Higher, Hidden Order: Design and Meaning in the Odes of Malherbe

Opening a new perspective on Malherbe's major poems, this volume focuses on their design and meaning. In his introduction Rubin defines and illustrates implied comparison. There follows a series of explications which recover each poem's values from analogies concealed in images or motif patterns. The work concludes with a description of formal constants and variables in the six completed odes.