Clément Marot
Encyclopedia
Clément Marot was a French poet of the Renaissance
period.
, the capital of the province of Quercy
, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot
(c. 1463-1523), whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman
from the Caen
region and was also a poet. Jean held the post of escripvain (a cross between poet laureate
and historiographer) to Anne of Brittany
, Queen of France. Clément was the child of his second wife. The boy was "brought into France" — it is his own expression, and is not unnoteworthy as showing the strict sense in which that term was still used at the beginning of the 16th century — in 1506. He appears to have been educated at the University of Paris
, and to have then begun studying law
. Jean Marot instructed his son in the fashionable forms of verse-making, which called for some formal training.
It was the time of the rhétoriqueurs, poets who combined stilted language with a fondness for the allegorical manner of the 15th century and the most complicated and artificial forms of the ballade
and the rondeau
. Clément began as a "rhétoriqueur," though he later helped overthrow this style. He wrote panegyric
s to Guillaume Cretin
and translated Virgil
's first eclogue in 1512. He soon gave up the study of law and became page to Nicolas de Neuville, seigneur de Villeroy
, which led to his introduction into court life. The house of Valois, which would hold the throne of France for the greater part of a century, was devoted to literature.
, Clément presented to him his Judgment of Minos
, and shortly afterward he was either styled or styled himself facteur (poet) de la reine to Queen Claude. In 1519 he was attached to the suite of Marguerite d'Alençon, the king's sister, (later to become Marguerite de Navarre
), a great patron of the arts. He was also a great favourite of Francis himself, attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold
in 1520, and duly celebrated it in verse. In the next year he was at the camp in Flanders
, and wrote of the horrors of war.
Marot, like most of Marguerite's literary court, was attracted by her grace, her kindness, and her intellectual accomplishments, but there is no grounds for thinking that they had a romantic relationship. During this time his poetic style began to change, becoming much less artificial. Some of his poems praise a lady named "Diane", whom some have identified with Diane de Poitiers
.
, but there are no grounds for supposing that Marot was wounded or shared the king's fate, and he was back in Paris again by the beginning of 1525. However, Marguerite for intellectual reasons, and her brother for political, had until then favoured the double movement of "Aufklärung", partly humanist, partly reforming, which distinguished the beginning of the century. Formidable opposition to both forms of innovation now began to appear, and Marot, never particularly prudent, was arrested on a charge of heresy
and lodged in the Grand Châtelet
in February 1526. This was only a foretaste of his coming trouble, and a friendly prelate
, acting for Marguerite, arranged his release before Easter
. The imprisonment caused him to write a vigorous poem entitled Enfer (hell), later imitated by his friend Etienne Dolet
. His father died about this time, and Marot seems to have been appointed in Jean's place as valet de chambre
to the king. He was certainly a member of the royal household in 1528 with a stipend of 250 livres. In 1530, probably, he married. The following year he was once again in trouble, this time for attempting to rescue a prisoner, and was again released, this time after Marot wrote the king one of his most famous poems, appealing for his release.
In 1532 he published (it had perhaps appeared three years earlier), under the title of Adolescence Clémentine, the first printed collection of his works, which was very popular and was frequently reprinted with additions. Unfortunately, the poet's enemies ensured that Marot was implicated in the 1534 Affair of the Placards
, and this time he fled.
in France -- as steadfast as her sister-in-law Marguerite, and even more efficacious, because her dominions were outside France. At Ferrara his work there included the celebrated Blasons (a descriptive poem, improved upon medieval models), which set all the verse-writers of France imitating them. The blason was defined by Thomas Sibilet as a perpetual praise or continuous vituperation of its subject. The blasons of Marot's followers were printed in 1543 with the title of Blasons anatomiques du corps féminin.
. He went to Venice
, but before very long Pope Paul III
remonstrated with Francis I on the severity with which the Protestants were treated, and they were allowed to return to Paris on condition of recanting their errors. Marot returned with the rest, and abjured his heresy at Lyon
. In 1539 Francis gave him a house and grounds in the suburbs.
It was at this time that his famous and influential translations of the Psalms
appeared. Each courtier identified his or her favorite psalms, and the poems were sung in the court and in the city. It is said, probably with exaggeration, that these translations did more than anything else to advance the cause of the Protestant Reformation
in France. Marot's translations of the Psalms continued to be sung for centuries by Protestant congregations.
