SOURCE: “The Tribulations of a Young Poet: Ronsard from 1547 to 1552,” in Renaissance Rereadings: Intertext and Context, pp. 184-202. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

[In the following essay, Desan recounts Ronsard's early attempts to make a living as a poet.]

The poet has always been accorded a status well set off from that of other members of society. Poetic production and everyday necessities coexist only with difficulty, for the Muses' elect would seem to have other preoccupations than imagining themselves members of a civil and industrious society. The spirituality of poetry transcending material needs, the poet would subsist merely on rhymes and sparkling water, or even, as with Celadon in L'Astrée, on “cress and tears”; his always-gratuitous production would demand no real work. The image that we have of the poet is that of a demigod blackening pages of a book under the impulse of genius—no trace of monotonous labor. The poet simply grazes the surface of each page, pouring out illuminated visions; in the evening he falls asleep in peace and dreams of other poems, more beautiful still.

Clearly this is all a myth. Yet, as Claude Lévi-Strauss has effectively shown, we often organize our universe around myths which consequently become reality. One would then have to accept this nebulous idea of the poet. Nevertheless, the children of Calliope are also human beings, and must therefore pay their debts and feed themselves. Some among them even go so far as to consider their “art” a profession. It is this perception of poetry as remunerable work and the poet's self-recognition as a member of a market economy that interests me here.

Given the complete confusion of social stratification and the importance of poetry during the period, the sixteenth century would appear to be the privileged locus for the consideration of problems related to the mode of existence and the professional status of the poet in the midst of civil society. By poet, in this study, I mean male poet. There is some poetry written by women during the Renaissance, but it is a fact that the great majority of these women were already wealthy before they started writing. They belonged overwhelmingly to the aristocracy or the rising bourgeoisie, so for them poetry was never a way to make a living. Marguerite de Navarre is one very typical example. Likewise, Louise Labé, the daughter of a rich rope-maker from Lyon, obviously did not need to write poetry to earn a living. The opportunity to overcome social stratification and to become professionally successful as a poet was limited to men in the sixteenth century. Poetry was first perceived as a profession by men, and it is not a coincidence that the Pléiade poets were all men.

I will therefore take the poets of the Pléiade as the point of departure of my analysis, and will more particularly analyze the case of the young Ronsard who, in 1550, presents himself on the employment market with the hope of living off his pen. The period I consider in this study extends from 1547 to 1552; these dates, although somewhat arbitrary, correspond to the years when Ronsard started writing his first poems (1547) and when he received his first real financial reward for his poetry and became curé of Marolles (1552). Yet, in order to understand the professional path of Ronsard and the other poets of the Pléiade, it is necessary first to discuss the social structure of France during the sixteenth century.

The social organization of the French Renaissance is marked by the structural prevalence of three orders: the clergy, the nobility—further divided into noblesse d`épée and noblesse de robe—and finally the Third Estate, which embraces the rest of the people. This static organization, however, suffered a crisis as a result of the decline of the noblesse d'épée and the rise of the city bourgeoisie, which aspired to the rank of nobility through the purchase of offices and charges. The members of this new class arising out of the Third Estate were most often educated in the best universities and occupied the key posts in the state bureaucratic apparatus. These robins thus became jurisconsults, lawyers, procurators, intendants, and city councillors. The sale of offices allowed them to rise rapidly within the social hierarchy and to entitle themselves sieurs and even gentilshommes.¹ In order to cover rising state expenditures caused by costly wars, the king was forced to multiply the number of offices which could be purchased. Under Henri II the sale of these offices increased with a rapidity that inflamed further the antagonism between the “old” nobility and the younger rising class.²

The social inertia which had prevented mobility within French society for centuries, and which had thus preserved the stability and fixity of that society, was abruptly shattered, and “passage” from one order to another suddenly appeared possible for the first time. Money transformed lifestyles, offered a means to success, and became the object of much coveting. If one possessed sufficient savings, for example, one could buy an office; financial security would then often be guaranteed. But this means of social assertion had an important disadvantage, for the obligations connected with the office had to be conducted in person and the delegation of duties was not permitted. Thus, the officer was constrained to reside continuously and permanently where his office was located. One can easily understand why this “mode of subsistence” never became popular among the poets, who could not accept the restriction of residence imposed by François I in 1535 and reaffirmed in 1539. The poet of the sixteenth century had to follow his patron and move about constantly according to the dictates of the market. Further, if we consider the Pléiade poets, we see that most of them could not aspire to the most profitable offices because they did not possess the necessary capital to buy the best charges. The military profession, needless to say, also did not give the freedom of movement required by the poet. Strategies of social mobility were consequently quite restricted for those who decided to embark on a literary occupation.

Looking more closely at the lifestyle of the sixteenth-century poets, we find that the majority of these poets received their revenues in the form of ecclesiastical benefices, prebends, and sinecures in abbeys, rectories, and priories. They thus depended on the ecclesiastical order for survival and surrendered themselves almost completely to what Henri Weber has judiciously called “the chase for benefices.”³ How is this at-first-glance-baffling “vocation” to be explained? The answer lies in the manner in which ecclesiastical benefices were distributed during the sixteenth century. After the Concordat of Bologne (1516) between François I and Leo X, the so-called simple benefices could be granted directly by the king without referring to Rome. The concordat had in fact suppressed the election imposed by the Pragmatic Sanction for the regular benefices. These benefices were now at the disposal of the French sovereign, who had the power to recompense whomever he wanted under the condition that the recipient of the ecclesiastical benefice receive the tonsure. Even though residency was required for these simple benefices, there existed nonetheless the possibility of “legitimate” excuses, which opened the path to nonresidency. Charles Loyseau, a jurist at the end of the sixteenth century who has left us a treatise on the right to offices and benefices during this period, tells us that “the Casuists presently hold that the inveterate practices and customs excuse the necessity of residence on the location of the simple benefices.”⁴ It was permitted as well to transfer the task associated with the benefice onto someone else while continuing to receive the revenue associated with this benefice. Loyseau explains the attraction of such an indulgence: “Thus, the exercise rendered separable from the title, the labor from the payment, the office from the benefice, in short the spiritual from the temporal, the majority of the beneficiaries have had little trouble retaining the title and revenue of their benefice while discharging on others the labor of serving the poor.”⁵

