Promise and Performance: Du Bellay's Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse Author(s): L. Clark Keating Source: The French Review.

Special Issue, No. 3, Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Autumn, 1971), pp. 77-83 Published by: American Association of Teachers of French Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/487519 . Accessed: 22/11/2013 22:08
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

American Association of Teachers of French is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The French Review. Special Issue.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

THE FRENCHREVIEW, Vol. XLV, Special Issue, No. 3, Fall, 1971.

Printed in Spain.

Promise and Performance: Du Bellay's

Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse
by L. Clark Keating
FOUR HUNDRED YEARS HAVE COME AND GONE SINCE Du famous Bellay's pamphlet was published in 1549. In the long interim times have changed and so have fashions in literature. The dragon of "natural" poetry which Du Bellay thought he had slain is still with us, transformed into a beneficent nymph, and ever welcome in our homes. The changeling that he called creative imitation, and which he welcomed with open arms, has now acquired the unflattering name of plagiarism and has been told never to darken our door again. And these are but samples of the differences between our point of view and that of the 16th century. Still to read the Deffence is to admire it, in particular, I think, for its youthful qualities: the enthusiasm, daring, and ambition of its author and his promise of a whole new world of poetry. This, he says in the Deffence, is our revolutionary program. If you are a reader of poetry throw away your old books. If you are a writer forget all you once knew about writing. We will show you how it is done. And readers listened. And poets climbed all over each other to be counted among the elect. Barth6l6my Aneau, the writer of The Quintil horatien with its sarcastic yet often accurate criticisms of the Deffence rallied to the new banner and was soon heard saying that Du Bellay was to be counted among France's most excellent poets. Charles Fontaine, who had been made fun of in Du Bellay's pamphlet, wrote a frantic letter to Jean de Morel urging him to make it known that he was not the author of the Quintil Horatien. Maurice Scive who was taken to task for the obscurity of his verses was quick to welcome Du Bellay when he passed through Lyon. The unfortunate young attorney, Thomas Sebillet, who had innocently written an Art podtique, to which the Deffence was in part a rejoinder, defended himself once in a preface and then threw in the sponge and sought the friendship of Du Bellay. Mellin de Saint Gelais, the last of the natural poets, began to make kindly reference 77

MIORE THAN

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

78

FRENCH REVIEW

to Du Bellay in his verse. Honest Michel de 1'Hospital approved of the new poetry, and so did Etienne Pasquier, who was never a man to be stampeded into praise. The King's sister Marguerite gave Du Bellay her blessing. And while it need not be assumed that all the above-mentioned persons had read, thoroughly digested and heartily agreed with all the rules for poetic composition laid down by Du Bellay, still it may be inferred that all of them were generally aware of his message and more or less approved of his purpose. The year, as we have said, was 1549. France had a new king and an old poet. Dorat's Collkge de Coqueret was educating and sending forth a new generation of young scholars, a generation full of protest, and, for the benefit of any of my readers who may chance to think the phenomenon peculiar to our own times, a group of young men abnormally conscious of the so-called generation gap. Great things were expected of the writer of the manifesto called the Deffence and of his backers. The court, and that small handful of literate persons in society, that constituted the literary public of those days, awaited the literary products of Du Bellay's pen with an open and receptive mind. Du Bellay did not keep them waiting long. His first publication L'Olive, was all but simultaneous with his Deffence. His last came shortly before his premature death in 1560. Between these dates books of verse succeeded each other rapidly. Du Bellay was indeed a poet, even a poet's poet, but to follow his career from triumph to triumph is not my purpose here. I am trying to perform that task in another and longer piece of writing. What we shall consider here today is but a single aspect of Du Bellay's work and that aspect is suggested by my title: Promise and Performance. The truth is that in the course of his short career Du Bellay was to cast aside nearly all the precepts which he laid down so forthrightly, so determinedly, and so iconoclastically in the Deffence. Sometimes he did this without appearing to notice the fact, sometimes he lightly rejected his former advice, sometimes he apologized for his failure to conform, and sometimes he petulantly denounced his own former point of view. On the first page of the Deffence Du Bellay enjoins us, as the custom then was, to withhold our censure until we have heard him out. We can do better than that. From our vantage point we are able to look not only at the ensemble of his pamphlet, but at the totality of the poetic edifice which he built, supposedly according to his own blueprints. As all readers of the Deffence know, it is introduced by a number of interesting but outmoded linguistic remarks. These we may by-pass. His first

