This new approach to Malherbe's odes interweaves political cultural rhetorical and literary
history to show how they constitute a unified sequence whose ambition is to forge a new
national community in the aftermath of the Wars of Religion dislodging Malherbe from his
moribund critical reception as a grammarian and technician and recovering the brilliance of a
poetic genius whose political mythmaking stems from an impassioned patriotism.