Only these simple benefices exempted the beneficiary from living in residence. They were in fact revenues with no obligation; this explains why these “simple benefices … consist more of revenue than of personal function.”⁶ It should not surprise us then if rectories, priories, presbyteries, and abbeys were much sought after by the poets and artists of the sixteenth century. Loyseau remarks on this subject that, during this time, “there is a large company of almoners, chaplains and clerks”⁷ and that “one no longer chooses whom to award the offices of the Church, rather one gives the benefices to the men one wants to gratify.”⁸ Many poets thus chose to receive the tonsure and remained celibate so as to secure revenue from the ecclesiastical benefices they were awarded for having praised the prince. Such is the case with Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baïf, Pontus de Thyard, and a large number of their contemporaries. For example, from 1553 to 1557 the Vendômois poet was accorded the benefices of four provincial rectories.⁹

These benefices, however, were not so easily procured, and the poet who wanted to gain the favors of highly placed persons had to compose all sorts of occasional poems and commissioned pieces. Regarding the function of “official poet,” Raymond Lebègue counts no fewer than six important tasks demanded of the poet: (1) to eulogize the king, his family, and the highest civil servants, (2) to celebrate the events of the royal family, (3) to serve the royal politics in verse, (4) to contribute to court feasts, (5) to produce amorous poems on command, and (6) to provide occasional pieces.¹⁰ It should also be noted that the pecuniary advantages of this post were far from being proportional to the prestige of such a function, and, despite the affirmations of Ronsard's first biographer, Claude Binet, our poet, though he received in 1554 the title of poëte ordinaire du Roy, was never fully paid for his services to Henri II.¹¹ It is only when Charles IX offered his patronage to the Franciade in 1560 that Ronsard was finally guaranteed shelter from material difficulties.

A substantial network of responsibilities and constraints, all bound to the profession of the poet, emerged in the sixteenth century and forces us to resituate poetic production within its larger socioeconomic context. The work of Ronsard attests to this constant awareness of and preoccupation with material security. In fact, Ronsard, who eventually became the greatest of the Pléiade poets, was compelled, at the beginning of his career, to establish himself among his fellow poets and to “make a living” laboriously before becoming the prince of poets. The competition was quite stiff at this time. If we take as a point of reference the number of poets who published their verses between 1545 and 1565 in the hope of attracting princely favors, we discover that the market for poetry was more than saturated. Of more than two thousand authors indexed by La Croix du Maine in his Bibliothèque françoise, approximately one-fourth are accorded the title of “poet.” When Ronsard presented himself on the market as a poet in 1550 he not only had to attract the attention of the prince but also had to distinguish himself from the rest of his colleagues. While toying with the Muses, Ronsard had to seek the support of patrons who would allow him to devote himself entirely to his art without any pecuniary worries. The Odes demonstrate well this desire to overcome material problems. I now propose to read the Odes as a poetic paradigm in which the poet presents, in an academic fashion, all his knowledge of the art of rhymes according to the highest of models: Pindar and Horace. In this respect, the Odes also accompany the search for an occupation, and thus function as the young poet's request for employment.

In 1550, the poets attached to the king were François Habert—one of the last rhétoriqueurs—and Mellin de Saint-Gelais, a stubborn defender of Marotic poetry, who, as a result of the respect due his age and his white beard, controlled poetic production at the court. Ronsard was not even next at this time. Philibert Delorme—who, between 1547 and 1548, obtained three abbeys from the king in recompense for his poems, which were much appreciated at the Louvre, and who directly participated in the royal entry of Henri II into Paris in 1549—certainly preceded Ronsard. The Vendômois poet still seemed a novice and his poetic production remained somewhat meager.

In 1549, with the intention of attracting the favors of the princes, our poet published his “Epithalame d'Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne de Navarre,” a celebration of their marriage the previous year. This enterprise sought to find a rich patron upon whom Ronsard could bestow his lyre. Apparently the effort achieved nothing, as Jeanne de Navarre remained deaf to Ronsard's eulogistic demand for employment. After this negative experience, the poet concentrated his effort directly on the royal person, as he probably began to realize that in the domain of the arts there can be no compromising: the first poet of France must be the poet of the king. All the same, the task was not so simple, and Ronsard suffered setback after setback. In 1549, for example, he saw himself refused the organization of the various festivities planned for the royal entry of Henri II into Paris. Jean Martin and Thomas Sebillet, the latter having published the previous year his Art Poëtique François,¹² were to be in charge of the ceremonies. Nonetheless, Ronsard published for the occasion an “Avantentrée du Roi treschrestien à Paris,” but, once more, the poem was not a success and did not receive the attention anticipated.

Ronsard always considered the production of occasional verses an indispensable activity, for as Daniel Ménager has noted, “even though the Court gives no official command, a poet of the Renaissance, since he depends on the Prince, cannot simply exempt himself from this task.”¹³ All the poets of that time had to devote a good part of their artistic production to this exercise, and the anecdotes of Ronsard and Du Bellay writing epitaphs for the dogs of Charles IX and the sparrow of Marguerite of Savoy are famous.

