COMBATIVE TEXT: RONSARD'S POETICS OF DISSENT (1562-1563), THE

In his introduction to Ronsard's political rhyme of 1562-63, Paul Laumonier asks for what cause [i]or[/i] reason France's most prominent court bard turned from pacificism to military propaganda at that point in his writing career. The anti-Protestant Discours de mis??res de ce temp Remonstrance au peuple de France, and Responce aux injures were all sparked by dint of deeply personal interests, Laumonier argues. That is, in these piece of poetrys Ronsard was defending his right to solicitation and to receive material rewards from the meeting-house in spite of mounting criticism by dint of Protestants and reform-minded Catholics. The bard was also expressing the personal pain he had experienced on witnessing and failing to impede lootings and pillaging of Catholic churches in his native region. similar destruction was all the more unbearable for having been committed not single by heretic Frenchmen but through foreign mercenaries.1

The dual menace of heresy and foreign influence (inevitably linked to Ancient and of recent origin World heathenism, in the sixteenth century) is what I offer proffer to address in this essay. by what means does Ronsard's construction of the personal in his political metrical compositions articulate the poet's attachment to the past (regional nostalgia, greco-roman literary models) and his commitment to the time to come (promotion of the vernacular and of royal authority)? What part do foreign invaders play in the elaboration of Ronsard's textual persona?

One may indeed read the political piece of poetrys written by Ronsard between 1560 and 1563 as increasingly personal in nature. In the years immediately preceding the French wars of religion Ronsard had argued against armed conflict. His El?©gie ?  G de Autels, written in 1560 discouraged a policy of military action against Protestants, arguing instead in favor of diplomatic mediation. In 1562 however, the lament was reprinted bearing textual additions in which Ronsard urg armed resistance against the Huguenot factions. The poet's political about-face becomes clear if single compares the two versions directly:2

In 1562 and 1563 Ronsard's rhyme is increasingly engag?©, that is, more overtly engaged with political issues of the day and more representative of the poet's personal relate tos For a court poet to write about in every one's mouth civil unrest was of course, in a certain quantity of measure, obligatory. His duty, in part, was to exhibit the interests of the monarchy.3 A author of poems of renown such as Ronsard would bring all the rhetorical arsenal of the classical canon to bear upon such an endeavor. Recent criticism of the Discours de mis??res collection has focused upon the diversity of oratorical registers displayed in these poems.4 Ullrich Langer has argued that Ronsard's rhetorical construction of an Aristotelian/Ciceronian etho or ethical subjectivity in his political line helps the poet confront a national moral crisis as well as a precarious jiffy in his literary career. Rather than countering Reformist criticisms of his moral character with a of recent origin poetic subjectivity, Ronsard's response affirms his established reputation, his self-sameness as the nation's greatest in quantity gifted poet, by way of classical oratory. As the necessity of pleasing the prince and other noble patrons easily called into question the poet's moral credibility, in his Responce aux injures Ronsard carefully fabricates his r??le as ethical and artistic exemplar to a nation in crisis. Paradoxically, this rhetorical self-portrait carries the author of poems beyond the personal into a universal ethical realm. There his literary persona, as figure of enduring artistic authority, figures the integrity of his art, impervious to political or social change.5

Without question, Ronsard's apt handling of canonical oratory creates a tension between the ethical/political satisfied of his Discours and its rhetorical vehicle. The ironic distance between personal sentiment and poetic performance is a striking characteristic of these poems6 My essay, however, will focus not upon the figuring of permanence [i]or[/i] part of to the other persona in Ronsard's polemical line but rather on the poet's rhetorical preoccupation with change. I shall argue that the pi??ces politiques of 1562 and 1563 are motivated through a poetics of dissent, in the sixteenth-century connotation of the word. From the Latin, dis + sentire, signifying to "feel differently," dissent in Ronsard's political poesy is the representation of subjectivity in motion. The poet's squeeze outed concern with novelty, discord, and difference in general is continually played without against an ideal of integrity and wholeness. Rhetorical confrontations between unity and dissent contribute to the persuasive power of these piece of poetrys They bolster the poet's defense of the French monarchy and of his personal integrity, increasingly below attack by Protestant satirists. I wish therefore to consider in what way Ronsard's heightened rhetorical hostility to Protestantism and religious dissent was shaped by means of a personal history of "dissent," or change of sentiment.

Under the direction of Fran?§ois Ier (1515-47), the young Ronsard had had reformist sympathies. In keeping with the king's sister, Marguerite de Navarre, and other tvang?©liques of the day, Ronsard recognized the ne to rid France of rampant ecclesiastical corruption and abuse of privileges. He favored wider official use of the vernacular and freedom from rigid scholasticism, all ideas that allied him with Reform thinking. beneath Henri II, however, as Protestant religious dissent became more pronounced in France, Ronsard's sympathies changed. He was now in the service of a king who viewed Protestantism as a serious threat to the social order and who actively prosecut heretics. Following on the sudden death of Henri II in 1559 and the outbreak of the first religious war in 1562 Ronsard's political poesy takes a much more conservative revolve Actively defending the monarchy and the religious status quo the poet's earlier pacifism and opennes to Reform ideas gives way to a growing resistance to novelty and foreign influence. The piece of poetrys of 1562, addressed to the adolescent king Charles IX, to the Queen Mother, and to French Protestants, all secure from danger the Catholic values of the late Henri II. by dint of 1563 however, the longest of Ronsard's political metrical compositions his Responce aux injures, specifically targets the authors of a new Protestant pamphlet satirizing Ronsard's metrical composition and lifestyle. Thus in his Responce we diocese Ronsard's rhetoric shift yet again, now more oriented toward the personal than the political.