Villainy in France (1463-1610): A Transcultural Study of Law and Literature

Since the time of Shakespeare, we have been fascinated by villainy and villains in the Anglophone world. This book reveals villainy’s significant ‘Frenchness’ and establishes a transcultural approach to it in law and literature. In this study, villainy’s particular significance emerges through its representation in authors remembered for their less-than respectable, even criminal, activities: Francois Villon, Clement Marot, Francois Rabelais, Pierre de L'Estoile, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Marston, and George Chapman. Villainy in France affords legal-literary comparison of these authors alongside many of their lesser-known contemporaries; in so doing, it reinterprets French conflicts within a wider European context, from the mid-fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century.