In 1549, Ronsard also had his “Hymne de France” printed by Michel Vascosan: He ends the poem with an appeal to the king, imitating Virgil's Georgics:

As your poet, having first dared
To have composed a rhyme to praise you,
I beg that my lyre suits your pleasure.(14)

Once more the enterprise failed to attract the king's attention. The poet nevertheless did not despair; he would only be satisfied once he had gained the king's support:

But my soul is only ravished
By a burning desire
To dare to attempt a work
Which would content my great king
So that the work's honey-sweetness
Would so anoint his ear
That I might find it facile
To importune him for my well-being.(15)

Direct access to the monarch remaining for the moment impossible, Ronsard solicited protectors in the entourage of Henri II. Since it was not possible to flatter the king's ears directly, being still too accustomed to the “small Petrarchan sonnets or some delicacies of love”¹⁶ from Mellin de Saint-Gelais and his disciples, the young poet therefore had to create a network of influential “friends” that would bring him closer to the royal person. It is a matter of strategy: because Henri II refused to hear the young poet, it had to be through the detour of his entourage that the latter would approach him. This might explain why Ronsard dedicated several poems to courtiers susceptible of appreciation in an attempt to make his poetry known to the royal family.

Ronsard was engaged in a search for friends, and by “friend” it is necessary to understand someone capable of speaking favorably of his poems at the court. Friendship is here defined in terms of belonging to a network of individuals who choose to aid each other, everyone being ready to intervene for the other if a reciprocal action could be expected. In a society where social mobility is still relatively slow, this system of mutual help was the only “rapid” way to success. It was therefore necessary to allure the patronage of men who had sufficient power at the court and to offer them the possibility of gain so that the relation might be mutually “profitable.” It is important to note that what we now call the Pléiade poets originally grouped themselves under the name of Brigade—a word which evokes well the idea of military formation according to strict rules of membership. Organization into a group permitted the poets to “tighten ranks” and form a school in order to confront better the resistance of the poets “in place.”

It is therefore not an accident if, among the great number of poets distributed all over France at this time, Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baïf, Belleau, Jodelle, and La Péruse all attended two small Parisian collèges, both located on the hill of Sainte-Geneviève. Baïf, Ronsard, and Du Bellay were students and friends of Dorat at the Collège de Coqueret, while Belleau, La Péruse, and Jodelle attended the courses of Muret at the Collège de Boncourt. These two institutions were not to be counted among the most prestigious collèges of the capital. We could ask ourselves at this point if the success of these poets did not come precisely from the fact that they knew how to organize themselves into a school and push to the extreme that esprit de corps necessary for their personal success, for the members of the Brigade were from 1547 to 1552 to follow the same road to poetic and social success and thus share the same interests.

Of course, schools and coteries disputed among themselves as to who occupied first place; such is the case, for example, with those who opposed the Marotic tradition, defended by Mellin, to the “new” poetry of the Pléiade poets. Yet, in all cases we have a comparable organization: the individual has power only insofar as he is recognized by the influential members of his profession and sustained by the rich members of the court. In the case of Ronsard, it suffices to count the odes dedicated to Baïf, Du Bellay, Belleau, Peletier, and other poets and friends from the Collège de Coqueret—Julien Peccate, Bertran Berger, and René d'Urvoy for example—in order to account for the cohesion that existed at that time among individuals of the same profession.¹⁷

On this point, the example of Pierre Paschal is illustrative. A Gascon poet and friend of the Pléiade authors until 1558, Paschal let it be known that he was preparing to draft a book inspired by Paul Emile's Vies et eloges des hommes illustres in order to laud the members of the Brigade. All the poets concerned regarded this plan with a favorable eye and rewarded Paschal in advance by inserting into their poems several flattering references to him. Ronsard even dedicated an entire ode to Paschal. However, this “payment” in advance revealed itself to be a bad investment, as Paschal quickly forgot his project when he gained the favor of Henri II and accepted the post of royal historiographer in 1558. The poets of the Pléiade who, through their praise of the Gascon poet, had directly participated in the establishment of his renown and thereby played an important part in his ascension to such a sought-after post demonstrated their fury when they discovered that they had been duped and that they would receive nothing in return for their investment. Ronsard, particularly infuriated by this lack of gratitude, composed a Latin invective against Paschal entitled “Petri Paschali Elogium.”¹⁸

But the case of Paschal must ultimately be considered an exception. Other “friends” of Ronsard kept the bargain, “tit for tat” (troque pour troq) as the poet tells us. These “other friends” were particularly numerous at the court. In fact, the nobility and the ecclesiastical authorities represented the second important group that Ronsard had to seduce as they were, after all, the ones who held the purse strings and could assure a comfortable future to the poet. Ronsard had therefore “to sweeten the famous ones”¹⁹ and transform himself into “a trumpeter / Of one and the other glory.”²⁰ At this time his “shop [was] stocked with nothing but the drugs of praise and honor.”²¹ From 1547 to 1552 there were more important things for Ronsard to do than painting nature in rhyme. This would come later, after employment had been secured.

In order to succeed, Ronsard had to fight on two fronts: first he had to acquire a certain credit as a poet and, second, he needed to make himself sufficiently visible to the king to become the official poet. As Michel Dassonville points out, it is in the Pindaric ode, which had been introduced to Ronsard by his master, Dorat, that Ronsard saw the possibility of “reconciling the two ambitions which drove him for many years to please at the same time both the learned and the public at large.”²² Ronsard thus took for his model the greatest of Panhellenic poets who had been so skillful at capturing glory while at the same time accumulating an immense fortune for having lauded the rich citizens of Syracuse, Agrigente, Thebes, Argos, Athens, and Rhodes. As he rhymed his verses, Ronsard probably dreamed of the author of the Olympics, who had received 10,000 Athenian drachmas for having composed a dithyramb in honor of the Greek city.

