Ullrich Langer, Professor
Dept of French & Italian

My principal area of teaching and research is literature of the French 16th century, although I occasionally work on Italian humanism as well. For the past fifteen years or more, I have been interested in the links between intellectual history and literature, starting with nominalist theology (that is, that development of scholastic theology which radicalizes the power of God and insists on the contingent relationship between God and the world order), political theory (early French absolutism), and more recently Aristotelian moral philosophy (especially friendship and the theory of the virtues), and finally philosophical accounts of pleasure and their relationship to poetics and fiction in the Renaissance. I tend not to focus on any one poet or writer, but will pose a series of general questions in terms that the Renaissance would have understood, and then investigate the possible worlds constituted by literary works in the light of these questions, not simply to find reflections of contemporary discussions, but to see how literature transforms the possibilities of the discussion, and opens new imaginative avenues. Most recently, I have dealt frequently with Montaigne's revision of moral codes in his Essays, and am currently interested in how narrative confirms philosophical notions of pleasure, and how the lyric, on the other hand, presents alternative models of pleasure.


PUBLICATIONS

I. Books and Monographs

  • Rhétorique et intersubjectivité: 'Les Tragiques' d'Agrippa d'Aubigné (Tübingen: Papers on French 17th Century Literature, 1983), "Biblio 17, 7."
  • Invention, Death, and Self-Definitions in the Poetry of Pierre de Ronsard (Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986), "Stanford French and Italian Studies, 45."
  • Divine and Poetic Freedom in the Renaissance: Nominalist Theology and Literature in France and Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1990).
  • Perfect Friendship: Studies in Literature and Moral Philosophy from Boccaccio to Corneille (Geneva: Droz, August 1994).
  • Vertu du discours, discours de la vertu: littérature et philosophie morale au XVIe siècle en France (Geneva: Droz, "Au seuil de la modernité," 1999).

 

II. Edited Volumes

  • Ed., with François Cornilliat and Douglas Kelly, What Is Literature? France 1100-1600 (proceedings, with introduction, of conference in Madison, Oct. 6-8, 1989) (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1993).
  • Ed., with Philippe Desan, Reason, Reasoning, and Literature in the Renaissance, special issue of the South Central Review 10, nr. 2 (Summer 1993) (Papers from conference at the Newberry Library, 1992).
  • Ed., with Jan Miernowski, Anteros (proceedings of conference in Madison, March 12, 1994) (Caen, Orléans: Editions Paradigme, September 1994).
  • Ed., with Philippe Desan, "Montaigne in Print 1595-1995," Special Issue of Montaigne Studies (1996).
  • Ed., Au-delà de la Poétique: Aristote et la littéraire à la Renaissance / Beyond the Poetics: Aristotle and Early Modern Literature (Geneva: Droz, 2004).
  • Ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Montaigne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

 