. Half the verse-writers of France aligned themselves as Marotiques or Sagontiques, and a great deal of versified abuse was exchanged. Victory, as far as wit was concerned, remained with Marot, but his biographers suggest that a certain amount of ill-will was created against him by the squabble, and that, as in Dolet's case, his subsequent misfortunes were partly the result of his own rashness.
He edited the works of his fellow poet François Villon
.
The publication of the Psalms gave the Sorbonne the opportunity to condemn Marot. In 1543 it was evident that he could not rely on the protection of Francis. Marot accordingly fled to Geneva
; but the stars were now decidedly against him. He had, like most of his friends, been at least as much of a freethinker as a Protestant, and this was fatal to his reputation in the austere city of Calvin
. He again had to flee, and made his way into Piedmont, and he died at Turin
in the autumn of 1544.
men of letters naturally attached themselves as dependents to the great. Such scanty knowledge as we have of his relations with his equals is favourable to him. He certainly at one time quarrelled with Dolet, or at least wrote a violent epigram
against him, for which there is no known cause. But, as Dolet quarrelled with almost every friend he ever had, and in two or three cases played them the shabbiest of tricks, the presumption is not against Marot in this matter. With other poets like Mellin de Saint-Gelais
and Brodeau, with prose writers like François Rabelais
and Bonaventure des Périers
, he was always on excellent terms. And whatever may have been his personal weaknesses, his importance in the history of French literature is very great, and was long underrated. Since he came immediately before the great literary reform of La Pléiade
, Marot was both eclipsed and decried by the partakers in that reform.
However, Marot himself was a reformer, who carried his own reform as far as it would go. His early work was in the rhétoriqueur style, the distinguishing characteristics of which are elaborate metre and rhyme, allegoric matter and pedantic language. In his second stage he entirely emancipated himself from this, and became one of the easiest, least affected and most vernacular poets of France. He was very influential to the lighter verse-writers that followed him.
In his third period he lost a little of this flowing grace and ease, but acquired something in stateliness, while he certainly lost nothing in wit. Marot is the first poet who strikes readers of French as being distinctively modern. He is not as great a poet as François Villon
nor as some of his successors of the Pléiade, but he is much less antiquated than Villon and not as elaborately artificial as the Pléiade poets. He succeeded in breaking up and making flexible the stiff forms and stiffer language of the 15th century, and at times could be almost too vernacular and pedestrian. His poems may lack a certain passion and grandeur, but they are graceful examples of vers de société
.
in 1538 and 1544. In the second of these the arrangement of his poems which has been accepted in later issues was first adopted. In 1596 an enlarged edition was edited by Francois Mizihre. Others of later date are those of N. Lenglet du Fresnoy (the Hague, 1731) and P. Jannet (1868–1872; new ed., 1873–1876), on the whole the best, but there is a very good selection with a still better introduction by Charles d'Hericault, the joint editor of the Jannet edition in the larger Collection Garner (no date). From an elaborate edition by G. Guiffrey only Vol. II and III appeared during his lifetime. Robert Yve-Plessis and Jean Plattard completed the edition in 5 vols (Paris, 1874-1931).
The first 'scientific' edition is by C.A. Mayer in 6 vols.(1958-1980), which follows the arrangement of the material in 'genres' (like the edition 1544)
The last complete scientific edition is by Gerard Defaux in 2 vols. (1990-1992). Defaux adopts the edition principles of Marot himself, as deductible from his own 1538 edition, mentioned above.
There are numerous modern editions.
A freely accessible internet version of this edition can be found at gallica.bnf.fr/Classique
s, particularly by his contemporary Claudin de Sermisy
.
Douglas Hofstadter
's book Le Ton beau de Marot
, deals with the problems of translation, and includes several dozen different translations of Marot's poem A une damoyselle malade.
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
period.
Youth
Marot was born at CahorsCahors
Cahors is the capital of the Lot department in south-western France.Its site is dramatic being contained on three sides within an udder shaped twist in the river Lot known as a 'presqu'île' or peninsula...
, the capital of the province of Quercy
Quercy
Quercy is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and Auvergne....
, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot
Jean Marot
Jean Marot was a French poet and the father of French Renaissance poet Clément Marot. He is often grouped with the "Grands Rhétoriqueurs"....