Ronsard's project, however, did not unfold as expected—at least not at the beginning of the poet's career. Glory does not necessarily accompany material success. In attempting to gain both at once, the poet found himself confronted by a paradox, for it is difficult to please the learned and the princes in the same manner. By producing dithyrambs designed to gain the patronage of men of high rank, Ronsard brought upon himself the criticism of his fellow poets. His contemporary and friend, Etienne Pasquier, in a letter dating from 1555, reproaches Ronsard for his “half-courtly servitude” and closes his letter with the wish “that it will not come to pass that the good work of your pen should be used to the end of highly praising several we know not worthy of it.”²³

There also existed a problem of quantity for Ronsard in 1549; he lacked a poetic corpus sufficient for a first publication. Although he had already published a few poems, Ronsard did not have a book on the market. He therefore arduously put himself to the task and collected his compositions together with new unpublished work celebrating the monarch, for, as the poet would later declare, “the glory of kings is a fertile subject.”²⁴ Ronsard even envisaged placing himself totally in the service of Henri II in order to recount in verse the deeds of the king and his family:

Nevertheless the desire which goads my heart
To demonstrate how I am your servant.(25)

At the beginning of 1550, Ronsard finally published a small octavo volume containing the first four books of the Odes. At the time he was just twenty-six years old; nevertheless, in the preface “Au lecteur,” he immediately proclaimed himself the first poet of France: “But when you will call me the first French lyrical poet, and the one who has guided the others onto the path of this so honest labor, then you will bestow upon me that which is my due, and I will strive to make you understand that it is not unjustly that I have received it.”²⁶ Mellin de Saint-Gelais felt the blow and rose to defend his own employment and status. It was after all his own place which he defended. The rhétoriqueur violently attacked Ronsard's poems in front of the king, Marguerite de Navarre, and her chancellor, Michel de l'Hospital. The favorite poet of the king ridiculed the hermetism, obscurity, and pedantry of certain odes, and for a time successfully diverted the king's favor.

Ronsard was fortunate enough, however, to find in the person of Michel de l'Hospital an influential protector at the court against the accusations of Saint-Gelais. To express his thanks for the intervention of the future chancellor of France, Ronsard dedicated to him one of the most beautiful odes describing the birth of the Muses. The same strategy was used on Jacques Bouju, Maître des requettes of the queen, who had also defended Ronsard, and Jean Martin, who wrote an “exposition” of the most difficult passages of the Odes—this exposition accompanying the first edition of the Odes in 1550.

Notwithstanding the moderate success of the Odes, Ronsard still awaited the recognition of his talent and the favors that usually follow such recognition:

As one often sees the ship at port
Attending the conduct of the wind
Before departing, its swelling sail rising up
To the side that the wind blows the stern,
So, Prince, without stirring, I await
Your royal favor, which I hope one day
Will command me to make an honorable voyage
Favorable to the winds of your fortune.(27)

The king kept him waiting and the Vendômois poet became more impatient “to taste the manna of royal grandeur.”²⁸ Nevertheless Ronsard did not despair and he continued to refine the academism of his Pindaric odes. He had little choice, for he knew that before becoming the king's poet, he had first to impose himself as the French Pindar. With this goal in mind he imitated the Greek bard to the best of his ability in strophe, antistrophe, and epode. The mastery of the ancient poets became part of Ronsard's intellectual maturation; he could not and did not really wish to avoid this necessary stage of his poetic maturation. His authority as a poet needed to rest on something solid and directly linked to the humanist movement; the student found a master in Antiquity and applied himself to equaling his effort in the medium provided by the French language. Ronsard proceeded to offer the proof of his standing as an academic poet but also seemed aware of the fastidious nature of his odes. In fact, the result is not always brilliant, and Ronsard himself appears conscious of his lack of originality:

Thus, following the gods, I beseech you to take
Favorably this little gift as interest, while awaiting
A present more perfect and worthy of a king,
And that my Calliope will bear within me.(29)

Should we begrudge Ronsard his striving after the security of a decently remunerated occupation? We have a tendency to place the poet above society and do not think of him or her as an intriguer. This vision which we create of the poets is part of the false view we have of artistic production in general. Consider the situation of Ronsard. Before putting words into rhyme, Ronsard had first to operate in a world that was already socially and economically organized. It is precisely these existing preconditions that Jean-Paul Sartre has brilliantly analyzed in his study of Tintoretto. In Venice, at the same time as Ronsard wrote his odes, Tintoretto also had to confront painters of greater renown in order to gain part of the market for Venetian painting. As with Ronsard, Tintoretto had to “astonish, hit hard and impose himself”³⁰ to survive. Sartre has systematically deconstructed the vision we have of the “sublime” and lofty painters of the Italian Renaissance and he has transformed Jacopo into a laborer always on the lookout for a new contract.

What Sartre has shown for Tintoretto applies equally to Ronsard. The poet often speaks of the physical and technical aspect of his art; expressions like “laboring hand,”³¹ “art of my thumb,”³² “labor of my fingers,”³³ recur frequently in the Odes, and we have the sentiment that wooing the Muses requires much more than mere imagination: it is also necessary to do physical work in the elaboration of the poem. Isidore Silver has underlined the “craftsman” side of Ronsard's poetry by highlighting the laborious aspect of an apprenticeship which possesses none of the celestial grace one would often think to find with the poet.³⁴ It is perhaps because the poet must submit to material exigencies before devoting himself to the Muses that Ronsard considered his art as a “trade” (or a traffic in French): “I am the trader of the Muses”³⁵—that is to say a merchant—Ronsard tells us. For it is in fact “merchandise” that the poet wished to exchange on the market.

