French and Francophone Studies
Stephen Bamforth
Emeritus Professor of Renaissance Studies,
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Teaching Summary
French Renaissance literature and thought; Renaissance thought and literature in general; teratology; all forms of scientific and medical writing; neo-latin ; French seventeenth-century literature… read more
Research Summary
I have wide and vigorous interests across the field of early modern literature and thought, principally in France. I have published extensively on French Renaissance scientific poetry, the history of… read more
French Renaissance literature and thought; Renaissance thought and literature in general; teratology; all forms of scientific and medical writing; neo-latin ; French seventeenth-century literature and thought, but also an interest in European seventeenth-century literature and thought in general; in particular libertinage, and seventeenth-century theatre (comedy, and Molière especially).
Renaissance teaching - poetry, history of science, alchemy and astrology; court festival; music and dance; food and wine; illustration; art and architecture; history of the book and material bibliography
Seventeenth century teaching - poetry, theatre (comedy), libertinage, ballet de cour; commedia dell'arte; art and architecture; history of science and material bibliography
Current Research
I have wide and vigorous interests across the field of early modern literature and thought, principally in France. I have published extensively on French Renaissance scientific poetry, the history of medicine (Jacques Dubois in particular), early Renaissance court festival (the Festival of the Bastille in 1518, and the better known Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520). In both cases my work has been based on editing of texts describing the event, and in the case of the Field of Cloth of Gold the discovery of a previously unknown verse description of the meeting (for those of you who saw the recent David Dimbleby programme, the dragon flying through the sky was not a firework, but a kite - as the Dubois [Sylvius] text which I edit shows quite clearly).
My most recent major discovery has been the illuminated dedication manuscript to Elizabeth I of a famous Renaissance text on prodigies and monsters - the Histoires prodigieuses of the French writer Pierre Boaistuau. I published a facsimile edition of this manuscript with Franco Mario Ricci publishers of Milan in 2000, and later this year will publish a full critical edition of the text. I also have in preparation - for publication next year - a major critical edition of the scientific poetry of François Béroalde de Verville. My upcoming project is a book-length study of the concept of the scientific marvel from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century.