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DEFFENCE

ET ILLUSTRATION

79

precept, as regards the writing of poetry, is that the would-be poet should avoid translation, of which he says: Celuy doncques qui voudra faire oeuvre digne de prix en son vulgaire, laisse ce labeur de traduyre, principalement les podtes, a ceux qui de chose laborieuse & peu profitable, j'ose dire encor' inutile, voyre pernicieuse a l'acroissement de leur Langue, emportent a bon droict plus de molestie que de gloyre. This is forthright, and to the point, perhaps even unnecessarily so. And at this juncture it seems neither unfair nor irrelevant to digress long enough to point out that the Deffence is itself in large part a translation from the Italian. This fact, well known now, may even have been well known in Du Bellay's day, but the Deffence was not poetry. Less consistent by far with his own advice was his deliberate breaking of his own rule by publishing in 1560 a translation of the fourth book of the Aeneid. For this he thought he had better offer an excuse, which is as follows: Je n'ay pas oublie ce que autrefois j'ay dict des translations po'tiques: mais je ne suis si jalouzement amoureux de mes premieres apprehensions, que j'ay honte de les changer quelquesfois a l'exemple de tants d'excellens auteurs, dont I'auctorite nous doit oster ceste opiniatre opinion de vouloir persister en ses advis principalement en matiere de lettres. Quand d moy, je ne suis pas stoique jusqu'd la. He had in fact thought little of translating the hymne of l'Hospital, the Moretum attributed to Virgil and several others. So much for his conspicuous and admitted disregard of his own rule. Less publicised was the fact that a number of the sonnets in the Olive, were not the result of the sort of "creative imitation" so much stressed by Du Bellay but were mere out and out translations of Italian poems. He was even guilty of a little chicanery in this regard. He warned his reader that he would probably be echoing the sentiments of Horace and Virgil and for this reason his verses might sound familiar. He said nothing about the Italians he actually translated. Obviously when it came to Virgil what he did was obvious, and the same for L'Hospital, but when the original was not well known he was not above passing as original an obscure Latin or Italian poem. The second doctrine to which most of the first part of the Deffence is devoted is an eloquent plea for the poet to turn away from writing in Latin and write in French, thereby improving the language and rendering it illustrious. His friends and observers, therefore, were not a

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

80

FRENCH REVIEW

little surprised when he returned from Italy with a love sequence written in Latin in his kit bag (good Latin, so the experts say). Obviously he expected adverse criticism and to real or fancied objections he wrote: Campagne de ma couche conjugale et mere de mes oeuvres, la muse franfaise m'a donne bien des enfants. Et tu t'dtonnes que je brule pour une jeune romaine, o lecteur, et que je viole les droits d'un ancient lit. La Muse franfaise est pour moi, je l'avoue, ce qu'une epouse est pour son mari. Et c'est comme une maitresse que je courtise la Muse latine. "Alors," diras-tu, ""l'irreguliere passe devant I'dpouse?" C'est vrai. L'une est charmante, mais l'autre plait davantage." So much for the patriotic duty of all Frenchmen to come to the aid of their language. Next in line after the importance of French, and the doctrine of creative imitation is Du Bellay's emphasis on the poet's need for scholarship. Natural inspiration is not enough, says Du Bellay, and he belabors the point throughout Chapter III of the second part of his manifesto. This done, mirabile dictu, erudition is all but forgotten, and properly so, when he describes the goings on in the Eternal City during his unhappy sojourn there... For the sad truth is that when inspiration was truly upon him Du Bellay instinctively threw aside his mythology and his burden of humanism and said what he had to say. But later when again he must perforce turn out a pi&ce de circonstance for a battle, or some similarly uninteresting example of royal behavior, then Jupiter and his troupe of strolling puppets are dusted off and given a go. In fact even more useful in such cases was the vague legend of the war of the giants against the gods of Olympus. This legend appeared in no less than three successive dull poems in honor of the king's exploits. What kind of poetry should one write? asks our author in the fourth chapter of the second part of his manifesto. Well, first of all rid yourself of all interest in tiresome local poetry contests, like the Puy de Rouen, and the Jeux Floraux de Toulouse. Yes indeed, they are unworthy of the humanistic poet. But later this precept too was forgotten. When Ronsard was honored by the Collkge de Rhetorique of Toulouse in a poetic contest, Du Bellay was the first to congratulate him. In the next chapter of the Deffence the old romances of chivalry in novel form are dismissed as unworthy of a literary man's attention. They are, he says, seen as "beaucoup plus propre a bien entretenir damoizelles." If used at all they should be the starting point of a great French epic. But friendships change opinions. When Nicolas Herberay des