Ronsard considered his writing as labor, and it is therefore not a coincidence if the word “labor” recurs as a leitmotif in the Odes.³⁶ In the preface of the 1550 edition, for example, the noun appears seven times in the space of five pages, most often in a context which leaves no ambiguity concerning its economic connotation. Ronsard also describes how he has written “industriously”³⁷ this volume and, in the first version of the ode “La Victoire de François de Bourbon” written in 1545, the Vendômois poet even considers himself as an “ingenious craftsman.”³⁸ This idea of poetry as a professional occupation was again to be defended fifteen years later when, in his Art poëtique, Ronsard gave the following advice to his disciple Alphonse Delbene: “so far as human artifice, experience and labor permit, let me give you here several rules so that one day you can be the first in the knowledge of this so agreeable trade.”³⁹

At this point it is important to distinguish between work and labor. The first word is a generic term that implies a physical or intellectual process, while the second expression places work within a socioeconomic structure with all of its implications and therefore suggests a remuneration. It is for this reason that Ronsard perceived his poetic production in terms of its exchange value rather than its use value. The idea of poetry as a thing in itself which would be unrelated to the market is totally absent in the Odes. For Ronsard, poetry is part of the economic circuit and is consequently dependent on the laws of the market. Our poet was always conscious of the exchange value of his poetry; from the start, his odes had to be converted into money or gifts.⁴⁰ Endlessly he attempted to convince a potential patron that his verses had a price, and it is precisely the sum to be paid for fame and posterity that instigated the sighs and lamentations of the Vendômois poet. Ronsard frequently complained of the insufficient value that was accorded to his poetry and even drafted an ode “Contre les avaricieus” to this effect. The poet declared that he would content himself with what the king might offer if the present seemed appropriate for the investment of his labor. For many years Ronsard waited for a proper price:

Prince, I send you this Ode
Trading my verses in the same way
A merchant trades his goods,
Tit for tat: you who are rich,
You, king of wealth, do not hesitate
To exchange your gift for mine.
Do not tire of offering,
And you will see how I will accord
The honor which I promise to sound
When a present adorns my lyre.(41)

Ronsard defined the price of his verse as a long-term investment for the prince who wished to see himself glorified for posterity. Poet of the powers in place, Ronsard enabled the monarch and princes to belong to a tradition that combined men and gods alongside one another. Mythical and real contemporary figures were united in the same discourse so that Apollo, Jupiter, Hercules, and Henri II became interchangeable. As critics have already noted, mythology was in fact the principal instrument of flattery at the court of Henri II.⁴² Moreover, the written and thus “durable” form of his poems allowed Ronsard to offer the king eternal renown. As with Pindar, he praised his contemporaries as in the “Usure a luimesme,”⁴³ where he borrows the title given by Pindar to an ode to Agesidomas in the Olympics: Henri II here replaces the Greek hero. What Ronsard proposed to the king appears clearly in the following passage:

Therefore your renown
Will reach the heavens, animated
By the labor of my hands:
Such a durable treasure
Describing the royal grandeur
You should look upon favorably.(44)

Poetry possessed a functional aspect for Ronsard. The value of the poem is calculated in proportion to what it could yield to the person who becomes historically objectified in and by the verses. Much more than words artistically juxtaposed and beautifully arranged, poetry, in the sixteenth century, also served to establish differences between individuals and social classes. It contributed to the reinforcement of social order and instituted itself as a discipline designed to establish distinction. The beauty of the rhyme also served to define social classes and to distinguish between individuals:

For Kings and Emperors
Differ from laborors
Only if someone sings their glory.(45)

As the seventh ode of the first book of the Odes would have us understand, no monument could better preserve the memory of kings than the poems promised by Ronsard. These “would render your renown alive,” and the rhyme “could perpetuate your name,”⁴⁶ since “without the Muses the kings cannot live twice.”⁴⁷ It is not enough for the prince to win battles, subjugate peoples, and accumulate a fortune; it is equally necessary for him to think of his glory for future generations. This offer of an existence for posterity was precisely the object of Ronsard's work: the Odes attempt to demonstrate the poet's mastery of this sort of exercise and accentuate his knowledge of the poetic tradition. Not only do the Odes emphasize the competence of the author to glorify the prince, but they also give credibility to his search for employment. On this point Ronsard is explicit:

On the banks of Acheron: this glory is only
Conceded by God to those daughters which Memory
Conceived by Jupiter, to bestow upon those
Who attract the poets with their gifts.(48)

In order to convince the sovereign of the importance of poetry, the poet was therefore forced to transform himself into a courtier. Nobody escaped the game of the adulators and the flatterers at the court of Henri II. Ronsard solicited and begged more than ever; in his demands he often showed some insolence and effrontery and even developed a theory of impudence:

Impudence nourishes honor and the State.
Impudence nourishes the screeching lawyers,
Nourishes the courtiers, sustains the gendarmes.
Impudence is today the best weapon
One can enlist, even for the one
Who wishes to succeed at court. …(49)

If impudence can provide the poet with the expected considerations, he will eventually become “the most impudent” and, like a “leech,” he will never leave the prince's footsteps until he receives “the bait of a sweet favor.”⁵⁰

Helped by friends in high position, Ronsard had to frequent the immediate entourage of the king and praise the nobility. He spent a good part of his youth at the Louvre. However, although he was a regular attendant of the Parisian salons, Ronsard never became a good courtier and was in fact often maladroit. He revealed on several occasions his ignorance of the subtleties of the court⁵¹ and complained later of the time he had lost because of these activities. In the second book of the Melanges, published in 1559, the poet admits his error to one of the most illustrious courtiers of his epoch—the cardinal of Chatillon, Odet de Coligny:

Suddenly abandoning the Muses, I conceived
Bishoprics, priories and abbeys, amazed
To see myself transformed from a schoolboy
Into a new courtier and restless court-bidder.
Oh! That ambition unwillingly clothes itself!
Thus I learned to take the path to the Louvre,
Against my nature I learned to attend to
Both your rising and your retiring.(52)

Ronsard had nevertheless to play the game and comply with the decorum of the court. Intrigues, alliances, and manipulations were the price to be paid in order to obtain the ecclesiastic positions and other compensations that could assure the poet's financial security. With this perspective in mind, Ronsard endeavoured to organize a “lobby,” since before labor can be rewarded, it is first necessary that one's work be recognized:

