French Libertine Verse (c.1600-1622): A Pilot Project for Editing the "Recueils satyriques"

Dr Hugh Roberts is running this collaborative project funded by a British Academy Research Development Award (2010-13).

Early seventeenth-century France witnessed an outpouring of collections of libertine verse (the 'recueils satyriques'), involving outrageous and pornographic poetry that gave rise to one of the earliest obscenity trials in modern history, of the poet Théophile de Viau, in 1623-25.

Despite their manifold interest, access to these collections remains difficult. Dr Roberts, together with Dr Guillaume Peureux (Université Rennes II), seek to return these collections to prominence, by establishing a critical bibliography of the collections, by planning for a series of editions in collaboration with Dr Julien Gœury (Université de Nantes) and Dr Jean Leclerc (University of Western Ontario), and by editing the first of our proposed series, Les Muses incognues (1604).