Some biographical highlights
Clément
Marot was born in Cahors (probably in 1496 and perhaps on 23rd of
November (because the patron saint of that day is Clemens)); he died in
Turin on 12 September 1544 and was buried in the crypt of the Turin Cathedral.
LIFE Son of the court poet Jean Marot
Clément tried to follow in the footsteps of his father. Although he always
refers to his place of birth (Clément Marot de Cahors en Quercy),
he probably did not live there very long. Already in 1518 (just over 20 years
young) he succeeded in getting a post as secretaire at the
court
of Marguerite of Navarre, sister of Francis I, King of France.
This court was a center of culture and in the 1520s
became the hotbed of ecclesial reform. She corresponded intensely with the
Bishop of Meaux, who in his diocese was organizing one of the most promising
experiments of church renewal (Meaux = just north of Paris). She was the sponsor
and certainly the protector, if not background coordinator. Her personal
scholar, the par of Erasmus, Lef�vre d'Etaples, supervised the experiment. Next
to this
she was quite a learned woman and a gifted poet
(and posthumous: storyteller and playwright). Marot's
religious inspired poetry, like his first Psalm
versification and simple prayers in French have their natural habitat in her
sphere. His first Psalm (nr. 6) was added to a reprint of Marguerite's Miroir
de l'âme pécheresse, 1533) and the prayers appeared in a closely annexed
pamphlet about the reform of orthography.
In 1527 Marot had become valet de chambre du roi
(court poet, a honorary function) and his fame increased. All
of Paris was familiar with him through some of his
poems that circulated and occasionally were printed. A huge success he scored
with his chansons, published by Attaingnant. In 1534 he had to leave the country
because of the Affaire des placards: fierce broadsheets against the
'popish Mass' were hung everywhere in and around Paris and anyone suspected of
sympathies for "Lutheranism", as it is then called, was in acute danger. After
finding shelter in Navarre (with... Marguerite, now married to king of Navarre)
he traveled to Ferrara, where the half-sister of the king, Renée de France,
held court, not only entertaining the French in Italy, but at the same time
actively stimulating intellectual, moral and ecclesial renewal. After two years
of exile Marot could only return to France because he publicly abjured his
'errors' and explicitly confirmed his allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church
(December 1536, in Lyon). He was restored to his position and became the
greatest poet of his time. From then on he kept silent about his innermost
convictions. But his name stayed connected to the Reform movement, his Psalm
versifications circulated in manuscript, and became associated with Calvinism
ever since John Calvin used 13 of them in his first Hymnbook (Strasbourg, 1539).
In 1542 a new wave of prosecutions made him decide to leave France. He departed
for Geneva this time, where he was well received by Calvin, who actively
supported him while he was expanding his versification of the Psalter. Marot
left the city late 1543, wanting to return to France. He died on 12 September
1544, at the age of 47, in Turin where the French troops had their headquarters.
At his death, an
epigram was carved out in marble and placed in the
Turin Cathedral, where it was removed thirty years later on the explicit command
of the Bishop of Turin.
WORKS
As was normal procedure in those days poems circulated
in manuscript, and only poems made for special occasions were printed. The texts
of his songs (chansons) appeared in music editions (music Claudin de Sermisy,
Clement Janequin, both court musicians; editor: Pierre Attaingnant. Precisely
because of the enormous popularity Marot felt compelled to publish an anthology
of his poems, both to differentiate between authentic and unauthentic texts and
to provide correct (or improved) versions. He named this anthology: "Clément's
youth", Adolescence Clementine (1532, preface 1530). In
this compilation he gathered the harvest of his first 30 years as a poet.
Many old art forms (ballads, rondeaux) are present, but also new types can be
found such as the chanson (new as an art-form). Also characteristic is
the presence of translations (or imitations, re-creations) of the classical
poets (Virgil, Horace, Ovid). Here Humanist influence can be surmised. Marot
proved to be well versed in epistolary art, giving this classical form a very
personal touch. Famous
is his épistre au roy pour le delivrer du Prison (1527) and his au
roy pour avoir été derobe (1532). During his exile he perfected this art
form, with as a summit of his ability the épistre au roy, du temps de son
exil � Ferrare (1535), in which he begs to be allowed to return from exile. Before
he had to flee he had published
La Suite de l'Adolescence Clementine,
in which he brought together more poetry from his first period. Also
a series of translations
of Ovid's Metamorphoses appeared in print around the same time, as always
'dedicated to the King'. When Marot returned from exile he published a new
version of his Works (also suppressing some of the more religiously risky
poetry) in 1538, Oeuvres. Marot is often regarded as the poet who
concluded the Middle Ages (Rhetoriqueurs) and ushered in a new era: the French
Renaissance. In
later years he specialized in
epigrams - like Martial -. While still in exile, he
reinvented the old genre of the blason challenging his fellow poets to
describe a (small) part of the female body in the most charming way. His own
Blason du beau Tetin was the example to follow. The combination of
craftsmanship in writing and a witty mind made him the 'prince of the French
poets of his days', loved and admired by many, feared by others.
As
a satirist
he finished off his arch-enemy Sagon with the l'épitre de
Frippelippes (1537). His
contemporary poems in which the text of the Hebrew psalms was reformulated in
16th century strophic form, made him a name in scholarly and religious circles.
He translated ap�s la v�rit� Hebraicque, i.e. based on the original
language (albeit via translations). This
in itself purely Humanist idea (ad fontes, back to the sources) applied to the
poetry of the Psalter became an unexpected hit in evangelical circles. The
poems, initially made for private use (the Court), circulated in Reform oriented
circles. In
1539 John Calvin gathered a good dozen of them and he had them set to music
(melody) together with some of his own (and others?) exercises. This
publication (Aulcuns Psaulmes, Strasbourg 1539) was the beginning of the
habit of singing psalms in the reformed liturgy. In
1541 Marot himself published a first collection (Trente Psaumes) and in
1543 the definitive collection: Cinquante Psaumes (Geneva/Paris). In
Geneva, Lausanne and Lyon composers could not wait to compose music (either like
a motet, or like a chanson) to these texts. The Cinquante Psaumes (49
Psalms and the Canticle of Simeon) plus some other texts became the core of the
Huguenot Psalter.
APPRECIATION
The new generation of French poets around the middle
of the 16th century (the young wolves of the Pléiade like Ronsard, De Baïf
etc.)) dismissed Marot'ss poetry as old-fashioned, mainly - of course - to
promote themselves as the alternative. This
criticism gave Marots poetry a bad name for centuries. Only in the late 20th
century a revaluation of the Prince des Poètes françaises took
place. He is now considered to be the first Renaissance poet in French
literature and - based on his preference for translations - also as a Humanist
who wanted to offer the texts of classical and biblical antiquity to the modern
reader in his mother's tongue.
a table with a
chronology of Marot's life, works and main events (in Dutch)
References
Edition:
Clément Marot, Oeuvres Poétiques, two volumes, Ed. G. Defaux,
Classiques Garnier, 1990/1993
Biography:
C.A. Mayer,
Clément Marot, Paris 1972 (the introduction of the abovementioned edition can
be used as an update and in some parts a counter-balance) |