But it is necessary to bid the great gods of the court,
To follow them, serve them, attend their table,
To deliver before them a delectable story,
To court them, watch them, and often bid their favor,
Otherwise your labor will amount to no more than wind,
Otherwise your science and your esteemed lyre,
For lack of these, will dissipate like smoke.(53)

Ronsard clearly wrote his Odes in this prospect and from 1550 worked out what has justly been called a “theory of mendicancy.”⁵⁴

Impudence and mendicancy form the intrinsic polarities inherent in every ambitious young person. On one hand, it is in fact necessary to accept the authority of the potential patron who wields the hiring power, but on the other hand, it is equally important to show to the latter a certain detachment and aloofness that can eventually extend to the point of insolence and therefore indicate a certain autonomy and creative independence of the poet, showing his desire to place himself above the rest of job seekers. The Odes offer many examples of the interactions between these two poles that perhaps appear contradictory but are nonetheless strategically desirable. Impudence and mendicancy enabled Ronsard to sustain two discourses simultaneously: the poet new to the market of poetry addressed the prince with a sweet, soft-spoken tone—it is here the young man seeking his first employment who speaks to us—and, finally, in attempting to prove himself the equal of Pindar and master of the Muses, Ronsard could behave boldly and impudently before the king; his authority in poetry assured him this possibility. Thus, if Ronsard wished to secure employment and be accepted as the first poet of France, he had to maneuver between these two discourses with subtlety. What Ronsard sought to reconcile in the end are the two dreams of every beginner: glory and fortune.

In total we have observed five or six years of continual pursuit of a decently remunerated position. As we have seen, the long road of such an apprentice poet as Ronsard in search of first employment was not without hurdles. A sociological reading of the first writings of the Vendômois poet effectively permits us to ponder the function of the male poet during the sixteenth century, and highlights problems concerning the physical and material existence of these professionals of rhyme. We have seen how, by placing poetry and the poet within their social context, it is possible to raise questions of a conjectural nature concerning the ambiguous situation of the poet within a network of political and economic constraints. I have underlined several difficulties encountered by the poet at the beginning of his career, a period when it was not a question of describing what he desired but rather of imposing himself on the market and obtaining a first employment.

Notes

1. See the studies of Roger Doucet, Les Institutions de la France au XVIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris: Editions A. et J. Picard, 1948); Roland Mousnier, Les Hiérarchies sociales de 1450 à nos jours (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1969); and George Huppert, Les Bourgeois Gentilshommes, An Essay on the Definition of Elites in Renaissance France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).

2. Roland Mousnier, La Vénalité des offices sous Henri IV et Louis XIII (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971); see the second chapter, “Les temps modernes: le XVIe siècle,” pp. 35-92. See also Doucet, Institutions de la France, more particularly the chapter on “Le système bénéficial,” pp. 693-718.

3. Henri Weber, La Création poétique au XVIe siècle en France de Maurice Scève à Agrippa d'Aubigné (Paris: Nizet, 1955); see the chapter on “La condition sociale des poètes et l'influence de la vie de cour,” pp. 63-106.

4. Charles Loyseau, Cinq Livres du Droict des Offices, suivis du Traitez des Seigneuries et de celui des Ordres [1610]. I use here the edition of his Œuvres complètes published in Paris in 1666 by Alliot, p. 42 (“toutesfois les Casuistes tiennent qu'à present l'usage ou coustume inveterée excuse de resider aux Benefices simples” [my translation; all subsequent translations are mine]). On the legislation of ecclesiastical benefices during the sixteenth century, see Jean Gérardin, Etude sur les bénéfices ecclésiastiques aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles [1897] (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1971).

5. Loyseau, Cinq Livres du Droict des Offices, p. 43 (“Ainsi donc l'exercise ayant esté fait separable du titre, le labeur du loyer, l'Office du Benefice: bref le spirituel du temporel, la pluspart des Beneficiers ont esté bien aises, en retenant le titre & revenu de leur Benefice, de se décharger de l'exercise & labeur des pauvres gens”).

6. Loyseau, Cinq Livres du Droict des Offices, p. 460 (“les benefices simples … consist[ent] plus en revenu, qu'en fonction personelle”).

7. Loyseau, Cinq Livres du Droict des Offices, p. 335 (“il y a une grande troupe d'Aumôniers, de Chappelains & de Clercs”).

8. Loyseau, Cinq Livres du Droict des Offices, p. 460 (“on ne met plus par choix les hommes aux Offices de l'Eglise, mais on baille les Benefices aux hommes qu'on veut gratifier”).

9. See Paul Bonnefon, “Ronsard ecclésiastique,” Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France 2 (1895), 244-48. Though he had already been curé at the vicarage of Marolles associated with the diocese of Meaux since 1552, Ronsard ceded this charge in 1554 in order to become curé of Chally, as this vicarage, granted by the cardinal Jean Du Bellay, had revenues superior to those at Marolles. The curé of Chally replaced Ronsard at Marolles; yet the poet reserved for himself an annual rent of 50 livres on the occasion of this succession. In 1556 Ronsard obtained the vicarage of Evaillé, near Le Mans, and added the rent from this vicarage to that from Marolles. In 1557 he accepted a third benefice—the vicarage of Champfleur—granted by his friend Pisseleu, bishop of Condom. Ronsard renounced this latter charge in 1561, since he had in the meantime obtained the archdeaconry of Château-du-Loir. However, these three appointments yielded relatively little, and it was only under Charles IX that Ronsard replaced Amyot as abbot of Bellozane (1564) and was granted the priories of Saint-Cosme-lès-Tours (1565), Saint-Guingalois de Château-du-Loir (1569), and Saint-Cosme-lès-Montoire (1569). These last four priories and abbeys assured him good revenues. It is necessary to add that Ronsard received also the title of aumonier ordinaire (chaplain) of Charles IX and Henri III, a charge which guaranteed a pension of 1,200 livres per year. All those benefices acquired under the reign of Charles IX would not, however, increase after his death. Under Henri III the favors toward the poet became less frequent.

