This book is a major study of the development of French poetry in the
Renaissance, which examines changes in style and vision by looking both
at how poetry was read in this period and how it was written. Dr Moss
examines vernacular versions of fables from Ovid's Metamorphoses,
published between the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the
seventeenth century, which reveal fundamental changes both in reading
habits and in assumptions about literary aesthetics and the relationship
of literature to truth. Through detailed analysis of mythological
narratives in the Ovidian tradition composed by Lemaire de Beiges,
Francois Habert, Baif and Ronsard, among others, and by concentrating on
a few specific mythological subjects Dr Moss is able to identify the
salient features in these developments and so broaden our understanding
of the aesthetic revolution which transformed the literature and
mentality of France and Western Europe during the Renaissance.