Astrea.

Honore d'Urfe's pastoral romance, L'Astree, was last translated into English in the seventeenth century, hardly surprising considering its length (5 volumes and over 5500 pages) but regrettable given its profound influence and inherent charm. Rendall's translation of the unabridged first part attempts to correct this relative neglect. His short but helpful introduction provides the reader with a synopsis of the story, a discussion of the historical context in which it was written and read, and a critical perspective of its place within the history of the novel.

First published in 1607, part one of Astrea was immediately popular with the French aristocracy and was reprinted several times even as two additional volumes of the work appeared. At his death in 1625 in the war of the Val Telline, d'Urfe left incomplete versions of the last two volumes which his secretary brought to press in 1627 and 1628. The popularity of the work began to wane after 1647, reviving only in the twentieth century with Hugues Vanay's French edition on which Rendall bases his translation.

Astrea's influence was both literary and cultural and thus this translation has much to offer the modern reader. Astrea, identified with Dike or justice and associated with a golden age of peace, was a potent and frequently used symbol during the period of the religious wars. Both the Tudor queen, Elizabeth I, and the Bourbon, Henry IV, were identified with Astrea during their reigns. D'Urfe reinforced this identification by dedicating his novel to Henry, the former Huguenot whose victory in the wars promised a new reign of justice and peace. The author, a Leaguer who had fought against Henry and the Protestants, appears to signal both his reconciliation with the King and his belief in the new aristocratic ideals promoted during Henry's reign.

This aristocratic ideology is communicated through the story of two shepherds, Celadon and Astrea, who live and love in Forez, an idyllic world isolated from the war-torn lands surrounding them. Through misunderstanding and betrayal, the lovers are separated. Their contact with the novel's numerous characters force Celadon and Astrea to confront themselves and their love. Love also propels the numerous subplots involving Celadon and Astrea's friends and relatives in a series of complex relationships difficult to keep straight. What maintains the reader's interest is the excitement of the stories recounted, the empathy Celadon and other characters elicit, and the surprising modernity of both the issues raised and the form in which they are presented.

Modern critics view Astrea as critical to understanding the development of the novel both as a literary form and as a mode of experience. Although his romance is a compendium of Renaissance narrative forms (poems, letters, tales, debates), d'Urfe has woven them into a complex but unified narrative. It provides a window into contemporary debates about the nature of love, beauty, morality and civility. Rendall argues that Astrea's popularity among the aristocracy suggests that its view of pastoral life was the way the French elite "saw themselves - or wished to be seen" (xv) and even contributed to the monarchy's consolidation of power as the aristocracy learned through such literature to accept a new vision of their role and influence.

Because the translator has chosen to present a single unabridged volume rather than an abridged summary of Celadon's quest for reunion with Astrea, this work will be of greatest interest to English students of narrative structure. The richness and unity of its expansive form distinguishes it from its contemporaries and, or so Rendall argues, links it to the modern novel. Those historians of culture, and especially of the symbolic uses of Astrea, must content themselves with Vanay's edition. English readers eager to follow the story of the separated lovers will have to prevail upon the translator to provide the next volume.

JEANNE HARRIE California State University