The Corrector as Critic Jacques Peletier Du Mans

This chapter proposes that the print shop emerges in the sixteenth century as a key site for the production of literary criticism. Of particular interest is the figure of the printer’s corrector, an expert in error and artisan of precision whose task is to discover and amend faults before a text goes into print. Taking as an exemplary case the French poet, literary critic, and orthographic reformer Jacques Peletier du Mans (1517-1582/3)-who maintained close relationships with his printers and was employed as a corrector in the workshop of Jean de Tournes in Lyon-the chapter examines how the practice of correction and the mechanical ethos of printing inform early meta-poetic work in France, including Peletier’s seminal translation of Horace's Ars poetica and his own Art Poetique of 1555.