Pierre de Ronsard (; 11 September 1524 – 27 December 1585) was a French poet or, as his own generation in France called him, a "
prince of poets
''Prince of Poets'' is a reality television poetry competition on the Emirati television network Abu Dhabi TV. It was created in April 2007 by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, and airs live from the Al Raha Beach theatre every we ...
".
Early life
Pierre de Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of
Couture-sur-Loir
Couture-sur-Loir (, literally ''Couture on Loir'') is a former commune in the Loir-et-Cher department of central France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Vallée-de-Ronsard.Vendômois (in present-day Loir-et-Cher). Baudouin de Ronsard or Rossart was the founder of the French branch of the house, and made his mark in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War. The poet's father was Louis de Ronsard, and his mother was Jeanne de Chaudrier, of a family both noble and well connected. Pierre was the youngest son. Louis de Ronsard was ''maître d'hôtel du roi'' to
Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to:
* Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407)
* Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450
* Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547
* Francis I, Duke of Saxe-Lau ...
, whose captivity after
Pavia
Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the cap ...
had just been softened by treaty, and he had to quit his home shortly after Pierre's birth.
The future poet was educated at home in his earliest years and sent to the
Collège de Navarre
The College of Navarre (french: Collège de Navarre) was one of the colleges of the historic University of Paris, rivaling the Sorbonne and renowned for its library.
History
It was founded by Queen Joan I of Navarre in 1305, who provided for th ...
James V of Scotland
James V (10 April 1512 – 14 December 1542) was King of Scotland from 9 September 1513 until his death in 1542. He was crowned on 21 September 1513 at the age of seventeen months. James was the son of King James IV and Margaret Tudor, and du ...
, Ronsard was attached as a
page
Page most commonly refers to:
* Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book
Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to:
Roles
* Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation
* Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...
in the Scottish court, where he was encouraged in the idea of making French vernacular translations of classical authors. A year after the death of the queen, he returned to France, travelling back through
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
Further travel took him to
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
,
Holland
Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
, and again, for a short time, Scotland, on diplomatic missions under Claude d'Humières, seigneur de
Lassigny
Lassigny () is a commune in the Oise department in northern France.
See also
* Communes of the Oise department
The following is a list of the 679 communes of the Oise department of France.
The communes cooperate in the following intercommu ...
, until he was attached as secretary to the suite of
Lazare de Baïf
Lazare de Baïf (1496–1547) was a French diplomat and humanist. His natural son, Jean-Antoine de Baïf, was born in Venice, while Lazare was French ambassador there.
He published a translation of the ''Electra'' of Sophocles in 1537, and afterwa ...
, the father of his future colleague in the Pléiade and his companion on this occasion, Antoine de Baïf, at the diet of Speyer. Afterwards he was attached in the same way to the suite of the cardinal du Bellay-Langey, and his mythical quarrel with François Rabelais dates from this period.
Studies
His apparently promising diplomatic career was, however, cut short by an attack of deafness following a 1540 visit, as part of legation to Alsace, that no physician could cure; he would subsequently determine to devote himself to study. The institution he chose for the purpose among the numerous schools and colleges of Paris was the Collège Coqueret, the principal of which was
Jean Daurat
Jean Daurat ( Occitan: Joan Dorat; Latin: Auratus) (3 April 15081 November 1588) was a French poet, scholar and a member of a group known as '' The Pléiade''.
Early life
He was born Joan Dinemandy in Limoges and was a member of a noble family. ...
— afterwards the "dark star" (as he has been called from his silence in French) of the Pléiade, and already an acquaintance of Ronsard's from having held the office of tutor in the Baïf household. Antoine de Baïf, Daurat's pupil, accompanied Ronsard;
Remy Belleau
Remy or Rémy may refer to:
Places
* Remy River, a tributary of rivière du Gouffre in Saint-Urbain, Quebec, Canada
* Rémy, a French commune in Pas-de-Calais
* Remy, Oise, northern France
* Remy, Oklahoma, USA
* 14683 Remy, an asteroid
* Po ...
shortly followed;
Joachim du Bellay
Joachim du Bellay (; – 1 January 1560) was a French poet, critic, and a founder of the Pléiade. He notably wrote the manifesto of the group: '' Défense et illustration de la langue française'', which aimed at promoting French as an a ...
