LITERARY STUDIES AND REVIEWS

THE

I

PIERRE DE RONSARD

vicissitudes of Ronsard's

reputation

through the centuries are of themselves a study in criticism. They interest us chiefly by showing the effect of a great French poet upon succeeding generations of his countrymen, but to some extent also by showing the unhappy results of literary spite and critical bigotry which for nearly two centuries concealed some of the most agreeable and musical of French lyrics. During the sixteenth century Ronsard was taken at his own valuation as the greatest of French poets. Ignoring or attacking their predecessors (as they were afterwards attacked or ignored), the Pléiade firmly insisted on their superiority over "barbarians" like Charles d'Orléans and Villon and agreed that Ronsard was their chief and the prince of French poets. Not even "divine Du Bartas" could shake this acknowledged supremacy. Sovereigns like François II, Charles IX, Elizabeth of England, and Mary of

Scotland flattered Ronsard with praise and rewards. His reputation spread even into critical Italy, for it was when Brantôme was buying a grand volume of Petrarch at Venice that a grand magnifique rebuked him, saying that in Ronsard France possessed a poet "twice as great as Petrarch." This excessive and almost universal admiration found its final expression in Binet's "Vie de Ronsard," where, among much other praise (which Bayle later snubbed as chimères), we find this

Quant à ses œuvres, elles sont tant pleines d'excellence et de beautez, que nous les pouvons mieux entendre et admirer que les expliquer et imiter: et nostre Ronsard a fait si bien son prouffit de la profonde science de toutes choses, pratiqué si bien les grâces anciennes, et à icelles joint une telle fureur Poëtique, à luy seul propre, que depuis le siècle d'Auguste il ne s'est trouvé un naturel plus divin, plus hardi, plus Poëtique, et plus accompli que le sien.

Hyperbole could hardly go much farther; a reaction was inevitable, but was so harsh and savage that more harm than good resulted for French poetry.

About the year 1600 a Norman gentleman named Malherbe (whose character was as sour and carping as Ronsard's had been sweet and enthusiastic) set out as the reformer of French poetry; one day, chancing on a copy of Ronsard's poems, he began to strike out all the lines which displeased him.

Someone having remarked that he had forgotten a few, Malherbe took up his pen and struck them all out. That is the tradition, which is given for what it is worth. Whether the tale be true or false, the seventeenth century and its successor decried Ronsard as much, as extravagantly as the sixteenth century had honoured him. Soon the whole Malherbe group was filling Paris with abuse of Ronsard and the Pléiade. Sainte-Beuve tells an amusing tale about Mlle. de Gournay (an elderly and learned lady who admired Montaigne and the Pléiade) rushing out, avec les yeux éffarés, from a roomful of poets of the new school of Malherbe. But all Mlle. de Gournay's horror and protestations and good sense were unavailing. Each generation of French poets has made it a point of honour to assassinate its immediate predecessor; and assassinated the Pléiade duly were. Malherbe's influence lasted two centuries. Bayle's article on Ronsard in the "Dictionnaire" is a masterpiece of perfidy and ill-nature. He says not one amiable or even just thing, and accumulates in his notes quantities of depreciatory remarks on Ronsard. A glance through Bayle will show how the whole pack of critics of the seventeenth century were yelping at Ronsard's heels, sneering at his poetic genius, denying his learning, and vilifying his character; in all three of which he was superior to most of his detractors. Even

"Ron

Menage abused him. Even La Bruyère: sard et les auteurs ses contemporains ont plus nui au style qu'ils ne lui ont servi," and so on. And of course le Père Bouhours does not like him any more than Boileau, launching his venomous dart against Ronsard, who, "Réglant tout, brouilla tout."

able.

The voices were unanimous and unfavour

During the eighteenth century Ronsard's poetry fell into an obscurity similar to that which hid our own Elizabethan and Jacobean lyrists during the same period. Some vague conventional homage was paid to his name as a "father of French poetry," but it is doubtful if there was any revival of him similar to Thomson's revival of Spenser. A century ago, even, Ronsard was a name and little but a name in France. From 1680 to 1828 his poems were never once reprinted. In 1826, the Académie proposed as a subject for the "eloquence prize a "Discours sur l'histoire de la langue et de la littérature françaises depuis le commencement du XVI siècle jusqu'en 1610." An ambitious young man named Sainte-Beuve began a "Discours " accordingly, but while writing it in the orthodox manner (i.e. by copying the remarks of earlier commentators) it chanced that he read a few books. of poetry of the period. Sainte-Beuve was so struck by the "interest and fecundity" of this poetry

that he gave up the "Discours" and produced instead that generally admirable "Tableau de la poésie française au XVIe siècle." M. Pierre de Nolhac calls it a "timid rehabilitation," and certainly there is a note of timidity and apology throughout the book. The phrase “fumier de Villon" is unfortunate, and the young critic is profuse of genuflexions before the altar of Boileau. But it is easy enough for us who profit by his work and daring to depreciate Sainte-Beuve; after all, he flouted all the pundits and the Academicians and said what he really believed. Sainte-Beuve's selections have remained the standard examples of the Pléiade; it was Sainte-Beuve who exhumed Mignonne, allons voir" and "Le temps s'en va " and “Quand vous serez bien vieille," and Du Bellay's A vous troupe légère " and Remy Belleau's la grace et le ris."

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Sainte-Beuve's "Tableau " was avowedly written with the purpose of "attaching these studies of the sixteenth century to the literary and poetic questions of our own age." Nearly all fertile criticism is written with such an intention, no doubt, but the enormous vogue of the Romantic poets of 1830 contributed greatly to direct public attention towards the earlier poets. In spite of temporary reactions and sets-back the reputation and popularity of Ronsard have grown continuously through