Ballads, Lyrics and Poems of Old France

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Title: Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems
Author: Andrew Lang
Release Date: January, 1997 [EBook #795]
[This file was first posted
on January 31, 1997]
[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002]
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BALLADS
AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE ***
Transcribed from the 1872 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
Price, email [email protected]

BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE: WITH OTHER
POEMS
Translations
LIST OF POETS TRANSLATED
I. CHARLES D'ORLEANS, who has sometimes, for no very obvious
reason, been styled the father of French lyric poetry, was born in May,
1391. He was the son of Louis D'Orleans, the grandson of Charles V.,
and the father of Louis XII. Captured at Agincourt, he was kept in
England as a prisoner from 1415 to 1440, when he returned to France,
where he died in 1465. His verses, for the most part roundels on two
rhymes, are songs of love and spring, and retain the allegorical forms of
the Roman de la Rose.
II. FRANCOIS VILLON, 1431-14-? Nothing is known of Villon's birth
or death, and only too much of his life. In his poems the ancient forms
of French verse are animated with the keenest sense of personal
emotion, of love, of melancholy, of mocking despair, and of repentance
for a life passed in taverns and prisons.
III. JOACHIM DU BELLAY, 1525-1560. The exact date of Du
Bellay's birth is unknown. He was certainly a little younger than
Ronsard, who was born in September, 1524, although an attempt has
been made to prove that his birth took place in 1525, as a compensation
from Nature to France for the battle of Pavia. As a poet Du Bellay had
the start, by a few mouths, of Ronsard; his Recueil was published in
1549. The question of priority in the new style of poetry caused a
quarrel, which did not long separate the two singers. Du Bellay is
perhaps the most interesting of the Pleiad, that company of Seven, who
attempted to reform French verse, by inspiring it with the enthusiasm of
the Renaissance. His book L'Illustration de la langue Francaise is a plea

for the study of ancient models and for the improvement of the
vernacular. In this effort Du Bellay and Ronsard are the predecessors of
Malherbe, and of Andre Chenier, more successful through their frank
eagerness than the former, less fortunate in the possession of critical
learning and appreciative taste than the latter. There is something in Du
Bellay's life, in the artistic nature checked by occupation in affairs--he
was the secretary of Cardinal Du Bellay--in the regret and affection
with which Rome depressed and allured him, which reminds the
English reader of the thwarted career of Clough.
IV. REMY BELLEAU, 1528-1577. Du Belleau's life was spent in the
household of Charles de Lorraine, Marquis d'Elboeuf, and was marked
by nothing more eventful than the usual pilgrimage to Italy, the sacred
land and sepulchre of art.
V. PIERRE RONSARD, 1524-1585. Ronsard's early years gave little
sign of his vocation. He was for some time a page of the court, was in
the service of James V. of Scotland, and had his share of shipwrecks,
battles, and amorous adventures. An illness which produced total
deafness made him a scholar and poet, as in another age and country it
might have made him a saint and an ascetic. With all his industry, and
almost religious zeal for art, he is one of the poets who make
themselves, rather than are born singers. His epic, the Franciade, is as
tedious as other artificial epics, and his odes are almost unreadable. We
are never allowed to forget that he is the poet who read the Iliad
through in three days. He is, as has been said of Le