, the second of the seven, joined not much later.
Muretus
Muretus is the Latinized name of Marc Antoine Muret (12 April 1526 – 4 June 1585), a French humanist who was among the revivers of a Ciceronian Latin style and is among the usual candidates for the best Latin prose stylist of the Renaissa ...
(Marc Antoine de Muret), a great scholar and by means of his
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
plays a great influence in the creation of French tragedy, was also a student here.
Ronsard's period of study occupied seven years, and the first manifesto of the new literary movement, which was to apply to the
vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
the principles of criticism and scholarship learnt from the classics, came not from him but from Du Bellay. The ''Défense et illustration de la langue française'' of the latter appeared in 1549, and the Pléiade (or Brigade, as it was first called) may be said to have been then launched. It consisted, as its name implies, of seven writers whose names are sometimes differently enumerated, though the orthodox canon is beyond doubt composed of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baïf, Belleau,
Pontus de Tyard
Pontus de Tyard (also Thyard, Thiard) (c. 1521 – 23 September 1605) was a French poet and priest, a member of " La Pléiade".
Life
He was born at Bissy-sur-Fley in Burgundy, of which he was ''seigneur'', but the exact year of his birth is ...
(a man of rank and position who had exemplified the principles of the friends earlier), Jodelle the dramatist, and Daurat. Ronsard's own work came a little later, and a rather idle story is told of a trick of Du Bellay's which at last determined him to publish. Some single and minor pieces, an
epithalamium
An epithalamium (; Latin form of Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον ''epithalamion'' from ἐπί ''epi'' "upon," and θάλαμος ''thalamos'' nuptial chamber) is a poem written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. This form ...
on Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne de Navarre (1550), a "''Hymne de la France''" (1549), an "''Ode a la Paix''," preceded the publication in 1550 of the four first books ("first" is characteristic and noteworthy) of the ''Odes of Pierre de Ronsard''.
This was followed in 1552 by the publication of his ''Amours de Cassandre'' with the fifth book of Odes, dedicated to the 15-year-old Cassandre Salviati, whom he had met at
Blois
Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours.
With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the ...
and followed to her father's Château de Talcy. These books excited a violent literary quarrel.
Marot
Marot ( Punjabi, ur, ) is a city in Bahawalnagar District in Punjab, Pakistan. This city is situated at the border of India and Pakistan. This city is situated 50 km from Fortabbas, 160 km from Bahawalnagar and 100 km from Bahawal ...
was dead, but he left numerous followers, some of whom saw in the stricter literary critique of the Pléiade, in its outspoken contempt of merely vernacular and medieval forms, in its strenuous advice to French poetry to "follow the ancients," and so forth, an insult to the author of the ''Adolescence Clémentine'' and his school.The French court, and indeed all French society, was just then much interested in literary questions, and a curious story is told of the rivalry that ensued.
Mellin de Saint-Gelais
Mellin de Saint-Gelais (or ''Melin de Saint-Gelays'' or ''Sainct-Gelais''; c. 1491 – October, 1558) was a French poet of the Renaissance and Poet Laureate of Francis I of France.
Life
He was born at Angoulême, most likely the natural ...
, it is said, the chief of the "''École Marotique''" and a poet of no small merit, took up Ronsard's book and read part of it in a more or less designedly burlesque fashion before the king. It may be observed that if he did so it was a distinctly rash and uncourtier-like act, inasmuch as, from Ronsard's father's position in the royal household, the poet was personally known and liked both by Henry and by his family." At any rate,
Marguerite de Valois
Margaret of Valois (french: Marguerite, 14 May 1553 – 27 March 1615), popularly known as La Reine Margot, was a French princess of the Valois dynasty who became Queen of Navarre by marriage to Henry III of Navarre and then also Queen of France ...
