French Eloquence in Verse

The Age of Orators

The success of early French treatises on versification extends from L’Art de dictier by Eustache Deschamps (1392) to L’Art et Science de rhetoricque metriffiee by Gratien du Pont (1539).⁷ Thomas Sébillet’s L’Art poétique françois (1548), whose title was inspired by Horace’s Ars Poetica, introduced a more historical and theoretical perspective on poetry, which was considered groundbreaking at the time.⁸ Before this turning point, the pioneering period of the treatises of the ‘second rhetoric’ coincided with the rhetorical turn that shaped many European cultures from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. In what ways did this rhetorical shift impact writers’ perceptions of their own authorship, their choices of composition, and the relationships they sought to forge with their audiences? This is one of the central questions this book seeks to address. To this end, it is essential to contextualise the transformations that affected the poetical communication triangle (author – work – reception) during the period from 1450 to 1550, a crucial era in the age of poet–orators.

The rhetorical turn, contemporary with the expansion of humanism, led to a general reorientation of scholarly knowledge in line with the values associated with Cicero’s eloquence. This is why the period is referred to as the aetas ciceroniana.⁹ Since this cultural era spanned several centuries, we suggest describing its early stages as the ‘age of orators’.¹⁰ In the context of Francophone culture, this age began around 1400 and reached its zenith between the mid-fifteenth and the second quarter of the sixteenth century. Its influence remains evident in the works of François Habert and Clément Marot around 1530–1540. Both authors, whose work is studied in this volume, frequently used ‘poetry’ and ‘poetics’ interchangeably with ‘rhetoric’, demonstrating the fluidity of these concepts at the time.¹¹

This ‘Ciceronisation’ of poetry initially manifested itself in the ways writers redefined their authorship. Among the new titles they adopted in Middle French, ‘poet’ and ‘orator’ were the most frequent and were often used interchangeably. In 1404, Christine de Pizan referred to Eustache Deschamps, the author of the first art de rhétorique, as an ‘orateur de vers’ [orator in verse]; he had himself dubbed her ‘muse eloquente’ and praised her for her subtle verses.¹² By 1422, Alain Chartier described himself as a ‘lointain immitateur des orateurs’ [distant imitator of the orators] in Le Quadrilogue Invectif.¹³ These self-designations became more pronounced and widespread after 1450. Most of the poets were thus referred to as ‘orators’ by their contemporaries, from George Chastelain (ca.1415–1475), known as ‘Orator George’, to Jean Lemaire de Belges (1473–1524), who himself praised ‘poetes, orateurs et historiiens de la langue françoise, tant antiques comme modernes’ [poets, orators, and historians of the French language, both ancient and modern].¹⁴ The title ‘Rhétoriqueurs’ was later applied to them, as well as to Jean Molinet (1435–1507), Guillaume Cretin (ca.1460–1525), Octovien de Saint-Gelais (ca.1468–1502), Nicaise Ladam (1465–1547), and Jean Bouchet (1476–ca.1557), all authors discussed in this book. Nineteenth-century scholars borrowed this new label from a line by Guillaume Coquillart (ca.1480): ‘orateurs, grands rethoriqueurs’.¹⁵ In fact, the poets of that time embraced the title ‘orators’;¹⁶ therefore, we too will refer to them by this term.

One might wonder why the position of the poet–orator remained appealing for nearly a century and a half within Francophone culture. A possible explanation is that poet–orators benefitted from the convergence of three key elements. The first was an esteemed social standing: poets consistently presented themselves as orators working ‘en publicque felicité’ [for the public welfare].¹⁷ In practical terms, many of them served political authorities, often working within princely courts. While most sought this role, not all attained it: Ladam appears to have remained on the fringes of the literary circles of the Burgundian court, while Bouchet never secured the position that he coveted as poet for the La Trémoille family.¹⁸ The second element was a self-fashioning based on the Ciceronian model of the vir bonus dicendi peritus. The self-portraits the poet–orators crafted, whether of themselves or their peers, invariably depicted them as virtuous individuals, trained in the arts of eloquence (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric), and endowed with the rhetorical skills necessary to effectively persuade their audience. Finally, a set of cultural references drawn from Antiquity enabled them to compare themselves to Cicero, Juvenal, Horace, etc.¹⁹ These illustrious comparisons inspired the forms of emulation that characterised their networks, a topic to which we will return.