(c. 1463-1523), whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
from the Caen
Caen
Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....
region and was also a poet. Jean held the post of escripvain (a cross between poet laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
and historiographer) to Anne of Brittany
Anne of Brittany
Anne, Duchess of Brittany , also known as Anna of Brittany , was a Breton ruler, who was to become queen to two successive French kings. She was born in Nantes, Brittany, and was the daughter of Francis II, Duke of Brittany and Margaret of Foix. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Eleanor of...
, Queen of France. Clément was the child of his second wife. The boy was "brought into France" — it is his own expression, and is not unnoteworthy as showing the strict sense in which that term was still used at the beginning of the 16th century — in 1506. He appears to have been educated at the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, and to have then begun studying law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
. Jean Marot instructed his son in the fashionable forms of verse-making, which called for some formal training.
It was the time of the rhétoriqueurs, poets who combined stilted language with a fondness for the allegorical manner of the 15th century and the most complicated and artificial forms of the ballade
Ballade
The ballade is a form of French poetry. It was one of the three formes fixes and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries....
and the rondeau
Rondeau (poetry)
This article is about the poetry form. For other uses, see Rondeau.A rondeau is a form of French poetry with 15 lines written on two rhymes, as well as a corresponding musical form developed to set this characteristic verse structure...
. Clément began as a "rhétoriqueur," though he later helped overthrow this style. He wrote panegyric
Panegyric
A panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...
s to Guillaume Cretin
Guillaume Crétin
-Life:He was treasurer of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, then cantor of the Sainte-Chapelle de Paris and ordinary almoner to Francis I of France....
and translated Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's first eclogue in 1512. He soon gave up the study of law and became page to Nicolas de Neuville, seigneur de Villeroy
Villeroy
-Places:*Villeroy, Quebec, a municipality in the province of Québec*Villeroy, Seine-et-Marne, a commune in the French region of Île-de-France*Villeroy, Somme, a commune in the French region of Picardie*Villeroy, Yonne, a commune in the French region of Bourgogne...
, which led to his introduction into court life. The house of Valois, which would hold the throne of France for the greater part of a century, was devoted to literature.
At the French court
As early as 1514, before the accession of King Francis IFrancis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
, Clément presented to him his Judgment of Minos
Minos
In Greek mythology, Minos was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every year he made King Aegeus pick seven men and seven women to go to Daedalus' creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by The Minotaur. After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades. The Minoan civilization of Crete...
, and shortly afterward he was either styled or styled himself facteur (poet) de la reine to Queen Claude. In 1519 he was attached to the suite of Marguerite d'Alençon, the king's sister, (later to become Marguerite de Navarre
Marguerite de Navarre
Marguerite de Navarre , also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was the queen consort of Henry II of Navarre...
), a great patron of the arts. He was also a great favourite of Francis himself, attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold
Field of the Cloth of Gold
The Field of Cloth of Gold is the name given to a place in Balinghem, between Guînes and Ardres, in France, near Calais. It was the site of a meeting that took place from 7 June to 24 June 1520, between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France. The meeting was arranged to increase...
in 1520, and duly celebrated it in verse. In the next year he was at the camp in Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, and wrote of the horrors of war.
Marot, like most of Marguerite's literary court, was attracted by her grace, her kindness, and her intellectual accomplishments, but there is no grounds for thinking that they had a romantic relationship. During this time his poetic style began to change, becoming much less artificial. Some of his poems praise a lady named "Diane", whom some have identified with Diane de Poitiers
Diane de Poitiers
Diane de Poitiers was a French noblewoman and a prominent courtier at the courts of kings Francis I and his son, Henry II of France. She became notorious as the latter's favourite mistress...
.
In Paris
In 1524, Marot accompanied King Francis on his disastrous Italian campaign. The king was taken prisoner at the Battle of PaviaBattle of Pavia
The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–26.A Spanish-Imperial army under the nominal command of Charles de Lannoy attacked the French army under the personal command of Francis I of France in the great hunting preserve...