10. Raymond Lebègue, “Ronsard poète officiel,” Studi in onore di Vittorio Lugli e Diego Valeri (Venise: Neri Pozza, 1961), pp. 373-87.

11. See the commentary of Paul Laumonier in La Vie de P. de Ronsard [1586], historical and critical introduction and commentary by Paul Laumonier (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1969), p. 132.

12. On the royal entries during the sixteenth century, see Antoinette Huon, “Le thème du Prince dans les entrées parisiennes au XVIe siècle” and V. L. Saulnier, “L'entrée de Henri II à Paris et la révolution poétique de 1550,” in Jean Jacquot, ed., Les Fêtes de la Renaissance (Paris: CNRS, 1956); and I. D. McFarlane, The Entry of Henri II into Paris, 16 June 1549 (New York: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1982). See also the book of Josèphe Chartrou, Les Entrées solennelles et triomphales à la Renaissance (1484-1551) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1928).

13. Daniel Ménager, “Ronsard et le poème de circonstance,” in Louis Terreaux, ed., Culture et pouvoir au tempts de l'Humanisme et de la Renaissance (Geneva, Paris: Slatkine & Champion, 1978), p. 319. On occasion poetry, see Predrag Matvejévitch, La Poésie de circonstance, étude des formes de l'engagement poétique (Paris: Nizet, 1971).

14. Ronsard, Hymne de France (ll. 217-19), in Paul Laumonier, ed. Œuvres complètes, 18 vols. (Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1914-67), I, 35 (“Moy ton Poëte, ayant premier osé / Avoir ton loz en ryme composé, / Je te supply, qu'à gré te soit ma lyre.”). Unless otherwise indicated, all references to Ronsard are to this edition and appear in the text with the number of the book, ode, and lines in parentheses.

15. Odes, “A Bouju Angevin” (I, X, 17-24), I, 122-23 (“Mais mon ame n'est ravie / Que d'une brulante envie / D'oser un labeur tenter / Pour mon grand Roi contenter, / Afin que le miel de l'euvre / Son oreille oigne si bien, / Que facile je la treuve / L'importunant pour mon bien.”)

16. Odes, “Au lecteur,” I, 47 (“petit sonnet petrarquizé, ou quelque mignardise d'amour”).

17. With respect to this subject, it should be noted that Ronsard often deleted from new editions odes which no longer served a particular function.

18. This text is reproduced in Pierre de Nolhac, Ronsard et l'humanisme (Paris: Champion, 1921), pp. 262-70.

19. Odes, “A Jouachim Du Bellai Angevin” (I, IX, 16), I, 109 (“emmieller les renoms”).

20. Ode de la Paix (499-500), III, 35 (“sonneur / De l'une & de l'autre gloire”).

21. Odes, “Au lecteur,” I, 48 (“ma boutique n'est chargée d'autres drogues que de louanges, & d'honneurs”).

22. Michel Dassonville, Ronsard: étude historique et littéraire, II, A la conquête de la toison d'or (1545-1550) (Geneva: Droz, 1970), 16.

23. Etienne Pasquier, Choix de lettres sur la Littérature, la Langue et la Traduction, published and annotated by D. Thickett (Geneva: Droz, 1956), pp. 5-6 (“servitude a demy courtisane,” “que ne fissiez si bon marché de vostre plume à hault-louer quelques-uns que nous sçavons notoirement n'en estre dignes”). The Protestants Antoine de La Roche-Chandier and Bernard de Montméja also reproached Ronsard for his flattery and servility directed toward those of high rank. Our poet defended himself against these accusations in 1563 by writing a “Response de Pierre Ronsard, aux injures & calomnies de je ne sçay quels Predicantereaux & Ministreaux de Genéve,” published in Discours des Misères de ce temps. On Ronsard's response, see Ullrich Langer, “A Courtier's Problematic Defense: Ronsard's `Responce aux injures,'” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 46, no. 2 (1984), 343-55.

24. Second Livre des Meslanges, “A Monsieur Du Thier” (7), X, 39 (“la gloire des Roys en suget est fertile”).

25. Odes, “Au Roi Henri II^e de ce nom” (36-37), dedication of the third edition of the Odes appearing in 1555 and reproduced by Charles Guérin in his edition of the Odes (Paris: Editions du Cèdre, 1952), p. 4 (“Toutefois le desir qui le coeur m'aiguillonne / De te montrer combien je suis ton serviteur”).

26. Odes, “Au lecteur,” I, 43 (“Mais quand tu m'appelleras le premier auteur Lirique François, & celui qui a guidé les autres au chemin de si honneste labeur, lors tu me rendras ce que tu me dois, & je m'efforcerai te faire apprendre qu'en vain je ne l'aurai receu”).

27. Odes, “Au Roi Henri II” (1-8); in Guérin, Odes, p. 145 (“Comme on voit le navire attendre bien souvent / Au premier front du port la conduite du vent / Afin de voyager, haussant la voile enflée / Du côté que le vent sa poupe aura soufflée, / Ainsi, Prince, je suis sans bouger, attendant / Que ta faveur royale aille un jour commandant / A ma nef d'entreprendre un chemin honorable / Du côté que ton vent lui sera favorable”).

28. Odes, “Au lecteur,” I, 50 (“gouter les mannes de la roialle grandeur”).

29. Odes, “Au Roi Henri II^e de ce nom” (71-74); in Guérin, Odes, p. 5 (“Ainsi, suivant les dieux, je te suppli' de prendre / A gré ce petit don, pour l'usure d'attendre / Un présent plus parfait et plus digne d'un roi / Que jà ma Calliope enfante dedans moi.”).

30. Jean-Paul Sartre, “Le séquestré de Venise: les fourberies de Jacopo,” Les Temps Modernes no. 141 (Nov. 1957); text reproduced in Situations IV (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), pp. 291-346.

