Perpetual Motion

Michel Jeanneret is a professor of French literature at the University of Geneva. He is author of Poesie et tradition biblique au XVIe siecle, Des mets et des mots: Banquets et propos de table a la Renaissance, and Le Defi des signes: Rabelais et la crise de l'interpretation a la Renaissance.

• Contents: List of Illustrations Translator's Note Introduction Chapter 1: Universal Sway 1 Form and Force: Du Bartas 2 Natura naturans 3 Earth Changes: Leonardo da Vinci Chapter 2: Primeval Movement 4 Chaos 5 "Grotesques and Monstrosities" Chapter 3: Culture and Its Flow 6 "We Are Never in Ourselves" 7 The Hazards of Art: LeRoy 8 Language Inflexions Chapter 4: Works in Progress 9 On Site 10 Geneses Chapter 5: Creative Reading 11 Reshuffling the Cards 12 Works to Be Done Notes Bibliography Index

This ambitious, broadly integrative book argues persuasively for a late Renaissance whose art and literature were shaped by a widespread 'metamorphic sensibility'. -- Colin Dickson Sixteenth Century Journal [ Perpetual Motion], by Michel Jeanneret, is brilliant and the translation by Nidra Pollet doesn't sound like a translation (a great compliment). -- L. R. N. Ashley Bibliotheque d'Humanism et Renaissance Jeanneret's work offers both breadth of scope and depth of interpretation to scholars and students of the Renaissance who seek to understand the generating circumstances of humanist thought and of the art they created. -- Deborah N. Losse Modern Language Notes A brilliant exercise in cultural Geitsgeschichte by way of historically contextualized aesthetics. -- Francois Rigolot Sixteenth Century Journal