Reformation · 1578

La Sepmaine

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544-1590)

Du Bartas's hexameral poem traces the six days of creation through seven cantos of French verse, weaving Reformed theology, natural philosophy, and classical learning into a continuous meditation on the order God imposed on the world. The most widely read poem in Europe during the late sixteenth century, it shaped how Protestant readers in France, England, and Scotland understood the created order as revealing the character of its maker. Joshua Sylvester's English translation, completed in 1605, influenced Spenser, Sidney, and Milton and gave the work an audience as large in England as on the Continent.

3.5 hrs total · 7 chapters