The Latin genethliac poem celebrating the birth of James VI of Scotland is often recognised as one of the most significant poems by George Buchanan, but it has never been fully analysed so far. This paper ambitions to propose a global interpretation of the genethliac, taking into account its literary as well as political aspects. After replacing the poem in the historical context of the reign of Mary queen of Scots and in the literary tradition of the genethliac poetry, the analysis focuses on three striking features of the poem: the lack of the maiores thematic, the opening prophecy and the portrait of the good king. The article also touches the problem of the double redaction, and gives a first critical edition and complete French translation of the poem.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Smeesters, A., (2025), "Le Genethliacon Jacobi Sexti Scotorum Regis de George Buchanan", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Smeesters, Aline. "Le Genethliacon Jacobi Sexti Scotorum Regis de George Buchanan." Renaissance and Reformation 36 (4): 2014. 101-144. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v36i4.20984. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.