, but there are no grounds for supposing that Marot was wounded or shared the king's fate, and he was back in Paris again by the beginning of 1525. However, Marguerite for intellectual reasons, and her brother for political, had until then favoured the double movement of "Aufklärung", partly humanist, partly reforming, which distinguished the beginning of the century. Formidable opposition to both forms of innovation now began to appear, and Marot, never particularly prudent, was arrested on a charge of heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
and lodged in the Grand Châtelet
Grand Châtelet
The Grand Châtelet was a stronghold in Ancien Régime Paris, on the right bank of the Seine, on the site of what is now the Place du Châtelet; it contained a court and police headquarters and a number of prisons....
in February 1526. This was only a foretaste of his coming trouble, and a friendly prelate
Prelate
A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means "carry before", "be set above or over" or "prefer"; hence, a prelate is one set over others.-Related...
, acting for Marguerite, arranged his release before Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
. The imprisonment caused him to write a vigorous poem entitled Enfer (hell), later imitated by his friend Etienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet was a French scholar, translator and printer.-Early life:He was born in Orléans. A doubtful tradition makes him the illegitimate son of Francis I; but it is evident that he was at least connected with some family of rank and wealth.From Orléans he was taken to Paris about 1521, and...
. His father died about this time, and Marot seems to have been appointed in Jean's place as valet de chambre
Valet de chambre
Valet de chambre , or varlet de chambre, was a court appointment introduced in the late Middle Ages, common from the 14th century onwards. Royal Households had many persons appointed at any time...
to the king. He was certainly a member of the royal household in 1528 with a stipend of 250 livres. In 1530, probably, he married. The following year he was once again in trouble, this time for attempting to rescue a prisoner, and was again released, this time after Marot wrote the king one of his most famous poems, appealing for his release.
In 1532 he published (it had perhaps appeared three years earlier), under the title of Adolescence Clémentine, the first printed collection of his works, which was very popular and was frequently reprinted with additions. Unfortunately, the poet's enemies ensured that Marot was implicated in the 1534 Affair of the Placards
Affair of the placards
The Affair of the Placards was an incident in which anti-Catholic posters appeared in public places in Paris and in four major provincial cities: Blois, Rouen, Tours and Orléans, overnight during 17 October 1534. One was actually posted on the bedchamber door of King Francis I at Amboise, an...
, and this time he fled.
In Ferrara
He passed through Nérac, the court of Navarre, and made his way to Renée, duchess of Ferrara, a supporter of the Protestant ReformationProtestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
in France -- as steadfast as her sister-in-law Marguerite, and even more efficacious, because her dominions were outside France. At Ferrara his work there included the celebrated Blasons (a descriptive poem, improved upon medieval models), which set all the verse-writers of France imitating them. The blason was defined by Thomas Sibilet as a perpetual praise or continuous vituperation of its subject. The blasons of Marot's followers were printed in 1543 with the title of Blasons anatomiques du corps féminin.
Back in Paris
Duchess Renée was not able to persuade her husband, Ercole d'Este, to share her views, and Marot had to leave FerraraFerrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
. He went to Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, but before very long Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation...
remonstrated with Francis I on the severity with which the Protestants were treated, and they were allowed to return to Paris on condition of recanting their errors. Marot returned with the rest, and abjured his heresy at Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
. In 1539 Francis gave him a house and grounds in the suburbs.
It was at this time that his famous and influential translations of the Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
appeared. Each courtier identified his or her favorite psalms, and the poems were sung in the court and in the city. It is said, probably with exaggeration, that these translations did more than anything else to advance the cause of the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
in France. Marot's translations of the Psalms continued to be sung for centuries by Protestant congregations.
Quarrel
At the same time Marot engaged in a literary quarrel with a lesser poet named Sagon, who represented the reactionary SorbonneSorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
. Half the verse-writers of France aligned themselves as Marotiques or Sagontiques, and a great deal of versified abuse was exchanged. Victory, as far as wit was concerned, remained with Marot, but his biographers suggest that a certain amount of ill-will was created against him by the squabble, and that, as in Dolet's case, his subsequent misfortunes were partly the result of his own rashness.
He edited the works of his fellow poet François Villon
François Villon
François Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...
.
The publication of the Psalms gave the Sorbonne the opportunity to condemn Marot. In 1543 it was evident that he could not rely on the protection of Francis. Marot accordingly fled to Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
; but the stars were now decidedly against him. He had, like most of his friends, been at least as much of a freethinker as a Protestant, and this was fatal to his reputation in the austere city of Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
. He again had to flee, and made his way into Piedmont, and he died at Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
in the autumn of 1544.
