La synthese poetiques des sciences, de la connaissance et des lettres chez quatre poetes de la Renaissance: Maurice Sceve, Guillaume du Bartas, Rene de Bretonnayau et Agrippa d'Aubigne

This dissertation examines the relationship between poetry and science in the work of four poets representing different periods of the 16th century. It explores the notions of "science" and "scientist", analyzes what is at stake in various strategies employed to define the genre of "scientific poetry" and examines numerous rhetorical devices employed by the poets to translate the scientific knowledge into poetic discourse. Among the disciplines discussed, of particular interest is the domain of medicine, especially anatomy. Indeed, in the works of the chosen poets, one can find a trenchant study of the human body: whether it is presented in terms of an architectural construction, or as a detailed anatomical structure, the body is always depicted as a fragmented and a dissected one.;The first chapter examines the poetry of Maurice Sceve, in particular his blasons and certain parts of the Delie. The analysis of the fragmented female body described by Sceve leads us to conclude that the blason anatomique is a literary genre at the intersection between poetry and science. The second part concentrates on medical aspects of the Delie. While situating the poem within the intertextual context of the treatises of love, I examine the role of the eye and the vision in the transmission of love and knowledge.;The second chapter is a study of Guillaume du Bartas's La Sepmaine as a most significant example of Renaissance encyclopedism. My research focuses particularly on the "Sixth Day" which is essentially a detailed description of a fragmented human anatomy on the basis of which Du Bartas constructs an "architecture" of the body.;The third chapter analyzes a medical treatise of an almost unknown poet Rene de Bretonnayau. The study of his Generation de l'homme reveals that the poetic discourse concerning various illnesses, their causes and symptoms not only transmits knowledge, but also possesses a healing power. Two particular poems, in which Bretonnayau gives us a precise account of biological conception, formation and birth of a human being, as well as passages concerning the body are examined in detail.;The fourth chapter focuses on Agrippa d'Aubigne and analyzes the epistemological foundations of the armature of knowledge inscribed in one of his last poems, La Creation. The first part discusses the relationship between the poem and the hexameral literature and examines the "sciences de la terre" and the "sciences du ciel"; the second part concentrates on the poetic and scientific dimensions of the representation of the body.