The Vive Représentation in Crespin and Goulart’s Martyrology

Abstract

The protestants have condemned the use of images for worship purposes. But, can a literary image evoke the same feeling of reprehension? In this article, the author tries to find the answer to that very question, focusing his research on protestant martyrology (1554-1619) written by Jean Crespin and further developed by Simon Goulart. While it certainly was Crespin’s wish to compose his collection of authentic documents, allowing the victims to speak for themselves in order to defend their faith, as the time went by, he became more and more sensitive to all the charms of so called vive représentation which, in 16th century, can mean both ekphrasis and hypotyposis. The analysis of several examples has proven that, indeed, Crespin tends to amplify the scene of torture so that it becomes an ekphrastic image, capable not only of persuading, but also of influencing readers’ emotions. Then, as the era of pyres comes to an end only to be followed by that of civil wars, Goulart’s way of showing the protestants massacres relies on what’s typical for hypotyposis: a dynamic narrative that stays relatively asyndetic and lacks auctorial interventions.