, the king's sister, afterwards duchess of Savoy, is said to have snatched the book from Saint-Gelais and insisted on reading it herself, with the result of general applause. Henceforward, if not before, his acceptance as a poet was not doubtful, and indeed the tradition of his having to fight his way against cabals is almost entirely unsupported.
Fame
His popularity in his own time was overwhelming and immediate, and his prosperity was unbroken. He published his ''Hymns'', dedicated to Margaret de Valois, in 1555; the conclusion of the ''Amours'', addressed to another heroine, in 1556; and then a collection of ''Œuvres completes'', said to be due to the invitation of Mary Stuart, Queen of Francis II, in 1560; with ''Elégies, mascarades et bergeries'' in 1565. To this same year belongs his most important and interesting ''Abrégé de l'art poétique français''.
The rapid change of sovereigns did Ronsard no harm. Charles IX, King of France, who succeeded his brother after a very short time, was even better inclined to him than Henry and Francis. He gave him rooms in the palace; he bestowed upon him diverse abbacies and priories; and he called him and regarded him constantly as his master in poetry. Neither was Charles IX a bad poet. This royal patronage, however, had its disagreeable side. It excited violent dislike to Ronsard on the part of the
Huguenots
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
, who wrote constant
pasquinade
A pasquinade or pasquil is a form of satire, usually an anonymous brief lampoon in verse or prose, and can also be seen as a form of literary caricature. The genre became popular in early modern Europe, in the 16th century, though the term had ...
s against him, strove (by a ridiculous exaggeration of the Dionysiac festival at Arcueil, in which the friends had indulged to celebrate the success of the first French tragedy, Jodelle's ''Cleopatre'') to represent him as a libertine and an atheist, and (which seems to have annoyed him more than anything else) set up his follower Du Bartas as his rival.
According to some words of his own, they were not contented with this variety of argument, but attempted to have him assassinated. During this period, Ronsard began writing the epic poem the '' Franciade'' (1572), a work that was never finished and is generally considered a failure due to its versification—a decasyllabic metre of ''rimes plates'' that corresponds poorly with the genre of epic poetry. The metre (the
decasyllable
Decasyllable (Italian: ''decasillabo'', French: ''décasyllabe'', Serbian: ''десетерац'', ''deseterac'') is a poetic meter of ten syllables used in poetic traditions of syllabic verse. In languages with a stress accent (accentual ...
) could not but contrast unfavourably with the magnificent
alexandrine
Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French ''Roman ...
s that Du Bartas and
Agrippa d'Aubigné
Théodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné (, 8 February 155229 April 1630) was a French poet, soldier, propagandist and chronicler. His epic poem ''Les Tragiques'' (1616) is widely regarded as his masterpiece. In a book about his Catholic contemporary Jean de ...
were shortly to produce; the general plan is feebly classical, and the very language has little or nothing of that racy mixture of scholarliness and love of natural beauty which distinguishes the best work of the Pléiade. The poem could never have had an abiding success, but at its appearance it had the singular bad luck almost to coincide with the massacre of St Bartholomew, which had occurred about a fortnight before its publication. One party in the state were certain to look coldly on the work of a minion of the court at such a juncture, the other had something else to think of.
The death of Charles made little difference in the court favour which Ronsard enjoyed, but, combined with his increasing infirmities, it seems to have determined him to quit court life. During his last days he lived chiefly at a house which he possessed in
Vendôme
Vendôme (, ) is a subprefecture of the department of Loir-et-Cher, France. It is also the department's third-biggest commune with 15,856 inhabitants (2019).
It is one of the main towns along the river Loir. The river divides itself at the ...
