DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0391
THE RISE OF THE PLEIADE 345
Pedants should detest them; they had taken the Academic
vessels and used them for their own purpose. But the
followers of Marot, who had hitherto represented the National
School, disliked them even more bitterly. Their distaste is
harder to account for. They were jealous for their Maitre
Clement’s fame: they were also sincerely outraged by the
new words that the Pleiade imported. Marot himself would
have thought the words absurd, but he would have done
justice to the poets’ imagination. He would have enjoyed
their grace and relished the choiceness of their metres.
His disciples were obtuser. Led by Melin Saint-Gelais and
Fontaine, they poured contempt on Ronsard and his com-
rade. They spouted their lines in ranting tones; they mis-
pronounced the hated terms; they cut out whole passages
at will, to cover the authors with ridicule; they made fun
of them to the King. No wonder that Ronsard longed for
the reign of Francis I.
It needed all the skill of the Duchess Margaret—Ron-
sard’s friend as well as du Bellay’s—to change public opi-
nion concerning them. She did much to smooth matters
over and the disputants themselves grew tired of quarrels.
Melin Saint-Gelais made the first overtures. He wrote a
complimentary poem to Ronsard. Ronsard put it in the
front of his next volume and sent a tu quoque to Saint-Gelais.
Du Bellay followed his example and the feud, for the
moment, was made up.
It is difficult for us of to-day to understand why it arose.
The irritations of yesterday are as bewildering as its jokes-
they belong to the atmosphere that created them. The
words once gibed at are no longer novelties: they have
Pedants should detest them; they had taken the Academic
vessels and used them for their own purpose. But the
followers of Marot, who had hitherto represented the National
School, disliked them even more bitterly. Their distaste is
harder to account for. They were jealous for their Maitre
Clement’s fame: they were also sincerely outraged by the
new words that the Pleiade imported. Marot himself would
have thought the words absurd, but he would have done
justice to the poets’ imagination. He would have enjoyed
their grace and relished the choiceness of their metres.
His disciples were obtuser. Led by Melin Saint-Gelais and
Fontaine, they poured contempt on Ronsard and his com-
rade. They spouted their lines in ranting tones; they mis-
pronounced the hated terms; they cut out whole passages
at will, to cover the authors with ridicule; they made fun
of them to the King. No wonder that Ronsard longed for
the reign of Francis I.
It needed all the skill of the Duchess Margaret—Ron-
sard’s friend as well as du Bellay’s—to change public opi-
nion concerning them. She did much to smooth matters
over and the disputants themselves grew tired of quarrels.
Melin Saint-Gelais made the first overtures. He wrote a
complimentary poem to Ronsard. Ronsard put it in the
front of his next volume and sent a tu quoque to Saint-Gelais.
Du Bellay followed his example and the feud, for the
moment, was made up.
It is difficult for us of to-day to understand why it arose.
The irritations of yesterday are as bewildering as its jokes-
they belong to the atmosphere that created them. The
words once gibed at are no longer novelties: they have