III. Articles, Essays

  • "Jean Molinet: Allégorie et textualité," Réforme, Humanisme, Renaissance, 9 (1979), 37-46.
  • "D'Aubigné et Hannibal au début des 'Misères'," Réforme, Humanisme, Renaissance, 10 (1980), 47-51.
  • "La poudre à canon et la transgression poétique: 'L'Elegie du verre' de Ronsard," Romanic Review, 73 (1982), 184-194. Also published, in translated and revised form, as "Gunpowder as Transgressive Invention in Ronsard," in Literary Theory/Renaissance Texts, eds. Patricia Parker, David Quint (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 96-114. "Ronsard's 'La mort de Narcisse': Imitation and the Melancholy Subject," French Forum, 9 (1984), 5-18.
  • "A Courtier's Problematic Defense: Ronsard's 'Responce aux injures'," Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 46 (1984), 343-355.
  • "Skepticism and the Body in the Apologie: Montaigne's 'blancheur de la nege'," Neophilologus, 69 (1985), 525-532.
  • "Hypothetical Necessity and Fiction in the Early Renaissance," Modern Language Notes (January 1987 Italian Issue), 55-75.
  • "'L'Elegie à Philippe des Portes Chartrain' et le problème de la succession," in Etudes ronsardiennes I: Ronsard en son IVe centenaire: Ronsard hier et aujourd'hui (eds. Yvonne Bellenger, Jean Céard, Daniel Ménager, Michel Simonin) (Geneva: Droz, 1988), pp. 73-80.
  • "Merit in Courtly Literature: Castiglione, Rabelais, Marguerite de Navarre, Le Caron," Renaissance Quarterly, 41 (1988), 218-241.
  • "Interpretation and the False Virgin: A Reading of Heptaméron, 33," Women in French Literature, ed. M. Guggenheim (Festschrift for Bryn Mawr Avignon Program) "Stanford French and Italian Studies" (Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1988), pp. 57-64.
  • "1572, 24 August: In the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Thousands of Protestants Are Killed in Paris and throughout France: Poetry and Action," in A New History of French Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1989), 231-236. Also translated into French (Editions Bordas).
  • "Le discours de la souveraineté dans les Regrets de Du Bellay" in Du Bellay. Actes du colloque international d'Angers du 26 au 29 mai 1989 (Angers: Presses de l'Université d'Angers, 1990), pp. 377-388.
  • "Fin de l'amitié: Montaigne et la Princesse de Clèves," in Rhétoriques fin de siècle, eds. F. Cornilliat, M. Shaw (Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1992), pp. 68-80.
  • "Montaigne's Customs," Montaigne Studies 4, nos. 1-2 (1992), 81-96.
  • "Naked Narrator: Heptaméron 62," with François Cornilliat, in John D. Lyons, Mary B. McKinley, eds., Critical Tales: New Studies of the 'Heptameron' and Early Modern Culture (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 123-145.
  • "Boring Epic in Early Modern France," in Epic and Epoch: Essays on the Interpretation and History of a Genre, eds. Stephen Oberhelman, Van Kelly, Richard J. Golsan (Lubbock: Texas Tech Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 208-229.
  • "Friendship and the Adversarial Rhetoric of Humanism," Common Knowledge 3, nr. 1 (1994): 40-53.
  • "Humanism's Antidote to Romance: L'amant resuscité de la mort d'amour (1555)," in eds. Keith Busby, Norris J. Lacy, Conjunctures: Medieval Studies in Honor of Douglas Kelly (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), pp. 281-292.
  • "L'honneste amitié et le refus du désir dans la tradition morale latine," in Anteros, eds. Jan Miernowski, Ullrich Langer (Caen, Orléans: Editions Paradigme, 1994), pp. 99-115.
  • "Usus, fruitio, et l'économie de l'amitié," in eds. André Tournon, G.-A. Pérouse, Or, monnaie, échange, dans la culture de la Renaissance (Saint-Etienne: Publications de l'université de Saint-Etienne, 1994), Actes du 9e colloque international de l'Association Réforme, Humanisme, Renaissance (Lyons, 1991), pp. 95-106.
  • "Montaigne's couleuvre: Notes on the Reception of the Essais in 18th-Century Germany," in Montaigne Studies, 8 (1996): 191-202.
  • "Désordre du monde, ordre du proverbe chez Henri Estienne: 'L'homme propose et Dieu dispose' (Les Premices)" in eds. Gabriel-A. Pérouse, Francis Goyet, Ordre et désordre dans la civilisation de la Renaissance (Saint-Etienne: Publications de l'université de Saitn-Etienne, 1996), pp. 87-96.
  • "L'éthique de la louange chez Marot: la Ballade 'De Paix, et de Victoire'," in Actes du colloque Clément Marot (Cahors, 1996), eds. Gérard Defaux, Michel Simonin (Paris: Champion, 1997), pp. 269-281.
  • "Histoire de la poétique au XVIe siècle," with François Cornilliat, in eds. Jean Bessière, Eva Kushner, Roland Mortier, Jean Weisgerber, Histoire des poétiques (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997), pp. 119-162.
  • "Charity and the Singular: The Object of Love in Rabelais," in eds. Hugo Keiper, Christophe Bode, Richard J. Utz, Nominalism and Literary Discourse: New Perspectives (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 217-226.
  • "The Renaissance Novella as Justice," Renaissance Quarterly 52 (Summer 1999): 311-341.
  • "De l‚amitié à la complaisance: réflexions autour d‚une Œconversation‚ de Madeleine de Scudéry," XVIIe Siècle 205 (1999): 683-690.
  • "Poétique de la Responce dans Sa Vie à ses enfants," in éd. Olivier Pot, Poétiques d‚Aubigné (Geneva: Droz, 1999): 207-216.
  • "Invention," in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 3, The Renaissance, ed. Glyn P. Norton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 136-144.
  • "Vertus du sujet, vertu du Prince à l‚aube de l‚absolutisme," in ed. Dominique de Courcelles, Fonder le savoir, fonder le pouvoir (XVe-XVIIe siècle), (Paris: Ecole des chartes, 2000), "Etudes et rencontres de l'Ecole des chartes, 6," pp. 117-128.
  • "Aristotle Commentary and Ethical Behavior: Bernardo Segni on Friendship between Unequals (Ethica d'Aristotile tradotta in lingua fiorentina et comentata [1550])" in Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conversations with Aristotle, eds. Constance Blackwell, Sachiko Kusukawa (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 107-125.
  • "Mourir et agir dans ŒDe l'exercitation‚," in Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Montaigne, 8e série, no. 17-18 (2000): 79-87.
  • "La Responce de P. de Ronsard gentilhomme vandomois aux injures et calomnies: l'agonie de la subjectivité éthique?" in eds. F. Cornilliat, R. Lockwood, Ethos et Pathos: Le statut du sujet rhétorique (Paris: Champion, 2000), pp. 237-248.
  • "French Sixteenth-Century Literary Studies in the United States Today," South Central Review, 17.4 (Winter 2000): 100-109.
  • "Variété et prudence dans le traité moral: Les Oeuvres morales et diversifiées en histoires (1575) de Jean Des Caurres," in ed. Dominique de Courcelles, La Varietas à la Renaissance (Paris: Ecole des Chartes, 2001), "Etudes et rencontres de l‚Ecole des Chartes, 9," pp. 119-130.
  • "Justice légale, diversité et changement des lois: de la tradition aristotélicienne à Montaigne," Bulletin de la société des amis de Montaigne, 8e série, no. 21-22 (2001): 223-231.
  • "L‚invocation au sommeil dans les Odes: du plaisir de la passivité," in ed. Julien Goeury, Lectures des Odes de Ronsard (Rennes: Presses univ. de Rennes, 2001), pp. 111-120.
  • "Montaigne‚s Ethics in Context: Fortitude (1.12) and Justice (1.23)," Montaigne Studies, 14 (2002), pp. 7-19.
  • "Le sonnet nombril, ou du bon usage de l‚Androgyne (Ronsard, Amours de 1552, LXXII)," in French Forum 26:3 (2001).
  • "The Ring of Gyges in Plato, Cicero, and Lorenzo Valla: The Moral Force of Fictional Examples," in eds. Eckhard Kessler, Ian Maclean, Res et verba in der Renaissance (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002), pp. 131-145.
  • "Flatterie et éloge: Claude Chappuys et François Ier," in eds. I. Cogitore, F. Goyet, L'éloge du prince De l'Antiquité au temps des Lumières (Grenoble: ELLUG, 2003), pp. 209-222.
  • "La rhétorique de la conciliation dans la Congratulation sur la paix générale, faicte au mois de Mars 1598... d'Etienne Pasquier," in ed. Thierry Wanegffelen, De Michel de l'Hospital á l'Edit de Nantes: Politique et religion face aux Eglises (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses univ. Blaise-Pascal, 2002), pp. 407-418.
  • "Le roman humaniste: vers le plaisir du fini," in Du roman courtois au roman baroque, ed. Emmanuel Bury, Francine Mora (Paris: Belles Lettres, 2004), pp. 437-448.