, the capital of his native province, at his abbey at Croix-Val in the same neighbourhood, or else at Paris, where he was usually the guest of Jean Galland, well known as a scholar, at the College de Boncourt. It seems also that he had a town house of his own in the Fauhourg Saint-Marcel. At any rate his preferments made him in perfectly easy circumstances, and he seems neither to have derived nor wished for any profit from his books. A half-jocular suggestion that his publishers should give him money to buy "''du bois pour se chauffer''" in return for his last revision of his ''Œuvres complètes'' is the only trace of any desire of the kind. On the other hand, he received not merely gifts and endowments from his own sovereign but presents from many others, including
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
Eli ...
.
Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legitimate child of James V of S ...
addressed him from her prison, and
Tasso
TASSO (Two Arm Spectrometer SOlenoid) was a particle detector at the PETRA particle accelerator at the German national laboratory DESY. The TASSO collaboration is best known for having discovered the gluon, the mediator of the strong interaction an ...
consulted him on the ''Gerusalemme''.
Final years
His last years were saddened not merely by the death of many of his closest friends, but by increasing ill health. This did not interfere with the quality of his literary work; he was rarely idle, and some of his final verse is among his best. But he indulged the temptation to alter his work repeatedly, and many of his later alterations are not improvements. Towards the end of 1585 his health deteriorated, and he seems to have moved restlessly from one of his houses to another for some months. When the end came—which, though in great pain, he met in a resolute and religious manner—he was at his priory of Saint-Cosme in
Touraine
Touraine (; ) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher, Indre and Vien ...
, and he was buried in the church of that name on Friday, 27 December 1585.
Works
The character and fortunes of Ronsard's works are among the most remarkable in
literary
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
history, and supply in themselves a kind of illustration of the progress of
French literature
French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than F ...
during the last three centuries. It was long his fortune to be almost always extravagantly admired or violently attacked. At first, as has been said, the enmity, not altogether unprovoked, of the friends and followers of Marot fell to his lot, then the still fiercer antagonism of the Huguenot faction, who, happening to possess a poet of great merit in Du Bartas, were able to attack Ronsard at his tenderest point. But fate had by no means done its worst with him in his lifetime. After his death the classical reaction set in under the auspices of
Malherbe Malherbe may refer to:
People
* Malherbe (surname)
** François de Malherbe (1555-1628), French poet, reformer of French language
Places France
* La Haye-Malherbe, municipality of Eure (département), Eure
* Malherbe-sur-Ajon, new municipal ...
, who seems to have been animated with a sort of personal hatred of Ronsard, though it is not clear that they ever met. After
Malherbe Malherbe may refer to:
People
* Malherbe (surname)
** François de Malherbe (1555-1628), French poet, reformer of French language
Places France
* La Haye-Malherbe, municipality of Eure (département), Eure
* Malherbe-sur-Ajon, new municipal ...
, the rising glory of
Corneille
Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine.
As a young man, he earned the valuable patronag ...
and his contemporaries obscured the tentative and unequal work of the Pléiade, which was, moreover, directly attacked by Boileau himself, the dictator of French criticism in the last half of the 17th century.
Then Ronsard was, except by a few men of taste, such as
Jean de La Bruyère
Jean de La Bruyère (, , ; 16 August 1645 – 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist, who was noted for his satire.
Early years
Jean de La Bruyère was born in Paris, in today's Essonne ''département'', in 1645. His family was mi ...
and Fénelon, forgotten when he was not sneered at. In this condition he remained during the whole 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th. The Romantic revival, seeing in him a victim of its special ''bête noire'' Boileau, and attracted by his splendid diction, rich metrical faculty, and combination of classical and medieval peculiarities, adopted his name as a kind of battle-cry, and for the moment exaggerated his merits somewhat. The critical work of Sainte-Beuve in his ''Tableau de la littérature française au 16ème siècle'', and later of other authors, has established Ronsard's reputation.
