Remy (or Rémi) Belleau (1528 – 6 March 1577) was a

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 ...

of the

French Renaissance The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define th ...

. He is most known for his paradoxical poems of praise for simple things and his poems about precious stones.

Life

Remy was born in

Nogent-le-Rotrou Nogent-le-Rotrou () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture and is located on the river Huisne, 56 kilometres west of Chartres on the RN23 and 150 kilometres south west of Paris, to which it is lin ...

. A nobleman (under the tutelage of the Lorraine family), he did his studies under Marc Antoine Muret and

George Buchanan George Buchanan ( gd, Seòras Bochanan; February 1506 – 28 September 1582) was a Scottish historian and humanist scholar. According to historian Keith Brown, Buchanan was "the most profound intellectual sixteenth century Scotland produced." ...

. As a student, he became friends with the young poets Jean de La Péruse,

Étienne Jodelle Étienne Jodelle, seigneur de Limodin (1532July 1573), French dramatist and poet, was born in Paris of a noble family. He attached himself to the poetic circle of the Pléiade and proceeded to apply the principles of the reformers to dramat ...

, Jean de La Taille and

Pierre de Ronsard 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". Early life Pierre de Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of ...

and the latter incorporated Remy into the "

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 ...

", a group of revolutionary young poets. Belleau's first published poems were odes, ''les Petites Inventions'' (1556), inspired by the ancient lyric Greek collection attributed to

Anacreon Anacreon (; grc-gre, Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in t ...

and featuring poems of praise for such things as butterflies, oysters, cherries, coral, shadows, turtles. In the 1560s, Belleau tried his hand at a mixed verse and prose form modeled on the Italian pastoral ''Arcadia'' by Jacopo Sannazaro (French translation, 1544): this became ''La Bergerie'' (1565-1572), in which narration (in prose) is interspersed with poems on love and the countryside. His last work, ''les Amours et nouveaux Eschanges des Pierres precieuses'' (1576), is a poetic description of gems and their properties inspired by medieval and renaissance

lapidary Lapidary (from the Latin ) is the practice of shaping stone, minerals, or gemstones into decorative items such as cabochons, engraved gems (including cameos), and faceted designs. A person who practices lapidary is known as a lapidarist. A lap ...

catalogues. He died in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

on 6 March 1577, and was buried in Grands Augustins. Remy Belleau was greatly admired by poets in the twentieth century, such as Francis Ponge.

Bibliography

* The Oeuvres Completes (1867) * Oeuvres Poetiques (1879)

References

Sources

* Schmidt, Albert-Marie, ed. ''Poètes du XVIe siècle.'' Collection: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1953. * Simonin, Michel, ed. ''Dictionnaire des lettres françaises - Le XVIe siècle.'' Paris: Fayard, 2001. {{DEFAULTSORT:Belleau, Remy 1528 births 1577 deaths People from Nogent-le-Rotrou 16th-century French poets French male poets