Pierre de Ronsard

French poet

• Born: September 11, 1524
• Birthplace: Castle of la Possonnière, near Couture, Vendômois, France
• Died: December 27, 1585
• Place of death: Saint-Cosme, near Tours, France

Ronsard enriched French poetry by adapting classical genres and styles to his native language. He wrote historically significant odes, hymns, and lyrics and one of the most important sonnet sequences in the history of literature.

Early Life

Pierre de Ronsard (rohn-sawr) was born into a noble family in the Vendômois area of France. His father, Louis, was made a chevalier by Louis XII a few years before the poet was born. At the age of twelve, Ronsard was placed as a page in the French court, which put him in a position to become an important courtier or functionary in the royal household. His father wanted him to pursue a legal career, then the path to preferment, but Ronsard performed poorly at each school he attended. He was bored with the subjects that were taught but fascinated by the Latin poetry he read, and he nurtured the ambition of becoming a poet.

After the death of his father in 1544, Ronsard took a crucial step in becoming a poet. He placed himself under the tutelage of Jean Dorat, an early French Humanist. He studied Latin and Greek language and literature under Dorat with his friend Jean-Antoine de Baïf. This rigorous training provided him with classical models in form, genre, and style that he believed were superior to the existing medieval models, which were primarily romances and religious works. Ronsard and his friends Joachim du Bellay, Baïf, and others, formed a group that supported the aims of the new poetry and became known as La Pléiade. Ronsard was determined to become not merely another poet but also the poet who would change the tradition by incorporating classical models, elegance, and rigor into French literature. In 1550, three years after completing his studies with Dorat, he published Odes and was hailed as the French Pindar.

Life’s Work

Ronsard’s Odes were well received at the time, but later criticism has tended to disparage them, and a nineteenth century critic, Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, called them unreadable. They were historically important in introducing classical forms and myths into French literature, and some can still affect readers. One of the problems later readers faced was that Ronsard followed the metrical and stanzaic patterns of Pindar primarily a short poetic line and stanzas grouped into triads and he transferred some of the subject matter from Pindar directly into poems that seemed distant from sixteenth century France. The odes that imitated Horace were more successful; Horace’s structure was looser, the style more urbane, and the world they represented had some analogies to those of Ronsard.

The first poem of the third book of odes, in which he announces his vocation as a poet, is a good example of Ronsard’s celebration of his classical models. After announcing that he has become “the gods’ mortal companion” because the Greek Muse of poetry, Euterpe, has lifted him up to that state, he now can scorn common pretenders since the “Muse loves me. . . .” At the end of the poem, he describes his poetic position as directly linked to Greece and Rome: “Making me part of high Athens’ glory,/ Part of the ancient wisdom of the Romans.” The common pretenders would be those still mired in the older forms of poetry or those writing merely love lyrics, while Ronsard has become one of the ancients.

Ronsard’s next major work was Les Amours (1552). Petrarch, who was Ronsard’s poetic model for this work, was closer in time. Ronsard wrote sonnets that followed and varied the Petrarchan structure and metaphors. These poems have remained popular through the years and to most people are the quintessential Ronsard. The first part of Les Amours deals with the poet’s love for Cassandra. In poem 20, he desires to be rain that falls “one golden drop after another/ Into Cassandra’s lovely lap. . . .” He then metamorphoses into a white bull who will take her when she passes. Finally, he becomes a narcissus and she a spring so he can plunge into her. After suggesting metaphorical and mythical ways to unite, the last three lines speak of a union at night with a desire to suspend the approach of dawn. The poem varies slightly from Petrarchan conventions, since it speaks directly about the union with the beloved.

In 1554, Ronsard offered a less ambitious but delightful collection, Le Bocage . These poems deal more directly with the countryside, nature, and contemporary events. There is, for example, a poem on the frog “La Grenouille”; Ronsard celebrates the ordinary frog above other animals and even calls her a goddess. In addition, the frog is not subject, as humans are, to hard times. He also asks, in a personal touch, that the frog not disturb “the bed or study/ Of my good friend Remy Belleau.” The tone is playful and clearly different from the Odes. The most interesting poem from that collection, however, is on famine. It asks God to relieve his people and compares the situation of the French to the Israelites. Near the end, he asks that this hardship be visited on barbarians, Scyths, Tatars, and Turks. The last request is the only classical allusion in the poem; the poet asks for a return to the age of precious gold, a common allusion in Ronsard, where people lived naturally and freely.

Also in 1554, Ronsard began the frustrating attempt to produce a national epic of France, La Franciade (1572). The poem was to be modeled after Vergil’s Aeneid (c. 29-19 b.c.e.) and deal with the legendary founding of France. He published fragments of the poem over the years and one book for the royal family; however, even though he wished to master all poetic forms including the epic, as the greatest poets did, the ambitious work was never completed and seems to have been alien to Ronsard’s genius. His gift was for the lyric, not the epic.

In 1555, Ronsard found a form midway between the lyric and the epic in the first book of Les Hymnes (1555-1556). The subjects for these poems were lofty and general. For example, there is a hymn to eternity and one on philosophy. Later, he wrote a sequence on the four seasons. The most interesting poem in this collection is, perhaps, “Hymne des astres,” a long poem on the mythic history of the stars.

In 1556, he published the Nouvelle Continuation des amours and the second book of hymns. In the new Nouvelle Continuation des amours, Ronsard wrote poems on a mysterious rural woman called Marie. These poems use many of the familiar strategies of the sonnet tradition, including the carpe diem motif. They are, however, more immediate and intense in their approach to the beloved. For example, in one poem Ronsard urges Marie to rise and join nature, which is already active. At the end, the poet states that he will teach her through kisses on her eyes and breast. There is no Petrarchan coyness here.

In 1559, Ronsard finally achieved the preferment for which he had wished in order to make his life less precarious. He was appointed counseiller to King Henry II, and he dropped Nouvelle Continuation des amours for poems on political and religious subjects. He defended the royal cause and the Catholics against the Protestants. In 1562, he published Discours des misères de ce temps , appealing to Catherine de Médicis to heal the division within the country. Yet the religious conflict continued, and, although Ronsard defended the Catholic cause, he was moderate and always counseled peace and toleration . In 1563, he wrote Remonstrance au peuple de France , scolding his country folk for their failure to be reasonable and preserve peace. He also tried to influence the new king Charles IX by writing a plan for his education and training. Ronsard’s strong desire for harmony is a reflection of the structure and themes of his poems.

Ronsard also continued his sonnet writing during this period and created one of his finest works, Sonnets pour Hélène (1578; Sonnets for Helen , 1932). The poems have an intensity and feeling about the experience of love that goes beyond the mythic approach of the Cassandra sonnets. In “Quand vous serez bien veille” (“When You Are Old”), he warns Hélène that she will grow old and live only in the memory and blessing Ronsard’s poems will give, an important theme in William Shakespeare’s sonnets. The final lines turn from a warning to a plea, “take me, living, now.”

After the triumph of Sonnets for Helen, Ronsard completed Les Derniers vers , which marked a change in tone and approach. It was published the year after his death. The poems do not speak of love but of a rejection of the body. Appropriately, one of his last poems is to his soul; his soul, which had been his body’s host, at death will be purged of remorse and rancor. The last lines are a farewell: “Ladies and gentlemen, my talk/ Is finished: follow your/ Fortune. Don’t trouble/ My rest. I will sleep now.”

In his last years, Ronsard’s health failed. He suffered from a variety of ailments, including gout. He died at Saint-Cosme in 1585, at the age of sixty-one.

Significance

Ronsard remains an important historical figure in the development of European literature. He transformed the rediscovered texts and myths of the Greeks and Romans into new French poems. The poetic tradition and the range of allusion and reference could not be the same after his poems. He wrote extensively in every available poetic genre of his time. In addition, he wrote some of the finest lyrics and one of the most influential sonnet sequences of the period. French and European poetry would not have been the same without Ronsard.

