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Du Bellay and Hellenic Poetry a Cursory View
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Du Bellay had a very fair grasp of the significance of choreography in ancient Greek poetry. In his Hymne de la Santé,“ addressed to Robert de La Haye upon the latter's recovery from a severe illness, he tells us that when Death had beckoned to his friend with her pale hand, the laurel had bowed her tresses by the riverside, and the fountain of Hippocrene had ceased to flow—
- N'oyant plus la voix sacree, Qui agree
- Aux boys, qui sont tousjours verds,
- Et la nombreuse cadance De la danse
- Qui s'animoit soubs tes vers.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945
References
1 For abbreviations employed in the following pages see PMLA, lx, 66.
2 v, 266, 37 f.
3 iv, 47, 91 f. Some knowledge on the part of Du Bellay of the technical aspects of choreography as practiced by the ancients may be inferred from the fact that the “Ode au Prince de Melphe” is “divisee en treze pauses.” As Laumonier has observed (RPL 390, note 2) the origin of the pause may be found in Marot's psalter. Du Bellay's use of the device, however, is essentially different from that of Marot, and even from that of Ronsard (“Defloration de Lede,” Lau. n, 67; “Ravissement de Cephale,” ibid., 133), for Du Bellay applied this word to a structural unit consisting of strophe, antistrophe and epode, that is to say, to a poetic form which is peculiarly characteristic of the Pindaric ode. It would appear that Du Bellay had in mind the cessation of the dance during the singing of the epode, and employed the word pause by metonymy for a complete structural segment of the Pindaric ode.
4 The rhyme.
5 Def. 263, and see note 4 for the following observation of Chamard: “C'est une des idées chères à la Pléiade que de rapprocher autant que possible la poésie de la musique.”
6 Def. 208 f. Cf. 225 f.
7 iii, 21.
8 iii, 87, 13 f. Cf. 51, 5 f.; 60, 1f.; 83, 153; 93, 37; etc.
9 See the next quotation.
10 Def. 113 f.
11 Def. 261 f.
12 Def. 221 f.
13 iv, 47, 81 f.
14 Def. 282. In view of the trivial nature of some of the highly complicated verse forms in which the Rhétoriqueurs specialized, we must not suppose that a contradiction exists between Du Bellay's strictures against the limitations imposed upon poetry by his literary predecessors, and his unconcerned acceptance of the limitations of the sonnet form.
15 RPL 327.
16 Ol. vi, 22 f.
17 Pyth. iii, 59 f.
18 Nem. iv, 36 f.
19 iv, 16, 277 f.
20 iv, 110, 487 f.
21 v, 356, 157 f.
22 Def. 209 f.
23 Ars Poetica 240 f.
24 Le Quintil Horatian quoted in Def. 211, note 1.
25 i, 78, Son. lx, 11.
26 iii, 135, 6.
27 iii, 60, 3.
28 vi, 134, 75 f.
29 iv, 177, 272.
30 ii, 287, Son. xxxix, 12 f.
31 Lau. i, 73, 13 f.
32 Ol. ii, 83 f. Full many a swift arrow have I beneath mine arm, within my quiver, many an arrow that is vocal to the wise; but for the crowd they need interpreters. The true poet is he who knoweth much by gift of nature, but they that have only learnt the lore of song, and are turbulent and intemperate of tongue, like a pair of crows, chatter in vain against the god-like bird of Zeus. Tr. Sir J. E. Sandys, The Odes of Pindar (London, Heinemann, 1930). (Loeb Classical Library.)
33 iv, 174, 211 f.
34 v, 298, 361 f.
35 v, 359, 226 f.
36 Not that Du Bellay failed to recognize the correct principle and to state it in irreproachable terms: “… c'est chose accordée entre les plus scavans, le naturel faire plus sans la doctrine que la doctrine sans le naturel.” (Def. 193; cf. v, 4, 25 f.) But the universal entraînement toward the discovery and exploitation of the purely material and external aspects of classical antiquity was so powerfully felt at that time, that comparatively few individuals were able sufficiently to resist the momentum of it, so as to place considerations of significance before considerations of form. Antiquity was still so young in their experience.—How profoundly the opposition of vulgaire and érudit entered into the spirit of French Renaissance literature may be observed from the following passages in the poetry of Du Bellay, which in this respect runs strongly with the general current: Vulgaire: Vol. I, 123, Son. cxiv, 1-4, which so clearly and energetically formulate the doctrine of esotericism (after Horace, Odes, iii, i, 1-4) that they merit quotation:
Arriere, arriere, ô mechant Populaire!
