Jean de Sponde (''Joanes Ezponda''; 1557 in

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

– 18 March 1595) was a

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

Biography

Born at Mauléon, in what is now

Pyrénées-Atlantiques Pyrénées-Atlantiques (; Gascon Occitan: ''Pirenèus Atlantics''; eu, Pirinio Atlantiarrak or ) is a department in the southwest corner of France and of the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Named after the Pyrenees mountain range and the Atlant ...

, Jean de Sponde was raised in an austere

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

family in the Basque region of France (some critics believe his family had Spanish roots) with close relations with the royal court of

Navarre Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...

. A bright student at the College of Lascar (1569), he received funds for his education from

Jeanne d'Albret Jeanne d'Albret ( Basque: ''Joana Albretekoa''; Occitan: ''Joana de Labrit''; 16 November 1528 – 9 June 1572), also known as Jeanne III, was Queen of Navarre from 1555 to 1572. Jeanne was the daughter of Henry II of Navarre and Margar ...

, the mother of Henry de Navarre (the future Henry IV of France), and went on to learn

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

and Protestant

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

. Despite his religious upbringing, in his early writings Jean de Sponde turned toward worldly literature: he produced an edition of

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

accompanied by an extensive

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, 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 ...

commentary which was printed in Basel in 1583, and wrote love poems (The ''Amours'', published posthumously in 1597 with ''Poésies posthumes''). In 1580, with the help of a travel grant provided by Henry of Navarre, he moved to

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (B ...

to study under

Théodore de Bèze Theodore Beza ( la, Theodorus Beza; french: Théodore de Bèze or ''de Besze''; June 24, 1519 – October 13, 1605) was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation ...

. Sometime later, the king of Navarre gave him a position as

maître des requêtes A Master of Requests () is a counsel of the French ''Conseil d'État'' (Council of State), a high-level judicial officer of administrative law in France. The office has existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. The occupational title ...

. In 1582, Jean de Sponde became profoundly moved after reading the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

, and from this point on his writings took on a religious orientation, leaving the author to consider his early love poems as ''fadaises'' (worthless things).Schmidt, 879. It is from this period that he wrote what are considered his most important works: ''Méditations sur les psaumes'' ("Meditations on the Psalms") and ''Essai de quelques poèmes chrétiens'' ("Essay of Several Christian Poems", 1588). In this last collection, Jean de Sponde explored the passage of time, the shortness of life and the presence of death in man's life. He left Basel and returned to Navarre as royal counsellor and

in 1583, and married. Upon a trip to Paris in 1589, Sponde was imprisoned by the Catholic League for his religion. Upon his liberation, he became lieutenant-general of the appellate court (''sénéchaussée'') in

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. Wi ...

, but left the city in 1593 and returned to Tours. After a second imprisonment for his beliefs, he converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...

in 1593, following the example of Henry IV. This conversion however earned him the hatred of the Protestants (his friend d'Aubigné became his personal enemy) and distanced him from the king (who sought to maintain his alliances with the huguenots). Sponde then moved to

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectu ...

and spent the last years of his life writing against Calvinist theology. He died in Bordeaux in poverty in 1595.

Poetry

Jean de Sponde's youthful ''Amours'' comprise 26

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

s in the manner of other love sonnet sequences of the period (as made fashionable by the members of

La Pléiade La Pléiade () was a group of 16th-century French Renaissance poets whose principal members were Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Jean-Antoine de Baïf. The name was a reference to another literary group, the original Alexandrian Pleiad ...

). His posthumous collection also includes various other long lyric poems (stances),

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...

s and

elegies An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

. Jean de Sponde's later poetry is impregnated with the major themes of the so-called French "baroque" poetry of the period and with the moral concerns of the huguenots. His poetry is often placed alongside the works of

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 ...

and

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544, in Monfort – July 1590, in Mauvezin) was a Gascon Huguenot courtier and poet. Trained as a doctor of law, he served in the court of Henri de Navarre for most of his career. Du Bartas was celebrated acro ...

as the major poetic works of the French Renaissance Protestants. His ''Essai de quelques poèmes chrétiens'' comprise 12 sonnets and three long lyric poems (two on the

last supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

and one on death). Sponde's writing paints the massiveness of the world, man's tortured destiny, and his lack of clarity. The author is obsessed with inconstancy, masks, appearances, and death, and this presence of death in the midst of man's life inspires man to seek eternity and to reach out to God.

References

:''This article is based in part on the article

Jean de Sponde Jean de Sponde (''Joanes Ezponda''; 1557 in Basque – 18 March 1595) was a Baroque French poet. Biography Born at Mauléon, in what is now Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Jean de Sponde was raised in an austere Protestant family in the Basque region ...

on the

French Wikipedia The French Wikipedia (french: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has articl ...

, retrieved on October 5, 2006.'' * Albert-Marie Schmidt, ed. ''Poètes du XVIe siècle.''

Bibliothèque de la Pléiade The ''Bibliothèque de la Pléiade'' (, "Pleiades Library") is a French editorial collection which was created in 1931 by Jacques Schiffrin, an independent young editor. Schiffrin wanted to provide the public with reference editions of the c ...

. Paris: Gallimard, 1953.

External links

Selection of poems
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sponde, Jean de 1557 births 1595 deaths 16th-century French poets 16th-century male writers Baroque writers Catholic poets French Catholic poets Converts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism French Roman Catholics French male poets Sonneteers Translators of Homer