There is no doubt that Ronsard wrote too much; there are a huge number of poems, and many are of interest only to students of the period. In addition, he tended to lean on classical mythology to do the work of structuring many of his poems. The job of a critic or reader is to separate the poems that are permanent and valuable from those that are ephemeral or dated, so that one might see the value of a poet who was exalted in his own lifetime and who still deserves careful and proper attention.

Ronsard’s Major Works

1549

• L’Hymne de France

1550

• Odes

1552

• Cinquième livre des odes

1552

• Les Amours

1554

• Le Bocage

1555-1556

• Les Hymnes

1555

• Continuation des amours

1556

• Nouvelle Continuation des amours

1562

• Discours des misères de ce temps

1562

• Remonstrance au peuple de France

1563

• Résponce aux injures et calomnies de je ne sçay quels prédicans et ministres de Genève

1565

• Abbregé de l art poëtique français

1572

• La Franciade

1578

• Sonnets pour Hélène (Sonnets for Helen, 1932)

1578

• Les Amours sur la mort de Marie

1586

• Les Derniers vers

Bibliography

Bishop, Morris. Ronsard, Prince of Poets. New York: Oxford University Press, 1940. Reprint. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959. An old but readable biography of the poet. The author claims knowledge of Ronsard’s inmost thoughts and provides some important background information.

Cave, Terence, ed. Ronsard the Poet. London: Methuen, 1973. An excellent collection of essays on Ronsard’s poetic art. Cave’s essay “Ronsard’s Mythological Universe” is especially good. There are useful essays on Ronsard’s conception of beauty and on the last poems.

Jones, K. R. W. Pierre de Ronsard. New York: Twayne, 1970. An excellent introduction to the life and works of Ronsard. Jones places more emphasis on the poems than the life, but he does give the necessary facts. Contains a chronology and a bibliography.

McGowan, Margaret M. Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. McGowan connects the poetry of Ronsard to structures found in the art of the period. This is an excellent interdisciplinary study with illustrations of paintings and sculpture. The book is learned but not leaden.

Shapiro, Norman R., ed. and trans. Lyrics of the French Renaissance: Marot, Du Bellay, Ronsard. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002. English translations of Ronsard’s poetry, together with one of his fellow La Pléiade poets and their major precursor. Includes illustrations and bibliographic references.

Silver, Isadore. The Intellectual Evolution of Ronsard. St. Louis, Mo.: Washington University Press, 1969. A good study of the early years of Ronsard’s intellectual life and how his association with Dorat and the accompanying introduction to the classics of ancient Greece prepared him for a life as a poet.

Smith, Malcolm C. Renaissance Studies: Articles 1966-1994. Edited by Ruth Calder. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1999. Smith was a major Ronsard scholar, and thirteen of the twenty-eight articles collected in this posthumous anthology are devoted to Ronsard’s work. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Smith, Malcolm C. Ronsard and Du Bellay Versus Bèze: Allusiveness in Renaissance Literary Texts. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1995. Study of the war of words carried out by Ronsard and Du Bellay against another French poet, Théodore de Bèze, through allusions hidden within their poems. Provides insight into the social and literary context of La Pléiade, as well as the social function of Renaissance poetry. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Willett, Laura, ed. and trans. Poetry and Language in Sixteenth-Century France: Du Bellay, Ronsard, Sébillet. Toronto, Canada: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2004. Translations of four works of criticism and poetic theory, including one by Ronsard and two by Du Bellay. A valuable source of insight into the poetics of La Pléiade. Includes bibliographic references.

Wilson, D. B. Ronsard: Poet of Nature. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1961. Deals fully with one of the most important subjects of Ronsard and connects the poet to the tradition of the descriptive poem in that period. Good discussion of Ronsard’s use of landscape and his typical strategies in using nature as subject and context.