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DEFFENCE

ET ILLUSTRATION

81

Essarts translated the Amadis into French Du Bellay lauded him in a special ode as the "French Homer." Apparently it depended on who did what and when. In the matter of rime Du Bellay is quite positive in his advice. He says: Mais la rythme de notre porte sera volontaire, non forcee: receue, non appellee: propre, non aliende: naturelle, non adoptive: bref, elle sera telle, que le vers tumbant en icelle ne contentera moins l'oreille, qu'une bien armonieuse musique tumbante en un bon et parfait accord. Ces dquivoques doncq et ces simples rymez avec leurs composez, comme un baisser et abaisser, s'ilz ne changent ou augmentent grandement la signification de leurs simples, me soient chassez bien loing. This seems clear enough. Let us see whether Du Bellay took his own advice: Here are the data from a single sonnet in Les Regrets, # 121 to be exact: In the first quatrain tour rimes with alentour. In the second retour rimes with destour. In the second tercet temps rimes with passetemps. The samples were not exactly chosen at random, but other examples can be found without difficulty. A little further on Du Bellay urges his hypothetical poet to rework his verse, and never to be satisfied with his first draft. Yet this advice also was apparently more honored by him in the breach than in the observance. Du Bellay was a careless poet. Unlike Ronsard he often rushed into print before he was really ready. He calls the need to polish one's verse a most necessary process of which he says: "Je ne veux oublier l'emendation, partie certes la plus utile de notz etudes. L'office d'elle est ajouter, oter, ou muer a loysir ce que cete premiere impetuosit6 et ardeur d'escrire n'avoit permis de faire." But this is but half of our story. There are also many positive entries in the ledger. Du Bellay was far from totally disregarding his own advice. Despite his occasional lapses into Latin it must be said that his greatest contribution is to be found in his distinguished work in French, particularly the Regrets and the Antiquitez de Rome in which he did as much as any one individual to defend and make illustrious the French language. He also deserves credit for his way of handling the theory of creative imitation which he had found in Speroni's text, one which he developed in his own way. He, if any man could, brought the doctrine to perfect use in his poetry. Who remembers, for instance, that the delightful piece "D'un vanneur de bl, aux vents," which begins: A vous troppe legere, Qui d'aele passagere

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

82 Par le monde volez, Et d'un sifflant murmure L'ombrageuse verdure Doulcement esbranlez...

FRENCHREVIEW

is closely imitated from the Latin of the Italian Navagero. Or who knows, or cares, that the sonnet "Heureux, qui comme Ulysse apres un beau voyage" has not one but several sources. This is creative imitation at its best. Again on the debit side from our point of view, though a tribute to his consistency, we find Du Bellay slavishly and regrettably bogged down in the most minor aspects of classical mythology. Throughout the Olive, his first poetic work, we hear ad nauseam about the heroes of ancient myth, Bacchus and Venus, Pallas and Jupiter, Mars and Hercules. Furthermore we are expected, if we would understand the poems in which they appear, to know all about them and to recognize eliptical references to their less known exploits. When we hear in the first sonnet the mention of the "Dieu au chef dor6," or the "Dieu aux Indes adore," we are supposed to identify them at once. A few lines further on, in lines six and seven there the poet talks of "le mol rameau en Cypre d6cor6, celuy qui est d'Athenes honor6." This practice is quite in line with Du Bellay's dictum in the Deffence that it is far better to call a character by his attribute than to name him directly. And in this our poet was boringly and doggedly insistent. According to certain pedants, of course, it is only the abysmal ignorance of the ill-educated modern reader that prevents us from passing Du Bellay's culture test. But I venture to wonder whether this is really true. Were there many of his readers who actually knew their mythology that well? He says in the Deffence among other things that a poet should be satisfied with a small but select readership, but how select can you get and still have a readership at all? It is hardly likely that a man with Du Bellay's well developed ambition would have been satisfied to be read and applauded by his fellow students at Coqueret and by them alone. Yet this is where his doctrine of obscure references would have led French poetry if the advice of the Deffence had been followed to the letter. We would then have had coterie literature at its worst. Fortunately no one takes advice very seriously, even poets when they are themselves the propounders of the precepts. The admonitions "Don't do this," and "Do this instead," are useful attention getters for someone who wants to change some customs or shake up some old ways. After all poetry did find itself in a kind of dead-end when Marot

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DEFFENCE

ET ILLUSTRATION

83

and Saint-Gelais came on the scene as the successors of the Grands Rh6toriqueurs and of Jean Lemaire de Belges. The puys and jeux floraux as the by and large had lost their usefulness. The Querelle des fenimmes Roman de la Rose and Rabelais knew it was dead and only needed to be buried. An epic and a national theatre such as Bu Bellay advocated though not immediately forthcoming would have been useful. A renewed faith in French, and a breath of air from across the Alps whether of ancient or modern Italian origin served a most useful purpose. Du Bellay's Deffence, therefore, even though it never became fully operative as a program for French literature, nor even for his own life and works made some cogent suggestions for French literature. It called for change, and, as is the way of youth, it did so insistently and disrespectfully. Yet it was listened to and it made converts. Still neither Du Bellay nor anyone else could be expected to regard his text or its precepts as sacred. Once written his book had served its purpose. Such principles as were an intimate part of his own equipment as a poet Du Bellay could not have discarded if he had wanted to. As a classicist he believed in the value of Greece and Rome. No student of Dorat could have thought otherwise. Yet when as a result of his bitter experiences in Rome he had something of his own to say he found classicism a hindrance. He had to be himself. So too with some of his other precepts. They were part of a plan to improve his country's literature and his country's language. They were also part of his plan for self realization. He seems dimly to have understood this, for as soon as he had developed his own style he refused to be bound by rules, his or anyone else's.
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:08:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions