Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/687

SIXTEENTH CENTURY POETRY.] FRANCE G51 more powerfully and more beneficially by a small literary clique than the language of France was influenced by the example and disciples of that Ronsard whom for two cen turies it was the fashion for the Malherbes and the Boileaux, and those who took their cue from them, to deride and decry. In a sketch such as the present it is impossible to give a separate account of individual writers, the more important of whom will be found treated under their own names. The effort of the Pleiade proper was continued and partaken Ron- by a considerable number of minor poets. Olivier de ists - Magny(d. 15GO) and Louise Labe" (b. 152G) were poets and lovers, the lady deserving far the higher rank in literature. There is more depth of passion in the writings of "La Belle Cordiere," as thisLyonnese poetess was called, than in almost any of her contemporaries. Jacques Tahureau (1527-1555) scarcely deserves to be called a minor poet. There is less than the usual hyperbole in the contemporary comparison of him to Catullus, and he reminds an Englishman of the school represented nearly a century later by Carew, Randolph, and Suckling, though he possesses a sincerity and truth superior to anything to be found in those poets. The title of a part of his poems Mignardises de VAdmiree is characteristic both of the style and of the time. Doublet, Jamyn (1540-1605), and Delataille (1528-1590) deserve mention at least as poets, but two other writers require a longer allusion. Du Bartas (1544-1590) whom Sylvester s translation, Milton s imitation, and the copious citations of Southey s Doctor, have made known if not familiar in England was partly a disciple and partly a rival of Ronsard. His poem of Judith was eclipsed by his better known La Divine Sepmaine or epic of the Creation. Du Bartas was a great user and abuser of the double compounds alluded to above, but his style possesses much stateliness, and has a peculiar solemn eloquence which he shared with the other French Calvinists, and which was derived from the study partly of Calvin and partly of the Bible. D Aubigne (1550- 1630), like Du Bartas, was a Calvinist. His genius was of a more varied character. He wrote sonnets and odes as became a Ronsardist, but his chief poetical work is the satirical poem of Les Tragiques, in which the author brands the factions, corruptions, and persecutions of the time, and in which there are to be found Alexandrines of a strength, vigour, and original cadence hardly to be discovered else where, save in Corneille and Victor Hugo. Towards the end of the century Desportes (1546-1606) and Bertaut (1552-1611), with much enfeebled strength, but with a certain grace, continue the Ronsardizing tradition. Among their contemporaries must be noticed Passerat (1534-1602), a writer of much wit and vigour and rather resembling Marot than Ronsard, and Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (1536- 1606), the author of a valuable Ars Poetica and of the first French satires which actually bear that title. Jean le Houx (fl. dr. 1600) continued, re-wrote, or invented the vaux de vire, commonly known as the work of Olivier Basselin, and already alluded to. A curious poetical trio is also formed at this time by Guy du Faur de Pibrac (1529-1584), Antoine Faure (1557-1624), and Pierre Mathieu(b. 1563), all authors of moral quatrains, which were learnt by heart in the schools of the time, replacing the distichs of the grammarian Cato, which, translated into French, had served the same purpose in the Middle Ages. The nephew of Desportes, Mathurin Regnier, marks the end, and at the same time perhaps the climax, of the poetry of the century. A descendant at once of the older Gallic spirit of Villon and Marot, in virtue of his consummate acuteness, terseness, and wit, of the school of Ronsard by his erudition, his command of language, and his scholarship, Regnier is perhaps the best representative of French poetry at the critical time when it had got together all its materials, had lost none of its native vigour and force, and had not yet submitted to the cramping and numbing rules and restrictions which the next century introduced. The satirical poems of Regnier, and especially the admirable epistle to Rapin, in which he denounces and rebuts the critical dogmas of Malherbe, are models of nervous strength, while some of the elegies and odes contain expression not easily to be surpassed of the softer feelings of affection and regret. No poet has had more influence on the revival of French poetry in the last half-century than Regnier. 16^/i Century Drama. The change which dramatic poetry underwent during the. 16th century was at least as remarkable as that undergone by poetry proper. The first half of the period saw the end of the religious mysteries, the licence of which had irritated both the parliament and the clergy. Louis XII. , at the beginning of the century, was far from discouraging the disorderly but popular and powerful theatre in which the Confra ternity of the Passion, the clerks of the Bazoche, and the Enfans sans Souci enacted mysteries, moralities, soties, and farces. He made them, indeed, an instrument in his quarrel with the papacy, just as Philippe le Bel had made use of the allegorical poems of Jehan de Meung and his fellows. Under his patronage were produced the chief works of Gringore (1474-1534), by far the most remark able writer of this class of composition. His Prince des Sots and his Mystere de St Louis are among the best of their kind. An enormous volume of composition of this class was produced between 1500 and 1550. One morality by itself, L homme juste et I homme mondain, contains some 36,000 lines. But in 1548 when the Confraternity was formally established at the Hotel de Bourgogne, leave to play sacred subjects was expressly refused it. Moralities and soties dragged on under difficulties till the end of the century, and the farce is immortal. But the effect of the Renaissance was to sweep away all other vestiges of the mediaeval drama, at least in the capital. An entirely new class of subjects, entirely new modes of treatment, and a different kind of performers were introduced. The change naturally came from Italy. In the close relationship with that country which France had during the early years of the century, Italian translations of the classical masterpieces were easily imported. Soon French translations were made afresh of the Electra, the Hecuba, the Iphigenia in Aulis, and the French humanists hastened to compose original tragedies on the classic model. It was impossible that the Pl6iade should not eagerly seize such an oppor tunity of carrying out its principles, and one of its members, Jodelle (1532-1573), devoting himself mainly to dramatic composition, fashioned at once the first tragedy, Cleopatre, Regular and the first comedy, Eugene, thus setting the example tragedy of the style of composition which for two centuries and aml co ~ a half Frenchmen were to regard as the highest effort of me y literary ambition. The amateur performance of these dramas by Jodelle and his friends was followed by a Bacchic procession after the manner of the ancients, which caused a great deal of scandal, and was represented by both Catholics and Protestants as a pagan orgie. The Cleopatre is remarkable as being the first French tragedy, nor is it destitute of merit. It is curious that in this first instance the curt antithetic orixo/xvflta, which was so long character istic of French plays and plays imitated from them, and which Butler ridicules in his Dialogue of Cat and Puss, already appears. There appears also the grandiose and smooth but stilted declamation which came rather from the imitation of Seneca than of Sophocles, and the tradition of which was never to be lost. Cleopatre was followed by Didon, which, unlike its predecessor, is entirely in alex andrines, and observes the regular alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes. Jodelle was followed by Grevin