31. Odes, “A Michel de l'Hospital” (V, VIII, 6), III, 119 (“main laborieuse”); and “A Jan de la Hurteloire” (II, XIV, 15), I, 215 (“laborieuse main”).

32. Odes, “A Jouachim Du Bellai Angevin” (I, IX, 14), I, 109 (“art de mon pouce”).

33. Odes, “Au Seigneur de Carnavalet” (I, VI, 37), I, 92 (“labeur de mes dois”).

34. Isidore Silver, “Ronsard poète rusé,” Cahiers de l'Association Internationale des Etudes Françaises no. 22 (1970), 41-52.

35. Odes, “A Bertran Berger de Poitiers” (I, XV, 11), I, 139 (“Je suis le trafiqueur des Muses”).

36. Ronsard uses the word “labeur” 152 times in his work. If one compares the frequency of this word with the rest of Ronsard's vocabulary—which extends to more than 12,000 words—one sees that this noun occupies the 430th position. The verbs “être,” “faire,” “avoir,” “voir,” etc., as well as a large number of adverbs and prepositions, evidently monopolize the top of the list. For more details on Ronsard's word usage, see A. E. Creore, A Word-Index to the Poetic Works of Ronsard (Leeds: W. S. Maney & Son, 1972).

37. Odes, “Au lecteur,” I, 48 (“industrieusement”).

38. Odes, “La Victoire de François de Bourbon” (I, V, 10), I, 83 (“ouvrier ingenieux”).

39. Abbrégé de l'Art Poëtique François, XIV, 3 (“d'autant que l'artifice humain, experience & labeur le peuvent permettre, j'ay bien voulu t'en donner quelques reigles icy, afin qu'un jour tu puisses estre des premiers en la connaissance d'un si agreable métier”).

40. Daniel Ménager has shown that the notion of “value” also occupies a central place in the Hymnes; in Ronsard: le Roi, le Poète et les Hommes, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance, no. CLXIX (Geneva: Droz, 1979), p. 55. The “suyte de l'hymne au cardinal de Lorraine” illustrates well the preponderant importance of value in the Hymnes. Ménager believes, however, that in the end Ronsard refuses to “assign a price to his writing.”

41. Ode de la Paix (469-78), III, 33-34 (“Prince, je t'envoie cette Ode, / Trafiquant mes vers à la mode / Que le marchant baille son bien, / Troque pour troq': toi qui es riche, / Toi roi de biens, ne soi point chiche / De changer ton present au mien. / Ne te lasse point de donner, / Et tu verras comme j'acorde / L'honneur que je promai sonner / Quant un present dore ma corde”).

42. Weber, Création poétique, p. 87.

43. Odes, “Usure a luimesme” (I, VII), I, 99-100.

44. Odes, “Au Seigneur de Carnavalet” (I, VI, 35-40), I, 92 (“Ores donq' ta renommée / Voira les cieus, animée / Par le labeur de mes dois: / Telle durable richesse / Sur la Roiale largesse / Heureuse estimer tu dois”).

45. Elegies, Mascarades et Bergerie, “Ode à Monsieur de Verdun” (46-48), XIII, 258 (“Car les Rois & les Empereurs / Ne different aux laboureurs / Si quelcun ne chante leur gloire”). This ode was first published in 1565 in the Elegies before appearing in the later editions of the Odes.

46. Odes, “Usure a luimesme” (I, VII, 6, 8), I, 99 (“Ne feront vivre ton renom, / Pourra perpetuer ton nom”).

47. Odes, “Au Roi Henri II” (117); in Guérin, Odes, p. 148 (“Sans les Muses deux fois les rois ne vivent pas”).

48. Odes, “Au Roi Henri II” (119-22); in Guérin, Odes, p. 149 (“Aux rives d'Achéron: seulement cette gloire / Est de Dieu concédée aux filles que Mémoire / Conçut de Jupiter, pour la donner à ceux / Qui attirent par dons les poètes chez eux”).

49. Second Livre des Meslanges, “Complainte contre Fortune” (423-28), X, 36-37 (“L'impudence nourrist l'honneur & les estas. / L'impudence nourrist les criards avocas, / Nourrist les courtizans, entretient les gendarmes: / L'impudence aujourd'hui sont les meilleures armes / Dont lon se puisse ayder, mesme à celuy qui veut / Parvenir à la court …”).

50. Second Livre des Meslanges (431-41) (“le plus eshonté,” “sangsue,” “l'apast d'une douce faveur”).

51. On the tactlessness of Ronsard before the court, see Michel Dassonville, Ronsard: étude historique et littéraire, and more particularly the third volume of his work, Prince des poètes ou poète des Princes (1550-1556) (Geneva: Droz, 1976), pp. 13-27.

52. Second Livre des Meslanges, “Complainte contre Fortune” (121-28), X, 22-23 (“Je conceu Eveschez, Prieurez, Abayes, / Soudain abandonnant les Muses, esbahyes / De me voir transformer d'un escolier contant / En nouveau courtizan, demandeur inconstant. / O que mal aisement l'ambition se couvre! / Lors j'apris le chemin d'aller souvent au Louvre, / Contre mon naturel j'apris de me trouver / Et a vostre coucher & à votre lever”).

53. Nouvelles Poésies, “Compleinte a la Royne Mere du Roy” (296-302), XII, 186-87 (“Mais il te faut prier les grands dieux de la court, / Les suyvre, les servir, se trouver à leur table, / Discourir devant eux un conte delectable, / Les courtizer, les voir, & les presser souvent, / Autrement ton labeur ne seroit que du vent, / Autrement la science & ta lyre estimée / (Pour n'user de cet art) s'en iroit en fumée”).

54. Isidore Silver, “Pierre de Ronsard: Panegyrist, Pensioner and Satirist of the French Court,” Romanic Review 45 (1954), 92.