'Live now and listen, do not wait in vain Until tomorrow; pluck life's rose today.' Joachim du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard are two of the major sixteenth-century French poets and leaders of the extraordinary group known as 'La Pléiade'. Determined to create a national vernacular literature, the Pléiade poets profited from an intense study of Greek and Roman models and from a creative use of classical mythology to produce a body of verse that reflects the vigour and variet...

Si je n’ai plus la faveur de la Muse,Et si mes vers se trouvent imparfaits,Le lieu, le temps, l’age où je les ai faits,Et mes ennuis leur serviront d’excuse.J’etais à Rome au milieu de la guerre,Sortant dejà de l’age plus disponible,A mes travaux cherchant quelque repos,Non pour louange ou pour faveur acqiuerre.

Si je n’ay plus la faveur de la Muse,Et si mes vers se trouvent imparfaits,Le lieu, le temps, l’aage où je les ay faits,Et mes ennuis leur serviront d’excuse.J’estois à Rome au milieu de la guerre,Sortant desjà de l’aage plus dispos,A mes travaux cerchant quelque repos,Non pour louange ou pour faveur acquerre.

A French sculptor transfigures her family’s long-protected secret into artIn 1816, the French naval ship Medusa ran aground off the coast of Senegal. Some of the officers and crew escaped on lifeboats, but nearly 150 of its passengers were forced to board an improvised raft. The raft remained adrift for thirteen terrifying days of delirium, chaos, murder, and cannibalism. Only fifteen men survived.Clarisse Griffon du Bellay’s ancestor was ...

Throughout Louisiana's colonial and postcolonial periods, there evolved a highly specialized vocabulary for describing the region's buildings, people, and cultural landscapes. This creolized language -- a unique combination of localisms and words borrowed from French, Spanish, English, Indian, and Caribbean sources -- developed to suit the multiethnic needs of settlers, planters, explorers, builders, surveyors, and government officials. Today, this historic vernacular is often opaque to hi...