Character
In character Marot seems to have been cheerful, good-humoured and amiable enough, but probably not much disposed to an elaborately moral life and conversation or to serious reflection. He has sometimes been charged with a want of independence of character; but it is fair to remember that in the RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
men of letters naturally attached themselves as dependents to the great. Such scanty knowledge as we have of his relations with his equals is favourable to him. He certainly at one time quarrelled with Dolet, or at least wrote a violent epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
against him, for which there is no known cause. But, as Dolet quarrelled with almost every friend he ever had, and in two or three cases played them the shabbiest of tricks, the presumption is not against Marot in this matter. With other poets like Mellin de Saint-Gelais
Mellin de Saint-Gelais
Mellin de Saint-Gelais was a French poet of the Renaissance and Poet Laureate of Francis I of France.- Life :...
and Brodeau, with prose writers like François Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
and Bonaventure des Périers
Bonaventure des Périers
Bonaventure des Périers was a French author.He was born of a noble family at Arnay-le-duc in Burgundy at the end of the fifteenth century....
, he was always on excellent terms. And whatever may have been his personal weaknesses, his importance in the history of French literature is very great, and was long underrated. Since he came immediately before the great literary reform of La Pléiade
La Pléiade
The Pléiade is the name given to 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 of seven Alexandrian poets and...
, Marot was both eclipsed and decried by the partakers in that reform.
However, Marot himself was a reformer, who carried his own reform as far as it would go. His early work was in the rhétoriqueur style, the distinguishing characteristics of which are elaborate metre and rhyme, allegoric matter and pedantic language. In his second stage he entirely emancipated himself from this, and became one of the easiest, least affected and most vernacular poets of France. He was very influential to the lighter verse-writers that followed him.
In his third period he lost a little of this flowing grace and ease, but acquired something in stateliness, while he certainly lost nothing in wit. Marot is the first poet who strikes readers of French as being distinctively modern. He is not as great a poet as François Villon
François Villon
François Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...
nor as some of his successors of the Pléiade, but he is much less antiquated than Villon and not as elaborately artificial as the Pléiade poets. He succeeded in breaking up and making flexible the stiff forms and stiffer language of the 15th century, and at times could be almost too vernacular and pedestrian. His poems may lack a certain passion and grandeur, but they are graceful examples of vers de société
Vers de société
Vers de société, a term for social or familiar poetry, which was originally borrowed from the French, and has now come to rank as an English expression.-In France:...
.
Editions
The most important early editions of Marot's Œuvres were published at LyonLyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
in 1538 and 1544. In the second of these the arrangement of his poems which has been accepted in later issues was first adopted. In 1596 an enlarged edition was edited by Francois Mizihre. Others of later date are those of N. Lenglet du Fresnoy (the Hague, 1731) and P. Jannet (1868–1872; new ed., 1873–1876), on the whole the best, but there is a very good selection with a still better introduction by Charles d'Hericault, the joint editor of the Jannet edition in the larger Collection Garner (no date). From an elaborate edition by G. Guiffrey only Vol. II and III appeared during his lifetime. Robert Yve-Plessis and Jean Plattard completed the edition in 5 vols (Paris, 1874-1931).
The first 'scientific' edition is by C.A. Mayer in 6 vols.(1958-1980), which follows the arrangement of the material in 'genres' (like the edition 1544)
The last complete scientific edition is by Gerard Defaux in 2 vols. (1990-1992). Defaux adopts the edition principles of Marot himself, as deductible from his own 1538 edition, mentioned above.
There are numerous modern editions.
A freely accessible internet version of this edition can be found at gallica.bnf.fr/Classique
Influence
Many of Marot's texts were set as chansonChanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
s, particularly by his contemporary Claudin de Sermisy
Claudin de Sermisy
Claudin de Sermisy was a French composer of the Renaissance. Along with Clément Janequin he was one of the most renowned composers of French chansons in the early 16th century; in addition he was a significant composer of sacred music...
.
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
's book Le Ton beau de Marot
Le Ton beau de Marot
Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language , published by Basic Books in 1997, is a book by Douglas Hofstadter in which he explores the meaning, strengths, failings, and beauty of translation....
, deals with the problems of translation, and includes several dozen different translations of Marot's poem A une damoyselle malade.