Les Bergeries

work by Racan

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June 22, 2026

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Les Bergeries is a pastoral drama by Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan, a French poet and early member of the French Academy. Written around 1620 and published in 1625, it is considered a prime example of its genre in French literature.1

Pastoral literature, in general, presents shepherds as living a life free from urban complexities. Les Bergeries reflects Racan's love for nature, a theme also present in his other bucolic and religious poems. These works blend the elegiac lyricism of earlier poetry with a gentle melancholy that foreshadows later poets.21

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Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan
…work is a pastoral drama, Les Bergeries (“The Sheepfolds”), sometimes called the finest example of the genre in French; it was performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne about 1620 and published in 1625. His other poems are mainly bucolic and religious, both preserving the elegiac lyricism of an earlier age…
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…work is a pastoral drama, Les Bergeries (“The Sheepfolds”), sometimes called the finest example of the genre in French; it was performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne about 1620 and published in 1625. His other poems are mainly bucolic and religious, both preserving the elegiac lyricism of an earlier age…
Read More