Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Hallie on Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard (Hallie Nowak)

Pierre Ronsard was born in 1524, and was the son of a noble family in a county called Vendome, and was educated at the College de Navarre in Paris. After going deaf from an incurable illness, Ronsard later studied Greek at the College de Coqueret. Studying became Ronsard’s vocation at this time, and he became incredibly dedicated to his work. He became known as the “dark star,” due to his deafness and subsequent silence in French. He served as the official poet of King Charles’s IX’s court, and let a generational movement of poets known as the La Pleiade during the Renaissance. This generation of poets led by Ronsard yearned to evoke the values of Humanism in French poetic verse by producing poetry that would be comparable to the antiquated classical verse. This would be achieved by Rosnard’s application of Classical criticism and scholarship to the French poetic vernacular. Ronsard was experimental in the ways in which he wrote poetic verse, utilizing many established forms and meters in an attempt to explore themes of romantic love and to create portraitures of royal life, encouraged by Charles IX, as Ronsard became a favorite of the King. His first collection of poems, titled Odes, hints at Ronsard’s attempt to be a continuation of or a counterpart to the odes of Horace, an ancient Roman poet. Ronsard was overwhelmingly popular at his time, and this popularity was immediate, and he was known as the “Poet Prince” by many of his time. Ronsard died due to increasingly poor health; but this poor health did not interfere with his work, and he continued to write up until his death in 1585.

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