 

IV. Forthcoming:

  • "Constantia et fortitudo declinans dans "De la constance" de Montaigne," in ed. Pierre Maréchaux, Aspects du néo-stoïcisme en France (conference proceedings).
  • "L'opposition et la privation dans Gargantua," in ed. Franco Giacone, Michel Simonin, Mélanges Jean Céard.

 

3. Awards, etc:

  • 1985 NEH Summer Stipend, ACLS Travel Grant
  • 1987-1988 ACLS Fellowship
  • Institute for Research in the Humanities Fellowship
  • NEH Conference Grant (with Douglas Kelly)
  • 1990-1995 Romnes Fellowship (UW-Madison)
  • 1992 NEH Fellowship for University Teachers
  • 1995 NEH Summer Seminar Director
  • 1995-2000 Mid-Career WARF Award (UW-Madison)
  • 1997 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
  • 1997 Short-term Residence Fellowship, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
  • 2000-2005 Senior Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities (UW-Madison)
  • Also: Visiting appointments at the University of Tuebingen (Germany), University of Chicago, University of Nantes (France), and University of Tours (Centre d'etudes superieures de la Renaissance) (France)

 

4. Courses:

Graduate:

  • French Renaissance Literature (French 645-646)
  • Montaigne (at University of Tübingen)
  • Pascal (at University of Tübingen)
  • Montaigne et Pascal (at Bryn Mawr College)
  • Fictions de la cour (de Castiglione à Laclos) (at University of Tübingen and University of Wisconsin)
  • Novella Ethics (15th-17th centuries).
  • Rhétorique de la vertu à la Renaissance
  • Poétique de la cour (University of Chicago, Univ. of Nantes)
  • Poésie française de la Renaissance (University of Chicago)

 

Undergraduate:

  • Survey courses (medieval and 16th-century literature)

 

©2003 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents