Critics have often viewed Pontus de Tyard as an adroit handler of poetic conventions and an eclectic encyclopedist of empirical data and philosophical ideas. Such a perspective explains his use of Petrarchan themes and topoi and his assimilation and dissemination of information defined within Neoplatonic contexts. In spite of these borrowings, he shapes traditional thought to individual insights that attest to his significance and complexity. In this collection of essays, eminent scholar-critics employ interdisciplinary approaches to elucidate the dimensions of Tyard's texts. According to these studies that enhance our understanding of the scope and depth of this poet-humanist, Tyard promoted the Pléiade agenda and applied his learning to contemporary philosophical thinking (enracinement) but, at the same time, questioned tenets and reworked accepted poetic and dialogic modes that reflect innovative thought and creative expression (errances).

After an elegant foreword by Eva Kushner and an appropriate introduction by François Rouget, the anthology comprises five segments that include Tyard's Burgundian influences, his role as teacher and preacher, the structural intricacies of his lyric poetry, the themes and prosody of his verse, and his contributions as a linguist and translator. Interpretative and intertextual examinations of his poetry receive particular attention. Heidi Marek and Daniel Maira place these writings within biographical and literary historical contexts; François Rigolot, Jacqueline Boucher, Sylviane Bokdam, and Philip Ford center attention upon the ambiguities and anxieties of illusion and reality; Cynthia Skenazi relates Tyard's dialogic structures to Bakhtinian dialogism. Studies by André Gendre and Jean Vignes detail respectively important aspects of Tyard's use of rhyme and his attempt to create a verse that unites words and meter. Tyard's humanist works are not overlooked. Cathy Yandell argues for a “poetics of place” in the pedagogical purposes of Tyard's Solitaires, and Stephen Murphy elaborates on Tyard's use of Ficinian premises in the Solitaire premier. Gilles Banderier traces editorial revisions in the Deux Discours, suggesting influences by Du Perron and adaptations accommodating the aims of the Académie du Palais. Jean-Claude Carron elucidates, expansively but sharply, Tyard's shifts between perceived doubts and intellectual certainties in the Discours philosophiques. In examining the homelies, Marie-Madeleine Fragonard demonstrates Tyard's application of Christian orthodoxy to the establishment of social order. In an acute analysis of the De recta nominum impositione, Jean Céard illuminates the use of onomastics to convey universal realities through the particularities of human discourse. The tensions between res and verba extend to translation, and Ilana Zinguer describes Tyard's task of inventing a philosophical language in French that captures the sense and style of Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore. Four contributions disclose additional information on Tyard's life: Claude Jouve and Claus-Peter Haverkamp detail the subtle design of Tyard's Château de Bissy, François Rouget presents six unedited documents, and Sophie Kessler-Mesguich describes the Hebraic and Aramaic texts in Tyard's library.

Paradoxes emerge. Tensions experienced by the poet combine to form a single vision, and absolutes proposed by the humanist-theologian encompass the relativities of scientific speculation and sociopolitical conditions. Dialectics could perhaps resolve these oppositions, but Tyard does not employ this methodology. Carron confronts this problem. In spite of the confusions of empirical evidence, Tyard recognizes a spiritual unity through faith. Insight trumps rationalization. According to Rigolot, moreover, conversation replaces disputation. Like the Ciceronian dialogue that explores differing facets of a single topic, Tyard appropriates to his poetic and expository discourse a dialogic in utramque partem that displays the conflicting intricacies of a harmonious unity. By assembling these divergent but intersecting views, Tyard presents a discordia concors that may explain the errances and enracinement of his writings.

This anthology, then, advances appreciation but stimulates inquiry into the role of sixteenth-century skepticism, the overall structure of the Discours philosophiques, and the relation of Tyard's texts to those of his European contemporaries. Admittedly, an understanding of the dynamics of change and constancy may remain as elusive as Dante's image of the geometer's attempts to square the circle. Nonetheless, two opposing realities coexist: as these essays admirably demonstrate, Tyard perceives intuitively into the existence of immutable ideas but participates emotionally in the restlessness of changing conditions.