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INTRODUCTION
I
THE conquests of French prose, both as an international medium of cultural communication and as an incredibly supple vehicle for the thoughts of the great French essayists and novelists, have been so outstanding that even in their homeland the achievements of the French poets—aside from a few magical names in the Symbolist and Surrealist generations—are often neglected. Such neglect is unjust. The French poetic heritage is one of great richness and can boast of many unique contributions to world literature. Moreover, in the thirteenth century, in the crucial sixteenth, in the nineteenth and twentieth, the influence of French poets on their counterparts in England (not to mention other nations of the Continent and the Americas) has been decisive.
As in many other countries, so too in France the earliest literary monuments are in poetic form, a form that already testifies to a long, now-silent evolution. Several verse biographies of saints date from the eleventh century. The distinguished series of epic chansons de geste (the most famous being the Chanson de Roland) begin early in the twelfth century, about the same time as the first narrative poems based on figures and events of ancient history. Chrestien de Troyes and Marie de France introduce themes from Celtic legend in the second half of the twelfth century, which also witnesses the rise of the short lyric: dance poems, “romances” (in the Iberian sense) and a wealth of forms, simple or subtle, inspired by the Provençal poets.
The thirteenth century sees the flowering of the medieval lyric, poems of love and good cheer, of politics and religion, in a variety of forms not matched again until the nineteenth century; alongside scores of anonymous pieces we find works by such vibrant personalities as the jongleurs Colin Muset and Rutebeuf. This is also the century of the fabliaux, of charming verse plays, of didactic works, of the much-imitated Roman de Renart animal “epics” and of that most influential of all allegories, the Roman de la Rose, begun by Guillaume de Lorris and completed some fifty years after his death by Jean de Meung.
In the greatly troubled fourteenth century many old forms live on with diminished vigor; the lyric becomes increasingly formalized—with great emphasis on such types as the rondeau, virelai and ballade—in the works of Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) and Eustache Deschamps (c. 1346-c. 1406).
By the fifteenth century, at which point this anthology begins, French poetry has already been endowed with the verse forms which will chiefly characterize it henceforth, the decasyllable, the octosyllable and the famous alexandrine; with several stanza complexes (such as the ballade) which will be used for centuries to come; and with a splendid tradition of themes, “mythologies” and attitudes. The fifteenth-century poets represented here, CHARLES D’ORLÉANS and VILLON, are perfecters, not inventors, of form, however much they enrich the emotive content of French poetry. It is interesting to note how this prince and this hungry highwayman, meeting at the close of the Middle Ages, symbolize the incomparable range in social and economic status of the poets of this exciting period.
Faithful to aging medieval fancies but already touched by Italian humanism, CLÉMENT MAROT is a pivotal figure in the first part of the great Renaissance century. This sixteenth century was to be one in which many poets would enjoy vast personal prestige but would be largely dependent on the patronage of kings and nobles. Exceptional in this respect are the bourgeois poets of the Lyons group (about 1540 to 1560), strongly moved by the forms (especially the sonnet) and themes (especially Petrarchism and Platonism) of their Italian contemporaries; the chief Lyons poets are MAURICE SCÈVE and LOUISE LABÉ.
The influence of the newly rediscovered Greek writers, reaction against the preponderant use of Latin in “serious” literature in France, and the impatient stirrings of fresh young talents: these are the main ingredients of the mid-sixteenth-century poetic revolution of the Pléiade, which introduced the ode and several other forms into French and affected poetic vocabulary profoundly. The history of French literature is punctuated with many a “school” like the Pléiade and many a manifesto like the 1549 Deffence et Illustration, but all the truly important “schools” have really been loosely knit groups of friends or like-minded poets, of whom the most gifted have generally produced their best poems while working out their personal poetic destinies. No other poets of the Pléiade can compete with RONSARD or DU BELLAY, although Jean Antoine de Baïf (1532–1589) and Remy Belleau (1528–1577), to name just two others, deserve attention. Among the many worthy post-Pléiade poets, Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné (1552–1630) is preeminent for his long and impassioned pro-Huguenot work Les Tragiques.
The sixteenth century, one of enormous vitality, was also characterized by tireless experiments with poetic form. Those innovations based on Greek and Latin syllabic quantity, though instructive, were doomed to failure; those involving rhythmic prose or the suppression of rhyme were to have belated echoes in the nineteenth century; those based on contemporary Italian practice were to enjoy tremendous success: not only the sonnet, perfected by the Pléiade and still very much with us, but also the stances, poems made up of equal short stanzas, first imported late in the sixteenth century and of great significance in the seventeenth.
