This dissertation examines the impact of transatlantic travel narratives on literary practices in 16th- century France. In particular, I argue that textual representations of the Americas shaped the development of the French language, as well as the greater construction of a national linguistic identity. Examining the works of French travel writers such as Jacques Cartier, Jean de Léry, and André Thevet, as well as early French translations of other European narratives, I trace the influence of travel writing on foundational texts for the transformation of the French language, such as those by Geoffroy Tory and Joachim Du Bellay. These authors sought to reinvent French with an eye to both the past and the present: they conceived of its relationship to ancient languages of learning, particularly Latin, as a colonial one, and evoked examples of France's recent colonial exploits in the Americas in order to reconceive the French vernacular as a newly dominant language. Using methodologies developed by scholars in the history of reading alongside those of decolonial theory, this project examines two histories which have traditionally been studied separately—French colonial history and the history of reading in France—in order to argue that the construction of a "French" linguistic identity cannot be separated from its imperial consequences.

The French Renaissance often appears as an era of intellectual giants, characterized by a fascination with abundance (copia) and linguistic capacities that surpass and overwhelm modern readers. This dissertation challenges the perceived gulf between modern and sixteenth-century readers by proposing a cognitively grounded perspective on the production of overwhelming reading experiences, specifically centered on the appearance of lists in prose texts. The texts considered range in genre from pedagogy to historiography, theological treatises, travel literature, philosophy, and comedy; they feature some of the most canonical authors of Renaissance humanism, such as Rabelais, Erasmus, Calvin, Léry, and Montaigne. Analyzing select lists in light of cognitive limits such as working memory capacity as well as work in the history of reading and print technology, I argue that the presentation of these lists reflects technologically engaged strategies that mediate readers’ access to texts, either organizing information or exceeding reader limitations in order to invite emotional responses associated with overwhelm. By embracing the notion of reader limitations, we can begin to unravel not only the deliberate myth-making practiced by many sixteenth-century authors, but also underappreciated expressions of their anxieties around everything from religious tensions to print itself.