Ronsard was the acknowledged chief of the '' Pléiade'' and its most voluminous poet. He was probably also its best, though a few isolated pieces of Belleau excel him in airy lightness of touch. Several sonnets of Du Bellay exhibit the melancholy of the Renaissance more perfectly than anything of his, and the finest passages of the ''Tragiques'' and the ''Divine Sep'Maine'' surpass his work in command of the alexandrine and in power of turning it to the purposes of satirical invective and descriptive narration. But that work is very extensive (we possess at a rough guess not much short of a hundred thousand lines of his), and it is extraordinarily varied in form. He did not introduce the sonnet into France, but he practised it soon after its introduction and with skill - the famous "''Quand vous serez bien vieille''" being one of the acknowledged gems of French literature.
His many odes are interesting, and at best are fine compositions. He began by imitating the strophic arrangement of the ancients, but very soon had the wisdom to desert this for a kind of adjustment of the Horatian ode to rhyme, instead of exact quantitative metre. In this latter kind he devised some exquisitely melodious rhythms of which, till our own day, the secret died with the 17th century. His more sustained work sometimes displays a bad selection of measure; and his
occasional poetry
Occasional poetry is poetry composed for a particular occasion. In the history of literature, it is often studied in connection with orality, performance, and patronage.
Term
As a term of literary criticism, "occasional poetry" describes the wo ...
—epistles,
eclogue
An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics.
Overview
The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , wh ...
s, elegies, etc.--is injured by its vast volume. But the preface to the ''Franciade'' is a fine piece of verse, superior (it is in alexandrines) to the poem itself. In general, Ronsard is best in his amatory verse (the long series of sonnets and odes to Cassandre, Pikles, Marie, Genévre, Héléne—Héléne de Surgeres, a later and mainly "literary" love—etc.), and in his descriptions of the country (the famous "''Ode à Cassandre " the "''Fontaine Bellerie''," the "''Forêt de Gastine''," and so forth), which are graceful and fresh. He used the graceful diminutives which his school set in fashion. He knew well too how to manage the gorgeous adjectives ("''marbrine''," "''cinabrine''," "''ivoirine''" and the like) which were another fancy of the Pléiade. In short, Ronsard shows eminently the two great attractions of French 16th-century poetry as compared with that of the two following ages - magnificence of language and imagery and graceful variety of metre.
Bibliography
The chief separately published works of Ronsard are noted above. However, during his life he produced a vast number of separate publications, some of them mere pamphlets or broadsheets, which from time to time he collected, often striking out others at the same time, in the successive editions of his works. Of these he himself published seven - the first in 1560, the last in 1584. Between his death and the year 1630 ten more complete editions were published, the most famous of which is the folio of 1609. A copy of this presented by Sainte-Beuve to
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
, and later in the possession of
Maxime du Camp
Maxime Du Camp (8 February 1822 – 9 February 1894) was a French writer and photographer.
Biography
Born in Paris, Du Camp was the son of a successful surgeon. After finishing college, he indulged in his strong desire for travel, thanks to ...
, has a place of its own in French literary history. The work of Claude Binet in 1586, ''Discours de la vie de Pierre de Ronsard'', is very important for early information, and the author seems to have revised some of Ronsard's work under the poet's own direction.
From 1630 Ronsard was not again reprinted for more than two centuries. Yet just before the close of the second Sainte-Beuve printed a selection of his poems to accompany the above-mentioned Tableau (1828). There are also selections, ''Choix de poésies - publiées par A. Noël'' (in the '' Collection Didot'') and Becq de Fouquières. In 1857 Prosper Blanchemain, who had previously published a volume of ''Œuvres inédites de Ronsard'', undertook a complete edition for the ''Bibliothèque Elzévirienne'', in eight volumes. It is practically complete; a few pieces of a somewhat free character which are ascribed with some certainty to the poet are, however, excluded. A later and better edition still is that of Marty-Laveaux (1887–1893), and another that of Benjamin Pifteau (1891).
* Sainte-Beuve, articles in the ''Causeries du lundi''.
* F. L. Lucas, "The Prince of Court-Poets", an essay on Ronsard in ''Studies French and English'' (London, 1934), pp. 76–114. Online. Revised edition 1950; reprinted in ''The Cassell Miscellany'' (London, 1958).