Jean de La Taille's play Les Corrivaus is the comical story of the rivalry between Filadelfe and Euverte for the lovely Fleurdelys. Difficulties are resolved symmetrically, and matrimony is the order at the end of the day--though, in the best Renaissance tradition, the difficulties had appeared grave indeed. The play should appeal to anyone interested in the theatre, but it is of considerable importance to historians of Renaissance drama, since it is generally accepted as the earliest surviving French humanist comedy written in prose, and the first to be based on Italian models. In particular, La Taille draws heavily upon Le Maçon's translation of Boccaccio's Decameron. The play also amplifies understanding of numerous conventions of Renaissance drama--especially those related to stagecraft, plot, and thematic treatment--yet La Taille transcends mere conventionality in his skilled treatment of character and plot. He also manages to accomplish his didactic purpose, informing his audience of the foibles of lovers, with a minimum of sententious moralizing.

It is easy to forget how deeply embedded in social hierarchy was the literature and learning that has come down to us from the early modern European world. From fiction to philosophy, from poetry to history, works of all kinds emerged from and through the social hierarchy that was a fundamental fact of everyday life. Paying attention to it changes how we might understand and interpret the works themselves, whether canonical and familiar or largely forgotten. But a second, related fact is much overlooked too: works also often emanated from families, not just from individuals. Families were driving forces in the production—that is, in the composing, editing, translating, or publishing—of countless works. Relatives collaborated with each other, edited each other, or continued the unfinished works of deceased family members; some imitated or were inspired by the works of long-dead relatives. The reason why this second fact (about families) is connected to the first (about social hierarchy) is that families were in the period a basic social medium through which social status was claimed, maintained, threatened, or lost. So producing literary works was one of the many ways in which families claimed their place in the social world. The process was however often fraught, difficult, or disappointing. If families created works as a form of socio-cultural legacy that might continue to benefit their future members, not all members benefited equally; women sometimes produced or claimed the legacy for themselves, but they were often sidelined from it. Relatives sometimes disagreed bitterly about family history, identity (not least religious), and so about the picture of themselves and their family that they wished to project more widely in society through their written works, whether printed or manuscript. So although family was a fundamental social medium out of which so many works emerged, that process could be conflictual as well as harmonious. The intertwined role of family and social hierarchy within literary production is explored in this book through the case of France, from the late fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. Some families are studied here in detail, such as that of the most widely read French poet of the age, Clément Marot. But the extent of this phenomenon is quantified too: some two hundred families are identified as each containing more than one literary producer, and in the case of one family an extraordinary twenty-seven.