O que je hay ce faulx peuple ignorant!
Doctes espris, favorisez les vers
Que veult chanter l'humble prestre des Muses.
Vol. II: 287, Son. xxxix, 13. Vol. III: 52, 18; 58, 12. Vol. IV: 37, 14; 174, 216; 177, 272. Vol. V: 66, 171; 298, 361; 359, 226; 364, 55; 371, 91 and 105; 382, 122. Vol. VI: 118, 79; 134, 78; 137, 139; 195, 37; 206, 233. Erudit: Vol. I: 78, Son. lx, 11; 115, Son. civ, 14. Vol. II: 57, Son. viii, 7; 223, Son. v, 4; 239, Son. vii, 6; 286, Son. xxxix, 4; ibid., 6 and 14; 287, Son. xl, 3. Vol. III: 42, 49; 51, 13; 57, 5; 60, 3; 131, 24; 135, 6; 146, 30. Vol. IV: 37, 13; 38, 19; 39, 43; 40, 58; 136, 138; 145, 3; 147, 49; 174, 209; 175, 220; 181, 39; 185, 22. Vol. V: 146, 128; 267, 84; 357, 189; 362, 18. Vol. VI: 70, 1; 165, 96. Chamard (Def. 316, note 7) has some excellent observations on the poetic contempt of the “vulgar herd” prevalent among writers of the French Renaissance: “Ce mépris du vulgaire, systématique, intransigeant,—on l'a souvent redit,—est la plus grande erreur de la Pléiade. Elle a conçu la poésie comme une oeuvre aristocratique, qui devait n'être faite que par des savants et pour des savants, sans lien aucun avec la foule. Il n'est pas d'idée qu'elle ait répétée plus complaisamment. Bien que dans la pratique elle ait dû rabattre de ses prétensions,—en théorie du moins elle est restée fidèle à son premier principe. Les textes surabondent qui pourraient le prouver.” See the rest of the note where Chamard reproduces typical passages from Du Bellay, Pontus de Tyard, Ronsard and Antoine de Baïf.—In the paragraphs of the text immediately preceding we have confined ourselves to a discussion of the premises upon which Du Bellay based his theory of an erudite poetic style; in the present note we have endeavored to show the ubiquity of these premises in his writings and in the writings of the Renaissance poets generally. It hardly seems necessary to add actual examples of Du Bellay's classical erudition. They abound in the pages of this article, or on any page of the poet's work. The reader who is interested in the opposition of docte-ignorant or vulgaire-érudit will find it mythologized with great learning in the Musagnæmachie (iv, 3 f.), a title which is in itself almost a recapitulation of the essential elements of the doctrine of esotericism. Pages 12-15 of the same composition contain a paean in praise of the learning of the poets and humanists of the French Renaissance.
37 Pyth. v, 72 f.
38 v, 348, note 1 and 349, note 1. See ii, 183, Son. clxv for an abridgement, addressed, however, to d'Avanson, of the long Pindaric ode to the Prince of Melfi. It is curious to compare the two versions. They appear to have been composed at about the same period, 1555-56, according to the conjecture of Chamard, which is strongly supported by the close similarity in styles.
39 Passages of this sort, the conscious methodology excepted, may be matched in almost any ode of Pindar.
40 Loe. cit., p. 353, 91 f.
41 Gaiffe, Art poëtique françoys of Sibilet (Paris, Cornély, 1910), p. 151, note 1.
42 Chamard, Def. 208, note 3, end.
43 Def. 212.
44 iii, 94, 9.
45 iii, 104, 1f.
46 iii, 51, 1 f. Cf. v, 350, 24.
47 v, 357, 181 f. That a concert of lyric poetry is the subject of this description is clear from the context.
48 iv, 137 1 f. and 143, 157 f.
49 Ars Poetica 83 f. To the lyre the Muse allotted the gods and the sons of the gods, the victorious boxer and the horse that comes in first in the race, the anxieties of young men in love, and wine that sets free the tongue. Cf. the very similar passage in Horace's Odes, iv, ii, 13 f.
50 Def. 209.
51 iii, 93, 37 f.
52 v, 349, 7 f.
53 v, 364, 61 f. Cf. iii, 83, 153 f.; 104, 7 f.
54 Ol. ii, 1 f. Ye hymns that rule the lyre! what god, what hero, aye, and what man shall we loudly praise? Tr. Sandys.