The seventeenth century opens powerfully with the reforms of MALHERBE, who by his restrictive but well-planned regulation of rhythm and vocabulary and his condemnation of the assertive figure or image, may be said to have established the tone of “noble” poetry for the next two hundred years and more. The satirist Mathurin Régnier (1573–1613), a chief source of Molière’s prosody and subject matter, was more a personal than a doctrinal opponent of Malherbe; nevertheless he represents in this period the important elements of thematic freedom and colloquial diction in French poetic history. In fact, as pleasant as the works may be of Malherbe’s two chief disciples, François Maynard (1582–1646) and Racan (Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan, 1589–1670), the most delightful poets of the first half of the century are three whose reckless spirits or adventurous lives, in conjunction with their more unconventional sensibilities (especially a warm feeling for nature), made them impatient of the Malherbian ethos: Théophile de Viau (1590–1626), Tristan L’Hermite (c. 1601–1655) and the protean SAINT-AMANT. Religious poetry, like that of the dramatist Pierre Corneille (1606–1684), is important in this part of the century. The literary epic is also widely practiced, with little success. An essential feature of the period is the importance of female patrons in literary circles. The finest purveyor of light verse for the salons of the précieuses is Vincent Voiture (1598–1648).
The reign of Louis XIV (especially from 1660 to 1700) is often considered the golden, or Classical, era of French literature. The four most eminent representatives of poetry in this period are Jean Racine (1639–1699), whose tragedies and biblical dramas (in alexandrine couplets) contain probably the suavest, most nearly perfect verse in the French language; Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622–1673), whose inventive characterizations outshine poetic form in those of his comedies which employ verse; the highly influential critic and satirist Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711); and that amalgam of Gallic verve and ageless grace, LA FONTAINE, who sums up as well as any one man could the diverse tendencies of his century.
As in the seventeenth, so in the eighteenth century up to the 1789 Revolution, patronage remains important, but the increasing independence of the bourgeoisie even in the arts is exemplified by the phenomenal career of VOLTAIRE. Better known for his prose works, Voltaire nevertheless is the paramount poet of the first two thirds of the century, matching the pompousness of such ode writers as Jean Baptiste Rousseau (1670–1741) and the playfulness of the flocks of “Marotic” epigrammatists, while excelling in the philosophic poem as then practiced. It is often said that France had no poetry during this period, but this is an exaggeration–there is more than one kind of poetry. What is sadly lacking is the poem that seeks to cast a spell by its “pictorial” or “ musical” powers.
Things improve in the last third of the century, which ushers in the reign of sentiment that creates the atmosphere for the Romantic movement. Along with the nature studies of Jean François Saint-Lambert (1716–1803) and Jean-Antoine Roucher (1745–1794) we encounter the personal sorrow of Nicolas-Joseph Gilbert (1751–1780) and the exotically tinged love lyrics of two poets born (like Leconte de Lisle) on the island of Réunion: Antoine de Bertin (1752–1790) and Evariste Parny (1753–1814). The work of ANDRÉ CHÉNIER (almost none of which was published during his lifetime) is the crowning achievement of this period. Yet there is no doubt that during this largely “rational” century, dominated by the essay and thesis-fiction, and then during the oppressive years of the Revolution and the Empire, the prestige of poetry declines sharply.
All the more striking, then, is the self-glorifying upsurge of Romanticism contemporary with the Restoration. Often considered the last decisive turning point in the history of French literature to date, the Romantic movement—rediscovering vivid aspects of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, turning its eyes toward Spain and the Orient, assimilating recent trends of English and German literature—restores emotion and enchantment to French poetry and at the same time adds new life and flexibility to technical aspects of versification that had become hardened since Malherbe’s reforms. This is an era of mighty personalities, and the individual biographies of a LAMARTINE, a VIGNY, a HUGO or a MUSSET are far more meaningful than arbitrary group studies. The nineteenth century also establishes the modern pattern of the poet’s economic status: most of the poets are now professional writers who, when not attracted to a Bohemian existence, generally have to support themselves with other types of work, very often journalism.
The first half of the century abounds in interesting figures, who cannot all be mentioned; one of the most fascinating is France’s greatest popular poet, Pierre Jean de Béranger (1780–1857).
At mid-century the paths diverge. There is the lonely but prophetic road of GÉRARD DE NERVAL. There is the unemotional “art for art’s sake” approach of GAUTIER, which will inspire the Parnassians. There is the subtle alchemy of BAUDELAIRE, whose meticulous craftsmanship will also provide a model for the Parnassians, but whose greatest contributions are the use of imagery and verbal music that links him to the Symbolists, and the total commitment of his life to poetry that makes him the spiritual progenitor of the many great figures since his day who have sought for salvation through their art.
The second half of the century is a time of great fulfillment and promises for the future. Each in his own way—MALLARMÉ, the constructor of hermetic microcosms; VERLAINE the self-tormentor; and RIMBAUD, the footloose rebel–reinterpret the lessons of Baudelaire. The poets grouped about Mallarmé call themselves the Symbolists. Those who attach themselves to Verlaine at a certain moment become known as the Decadents. The Parnassians (named for their participation in the anthology Le Parnasse contemporain, 1866, 1871 and 1876) are represented chiefly by the learned and haughty bard of the aridity of existence, Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818–1894), and by the Cuban-born sonneteer José Maria de Heredia (1842–1905). There is no dearth of other confraternities.
The most fascinating of the poets who remain aloof from these “schools” and “chapels” are three ingenious if imperfect writers who all died at an early age: the sea-haunted Tristan Corbière (1845–1875) and the two Montevideans, Isidore Ducasse (the “Comte de Lautréamont,” 1847–1870), author of the startlingly fierce Chants de Maldoror, and Jules Laforgue (1860–1887), whose sad, off-key humor was to ...
