Abstract EN:

Résumé : The theory of the four elements in the Renaissance is both well- and not so well-known, since there is not just one but several theories that make use of and interpret differently earth, water, air and fire: the four elements do not just lay the foundation of material imaginations but they also supply the intellectual tools used to make sense of the world. Their operation in cosmological literature, together with the thoughts they provoke in the philosophical field, is consequently far from insignificant. Their status is further complicated by the fact that they lie at the core of a living science and at the same time provide the subject of bookish culture. Therefore this study aims at exploring a particular imaginary domain, that of elemental matter, and at pondering over the relation between the transmission of knowledge and literary production. It is built along three lines. First, an investigation into ancient theories, as they were elaborated and then passed on to the West in the Middle Ages through a wide range of texts that gradually invested them with various values and meanings. Secondly a study of how those theories were received in the XVIth century, their modes of integration within the culture and intellectual set-up of the Renaissance, the interpretations, rewriting and resistance they gave rise to, as well as their insertion into the culture shared by the humanists and the curious alike. Finally, as an example of the basic articulation between learned and literary discourse, an analysis of the elemental motif in La Sepmaine by Du Bartas, that helps to understand how the cosmological imagination of a period and that of a poet have been constructed.