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RESEARCH PRODUCT

L’Allemagne, foyer culturel et militant ou pays sauvage et grossier ? Deux visions renaissantes antithétiques et tirées de l’Antique (Ulrich von Hutten et Erasme)

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This study shows how two humanists, both “German” (in the widest sense of the word), put forward opposing views of their country. Ulrich von Hutten seeks to promote the image of a cultured Germany, a proud “nation” committed to the struggle against the injustice and barbarism characteristic of Rome; in order to achieve his end he appeals to Tacitus and to the speeches of the Breton Calgacus in his campaign against Rome. Erasmus, in a lighter vein, describes Germany as brutish and lacking in the slightest urbanitas, he too drawing on Tacitus’ image which, in his Germania helped to create the topos of the Germans as wild, drunken revelers. Thus we see how two humanists, both imbued with classical culture bring their erudition to bear on the contemporary world in opposite ways through their partial or distorted readings of the same author.