‘Cet universel naufrage du monde’

Abstract

This chapter marks the transition from portent to actuality, addressing the prospect of political shipwreck in the troubled latter part of the sixteenth century by considering not only incarnations and reconfigurations of the suave mari magno commonplace but also shipwrecks that are narrated from the inside. It explores the distinction between the struggling ship in Lucretius and the eagerly spectated shipwreck of a political enemy in Cicero’s letters, taking account of the model of the ship of state as elaborated in Plato, Cicero, and medieval sources. It argues that the role of the spectator is most often not at a safe distance, and that the ethical relationship between the spectator and those on board is significantly developed from that in Lucretius. Through the work of three writers (Michel de L’Hospital, Pierre de Ronsard and Michel de Montaigne), it shows that the powerful metaphor of the ship of state struggling on troubled waters is itself articulated in a variety of ways during the political storm of the late sixteenth century—ways that, ethically speaking, variously implicate or exonerate the politician, poet or author. This chapter poses a series of questions concerning the difference between public and private spheres, the unique moral implications of civil war, and the author or poet’s own position, be it personal, political, or philosophical—or all three—with relation to what Montaigne calls ‘cet universel naufrage du monde’.