François Villon Criticism
François Villon stands as a seminal figure in the realm of French medieval poetry, celebrated for his vivid portrayal of 15th-century Parisian life and his innovative use of literary forms. His most acclaimed works, Le Lais and Le Testament, transcend simple autobiographical reflection, offering profound personal and existential insights. Villon's poetry is notable for its integration of high and low culture, a duality that critics such as William Carlos Williams have observed, thus earning him admiration from Romantic poets and securing his place as a pivotal literary figure.
Villon's exploration of themes such as human existence, legacy, and spiritual contemplation through the mock-testament form highlights his innovative approach to poetry. As discussed by David Fein, this form allowed Villon to blend sharp wit with existential reflection, situating his work within the cultural and social context of medieval France. His ability to confront themes of marginality and power has been further examined by critics like Karl D. Uitti and Tony Hunt, underscoring his significance as a precursor to later literary movements.
The critical landscape surrounding Villon is diverse, with discussions of his reputed vulgarity, as explored by Evelyn Birge Vitz, revealing a worldview that harmonizes sincerity and religious faith. His technical prowess, highlighted by Barbara Sargent-Baur, and the rhetorical complexity of his poetry, including his use of evocative faux-errors, are analyzed by Nancy Freeman Regalado. These elements affirm Villon's mastery of lyric poetry and his intricate engagement with existential themes.
Born François de Montcorbier in 1431, Villon's life of crime and debauchery heavily influenced his work, yet his poetry is celebrated for its humanity and humor, diverging from the chivalric and mythological themes of his time. As John Payne posits, Villon emerged as the first great "poet of the people." His vivid personal expression, praised by Ezra Pound, grants an authentic voice to his experiences, showcasing an unflinching honesty.
Despite his tumultuous life, Villon's literary contributions have endured, with his works being widely published by the mid-16th century. Though his popularity waned, a 19th-century revival reestablished his significance, with figures like Robert Louis Stevenson acknowledging his skill in capturing the vibrancy of medieval Paris. The analysis of John Fox further highlights Villon's mastery of language and innovative verse structure, transforming personal struggles into timeless poetry.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Villon, François (Literary Criticism (1400-1800))
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Francois Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker
(summary)
In this essay, originally published in 1874, Stevenson celebrates Villon's writing style while condemning both his life and his choice of subjects.
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Introduction to The Complete Works of Francois Villon
(summary)
In this essay, Williams cites Villon's intensity and directness as key reasons for continued interest in his work. Williams also delights in finding Villon to be consummately French.
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‘Contamination’ and the Central Metaphors
(summary)
In this excerpt, Vitz examines patterns of erotic and gustatory metaphors to establish the major contrasts in Villon's work. For Vitz, “contamination” describes the way in which metaphor seems to work by proximity in Villon's poetry, as symbolic connotations seem to seep from one line to the next.
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Gothic Love and Death: François Villon and the City of Paris
(summary)
In this essay, Hayes focuses on the theme of death and dying to demonstrate how Villon wrote “city” poetry, in contrast to the courtly poetry of the aristocracy. In addition to literary analysis, Hayes draws from the culture of Medieval France and the art of the late Gothic era to establish Villon's place in the development of a more popular literature.
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Introduction to The Poems of François Villon
(summary)
In this excerpt from the introduction to his translation of Villon's poems, Kinnell contrasts Villon's Lais with his Testament as forms of mock-testaments, arguing that the later poem, despite its frequently comic tone, offers a very serious and unflinching view of death and mortality.
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The Flight of Time: Villon's Trilogy of Ballades
(summary)
In this essay, Lacy, an important Villon scholar, suggests that the latter two ballades of the trilogy on the ubi sunt theme—“Ballade des seigneurs” and “Ballade en vieil langage françoys”—have been undervalued by modern critics. Lacy argues that as a unit, the ballades represent Villon's continuing development of a unified theme, that of fleeting fame and the relentless forgetfulness of history.
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Final Preparations (Verses 1844-1995)
(summary)
In this excerpt, Fein turns to the conclusion of Villon's Testament, suggesting that behind its sarcasm and apparent celebration of dissipation the poem reveals an enthusiasm for life and offers a serious meditation on both humanity and eternity.
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Love in Le Testament
(summary)
In this essay, Storme argues that in avenging his own domination, Villon—as the narrator of Le Testament—victimizes the women he writes about, particularly in ballades such as “Les regrets de la belle Heaulmière” and “Ballade de la Grosse Margot.”
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Francois Villon's Testament and the Poetics of Transformation
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In this essay, Peckham considers the mix of high and low—spiritual and crude—in Villon's Testament as a sign of the transformation of the narrator that takes place within the poem.
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Audience and Another Poet, Another Audience
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In the first excerpt, Fein informally theorizes a historically aware reader-response approach to Villon's Testament drawing from the work of literary scholars Stanley Fish and Hans R. Jauss, establishes an identity for Villon's contemporary readership, and discusses Villon's deft maneuvering between obscure historical detail and universal themes. The second excerpted chapter compares Villon's Testament to the work of his patron Charles d'Orléans, discussing the role of the interpretive community.
