern France, volume 14, pages 195-214.

2009

  • Roberts HGA. (2009) Medicine and Nonsense in French Renaissance Mock Prescriptions, Sixteenth Century Journal, volume 40, no. 3, pages 721-744.
  • Roberts HGA. (2009) Mocking the Future in French Renaissance Mock-Prognostications, The Uses of the Future in Early Modern Europe, Routledge, 198-214.
  • Roberts HGA. (2009) Performing Nonsense in Early Seventeenth-Century France: Bruscambille’s Galimatias, Nonsense and Other Senses: Dysfunctional Communication and Regulated Absurdity in Literature, Cambridge Scholars Press, 127-145.

2007

  • Roberts HGA. (2007) Bruscambille’s Head and the Location of Early Modernity, Religion, Ethics, and History in the French Long Seventeenth Century / La Religion, la morale, et l'histoire à l'âge classique, Peter Lang, 279-293.
  • Roberts HGA. (2007) La tête de Bruscambille et les métaphores mentales au début du XVIIe siècle, Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, volume 107, no. 3, pages 541-557.

2006

  • Roberts HGA. (2006) Dogs' Tales: Representations of Ancient Cynicism in French Renaissance Texts, Rodopi.
  • Roberts HGA. (2006) Les opérateurs en France au XVIIe siècle : la médecine populaire et les spectacles de rue. [PDF]
  • Roberts HGA. (2006) Du lieu-commun au bon mot: l’exemple des sentences cyniques dans les recueils du XVIe siècle, Bonnes lettres / belles lettres. Actes des colloques du centre d’études et de recherche éditer/interpréter, Université de Rouen, 26 et 27 avril 2000 – 6 et 7 février 2003, Honoré Champion, 49-63.

2004

2003

  • Facques, B., Roberts, H. G. A., Roberts HA. (2003) Reading and Writing The Forbidden: Essays in French Studies, 2001 Group, Reading University.
  • Roberts HGA. (2003) “Leur bouche est en paroles aussi honnêtes que le trou de mon cul”: Cynic Freedom of Speech in French Texts, 1581-1615, Reading and Writing the Forbidden, 2001 Group, 59-70.

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External impact and engagement

As part of 'Gossip and Nonsense: Excessive Language in Renaissance France' I am working with the artist Dominic Hills, who is re-interpreting French Renaissance obscenity and nonsense in visual form. For examples of Dominic Hills's art, see the gallery of the 'Gossip and Nonsense' blog.

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Teaching

My cultural teaching options embrace French literature and philosophy, including an introduction to French thought at first year, a second-year course, 'Provoking Thoughts: French Literature and Philosophy from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century' and an ultimate module for finalists, 'Philosophers, Prophets and Mystics in French Culture' .

I also teach translation from and into French and curate a Spotify playlist of French and English songs, translated one way or the other, for some creative perspectives on teaching language through translation.

Modules taught

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