Le syncrétisme de Du Bartas

Abstract

The works of the humanist Du Bartas has been considered religious, with the aim to present a Calvinist conception of the world conforming to the dogmas. However, the presence of paganism and the effects of dissonances shows that Du Bartas belongs to a spiritual tradition beyond the dogmas. The poet in fact writes in the tradition of Marsil Ficin and his vision of the profane and the sacred is totally in accordance with that of the hermeticist philosophers. Beneath the superficial meaning and the topical speech about religious subjects, there lies a much higher truth to be expressed clearly to profanes, those unable to understand the unity of traditions.