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The (Un)naming Process in Villon's Grand Testament
(summary)
In this essay, Cholakian discusses Villon's widespread use of names in his Testament, suggesting that they serve to disempower those who are named and empower the narrator. The intense self-referentiality of the poem, he argues, further emphasizes Villon's use of naming as a means of asserting selfhood against dominating Others.
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‘Faulte d'Argent M'a Si fort Enchanté’: Money and François Villon
(summary)
In this essay, Freeman contends that the critical tendency to interpret Villon as a precursor to Romantic poets has caused scholars to overlook the importance of money and poverty in Villon's oeuvre. Focusing on Le Lais and Le Testament, Freeman suggests that the modern view of the Romantic starving artist cannot take into account Villon's real desire and need for material security.
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Persuasion and (Special) Pleading in Francois Villon
(summary)
In this essay, Sargent-Baur examines possible influences for Villon's rhetorical style of addressing potential benefactors, especially those Greek and Roman models Villon would have studied in school. The author considers Villon's Testament as well as several of his Poèmes variés.
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Villon's Le Grand Testament and the Poetics of Marginality
(summary)
In this essay, the author reviews Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist interpretations of the legend of Villon, arguing that such legends have been detrimental to readings of Villon's most famous poem. With comparisons to Le Roman de la Rose and the genre of hagiography, Uitti demonstrates how Villon illustrates issues of marginality and power in the context of Medieval France.
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Writing and the Fragmentation of Authority
(summary)
In this excerpt, Hunt examines the methods by which Villon calls into question the authority of his narrator in Le Testament, including his asides to the “scribe,” his allusions to other sources, and his use of irony.
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Villon's Legacy from Le Testament of Jean de Meun: Misquotation, Memory, and the Wisdom of Fools
(summary)
In this essay, first presented at a conference of Villon scholars in 1996, Regalado argues that instances of misquotation in Villon's work are not errors of memory, but intentional poetic devices. Regalado proposes further that the faux-errors help create the wise-fool persona of the poems' narrators.
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‘Bourde jus mise’? Villon, the Liturgy, and Prayer
(summary)
In this essay, first presented at Oxford in 1996, Vitz traces Villon's use of liturgical language and themes, noting that modern scholars wrongly tend to dismiss Villon's serious spiritual concerns. Instead, Vitz argues, Villon is deeply concerned with eschatological questions, in both the Lais and the Testament.
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The Lais
(summary)
In this excerpt, Fein details the groups of people Villon addresses in his earlier mock-testament, many of which reappear in The Testament. Fein demonstrates the variety of tones—playful, ironic, cruel, sympathetic—Villon uses in portraying the various classes of society.
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In Defense of Villon's Lais
(summary)
In this essay, Lacy takes exception to the standard critical practice of devaluing the Lais—seeing it as trivial or as merely an early draft for Le Testament. Lacy suggests that the habit of imagining that the first-person narrator of Villon's poems is Villon himself leads readers to overlook the more serious themes of the light-hearted earlier work.
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Francois Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker
(summary)
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Villon, François (Poetry Criticism)
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Early French Poets
(summary)
Below, Cary reviews the Grand Testament and the Petit Testament, discussing the challenges English readers face in understanding Villon's work compared to other poets like Alain Chartier and Charles Duke of Orleans.
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François Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Stevenson probes Villon's biography and verse, and finds him a disreputable and insecure scoundrel and poet.
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François Villon
(summary)
Below, Payne discusses Villon's ability to portray common people and events of 15th-century Paris in a clear and realistic manner, making him "the first great poet of the people."
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Poets of the French Renaissance: Villon
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At the turn of the century Belloc was one of England's premier literary figures. His characteristically truculent stance as a proponent of Roman Catholicism and economic reform—and his equally characteristic clever humor—drew either strong support or harsh attacks from his audience, but critics have found common ground for admiration in his poetry. W. H. Auden called Belloc and his longtime collaborator G. K. Chesterton the best lightverse writers of their era, with Belloc's Cautionary Tales (1907) considered by some his most successful work in the genre. Here, Belloc compares and contrasts the medieval and renaissance qualities of Villon's poetry.
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Montcorbier, alias Villon
(summary)
In the following essay, Pound analyzes Villon's particular method of writing poetry, comparing his approach to those of various literary movements and medieval and renaissance poets, especially Dante.
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The Great Testament, with the Codicil and the Lesser Poems
(summary)
In the following excerpt, he defends Villon's poetry as high art of the most accomplished sort.
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The Impenitence of François Villon
(summary)
In the following essay, Frank studies the believability of what she considers Villon's feigned penitence.
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Syntax and Vocabulary
(summary)
In this excerpt, Fox concerns himself with Villon's often curious word order and phrasing, which give the impression of realistic thought and speech patterns while retaining poetic qualities. Fox also examines Villon's expansive vocabulary.
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Francois Villon
(summary)
Brereton praises Villon's poetic technique of combining the traditional ballade form with the modern tendency to write about highly personal subject matter.
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The Theme of Authority in the Works of François Villon
(summary)
Below, Tukey Harrison comments on the respect for authority displayed in Villon's poetry.
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Communication and Implied Audience(s) in Villon's Testament
(summary)
In the following essay, Sargent-Baur finds Villon addressing three separate audiences in the Testament and examines the various personas that Villon presents to this 'plural audience.'
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Early French Poets
(summary)
- Further Reading