Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

MAROT

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 749 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

MAROT , CL$MENT (1496-1544), See also:

French poet, was See also:born at See also:Cahors, the See also:capital of the See also:province of See also:Quercy, some See also:time during the See also:winter of the See also:year 1496-1497. His See also:father, See also:Jean Marot (c. 1463-1523), whose more correct name appears to have been See also:des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a See also:Norman of the neighbourhood of See also:Caen. Jean was himself a poet of considerable merit, and held the See also:post of escripvain (apparently uniting the duties of poet See also:laureate and historiographer) to See also:Anne of See also:Brittany. He had however resided in Cahors for a considerable time, and was twice married there, his second wife being the See also:mother of See also:Clement. The boy was " brought into See also:France "—it is his own expression, and is not unnoteworthy as showing the strict sense in which that See also:term was still used at the beginning of the 16th See also:century—in 1566, and he appears to have been educated at the university of See also:Paris, and to have then begun the study of See also:law. But, whereas most other poets have had to cultivate See also:poetry against their father's will, Jean Marot took See also:great pains to instruct his son in the fashionable forms of See also:verse-making, which indeed required not a little instruction. It was the palmy time of the rhetoriqueurs, poets who combined See also:stilted and pedantic See also:language with an obstinate adherence to the allegorical manner of the 15th century and to the most complicated and artificial forms of the See also:ballade and the See also:rondeau. Clement himself practised with See also:diligence this poetry (which he was to do more than any other See also:man to overthrow), and he has See also:left panegyrics of its See also:coryphaeus See also:Guillaume Cretin, the supposed See also:original of the Raminagrobis of See also:Rabelais, while he translated See also:Virgil's first See also:eclogue in 1512. Nor did he See also:long continue even a nominal devotion to law. He became See also:page to See also:Nicolas de See also:Neuville, seigneur de Villeroy, and this opened to him the way to See also:court See also:life. Besides this, his father's See also:interest must have been not inconsiderable, and the See also:house of See also:Valois, which was about to hold the See also:throne of France for the greater See also:part of a century, was devoted to letters.

As See also:

early as 1514, before the See also:accession of See also:Francis I., Clement presented to him his See also:Judgment of See also:Minos, and shortly afterwards he was either styled or styled himself facteur (poet) de la refineto See also:Queen See also:Claude. In 1519 he was attached to the See also:suite of See also:Marguerite d'See also:Angouleme, the See also:king's See also:sister, who was for many years to be the mainstay not only of him but of almost all French men of letters. He was also a great favourite of Francis himself, attended the See also:Field of the See also:Cloth of See also:Gold in 1520, and duly celebrated it in verse. Next year he was at the See also:camp in See also:Flanders, and writes of the horrors of See also:war. It is certain that Marot, like most of Marguerite's See also:literary court, and perhaps more than most of them, was greatly attracted by her gracious ways, her unfailing kindness, and her admirable intellectual accomplishments, but there is not the slightest ground for thinking that his See also:attachment was other than platonic. It is, however, evident that at this time either sentiment or matured See also:critical judgment effected a great See also:change in his See also:style, a change which was wholly for the better. At the same time he celebrates a certain Diane, whom it has been sought to identify with Diane de See also:Poitiers. There is nothing to support this See also:idea and much against it, for it was an almost invariable See also:habit of the poets of the 16th century, when the mistresses whom they celebrated were flesh and See also:blood at all (which was not always the See also:case), to celebrate them under pseudonyms. In the same year, 1524, Marot accompanied Francis on his disastrous See also:Italian See also:campaign. He was wounded and taken at See also:Pavia, but soon released, and he was back again at Paris by the beginning of 1525. His See also:luck had, however, turned. Marguerite for intellectual reasons, and her See also:brother for See also:political, had hitherto favoured the See also:double See also:movement of Aufklarung, partly humanist, partly Reforming, which distinguished the beginning of the century.

Formidable opposition to both forms of innovation, however, now began to be manifested, and Marot, who was at no time particularly prudent, was arrested on a See also:

charge of See also:heresy and lodged in the See also:Chatelet, See also:February 1526. But this was only a foretaste of the coming trouble, and a friendly See also:prelate, acting for Marguerite, extricated him from his See also:durance before See also:Easter. The imprisonment gave him occasion to write a vigorous poem on it entitled Enfer, which was afterwards imitated by his luckless friend See also:Etienne See also:Dolet. His father died about this time, and Marot seems to have been appointed to the See also:place which Jean had latterly enjoyed, that of See also:valet de chambre to the king. He was certainly a member of the royal See also:household in 1528 with a See also:stipend of 250 livres, besides which he had inherited See also:property in Quercy. In 1530, probably, he married. Next year he was again in trouble, not it is said for heresy, but for attempting to See also:rescue a prisoner, and was again delivered; this time the king and queen of See also:Navarre seem to have bailed him themselves. In 1532 he published (it had perhaps appeared three years earlier), under the See also:title of See also:Adolescence Clementine, a title the characteristic See also:grace of which excuses its slight savour of affectation, the first printed collection of his See also:works, which was very popular and was frequently reprinted with additions. Dolet's edition of 1538 is believed to be the most authoritative. Unfortunately, however, the poet's enemies were by no means discouraged by their previous See also:ill-success, and the political situation was very unfavourable to the Reforming party. In 1535 Marot was implicated in the affair of " The Placards,"1 and this time he was advised or thought it best to See also:fly. He passed through See also:Beam, and then made his way to Renee, duchess of See also:Ferrara, a supporter of the French reformers as steadfast as her aunt Marguerite, and even more efficacious, because her dominions were out of France.

At Ferrara he wrote a See also:

good See also:deal, his See also:work there including his celebrated Blasons (a descriptive poem, improved upon See also:medieval models2), which set all the verse-writers of France imitating them. But the duchess Renee was not able to persuade her See also:husband, Ercole d'See also:Este, to See also:share her views, and Marot had to quit the See also:city. 1 These " placards " were the work of the extreme Protestants. Pasted up in the See also:principal streets of Paris on the See also:night of the 17th of See also:October 1534, they vilified the See also:Mass and its celebrants, and thus led to a renewal of the religious persecution. 2 The blason was defined by See also:Thomas Sibilet as a perpetual praise or continuous vituperation of its subject. The blasons of Marot's followers were printed in 1543 with the title of Blasons anatomiques du See also:corps feminin. He then went to See also:Venice, but before very long the See also:pope See also:Paul III. remonstrated with Francis I. on the severity with which the Protestants were treated, and they were allowed to return to Paris on See also:condition of recanting their errors. Marot returned with the See also:rest, and abjured his heresy at See also:Lyons. In 1539 Francis gave him a house and grounds in the suburbs. It was at this time that his famous See also:translations of the See also:Psalms appeared. The merit of these has been sometimes denied, it is, however, considerable, and the powerful See also:influence which the See also:book exercised on contemporaries is not denied by anyone. The great persons of the court See also:chose different pieces, each as his or her favourite.

They were sung in court and city, and they are said, with exaggeration doubtless, but still with a basis of truth, to have done more than anything else to advance the cause of the See also:

Reformation in France. Indeed, the See also:vernacular See also:prose translations of the Scriptures were in that See also:country of little merit or See also:power, and the See also:form of poetry was still preferred to prose, even for the most incongruous subjects. At the same time Marot engaged in a curious literary See also:quarrel characteristic of the time, with a See also:bad poet named Sagon, who represented the reactionary See also:Sorbonne. See also:Half the verse-writers of France ranged themselves among the Marotiques or the Sagontiques, and a great deal of versified abuse was exchanged. The victory, as far as wit was concerned, naturally rested with Marot, but his biographers are probably not fanciful in supposing that a certain amount of odium was created against him by the squabble, and that, as in Dolet's case, his subsequent misfortunes were not altogether unconnected with a too little governed See also:tongue and See also:pen. The publication of the Psalms gave the Sorbonne a handle, and the book was condemned by that See also:body. In 1543 it was evident that he could not rely on the See also:protection of Francis. Marot accordingly fled to See also:Geneva; but the stars were now decidedly against him. He had, like most of his See also:friends, been at least as much of a freethinker as of a See also:Protestant, and this was fatal to his reputation in the austere city of See also:Calvin. He had again to fly, and made his way into See also:Piedmont, and he diedundoubtedly that in his gallant and successful effort to break up, supple, and liquefy the stiff forms and stiffer language of the 15th century, he made his poetry almost too vernacular and pedestrian. He has See also:passion, and picturesqueness, but rarely; in his hands, and while the style Marotique was supreme, French poetry ran some See also:risk of finding itself unequal to anything but graceful vers de societe. But it is only See also:fair to remember that for a century and more its best achievements, with rare exceptions, had been vers de societe which were not graceful.

The most important early See also:

editions of Marot's G uvres are those published at Lyons in 1538 and 1544. In the second of these the arrangement of his poems which has been accepted in later issues was first adopted. In 1596 an enlarged edition was edited by See also:Francois Miziere. Others of later date are those of N. Lenglet du See also:Fresnoy (the See also:Hague, 1731) and P. Jannet (1868–1872; new ed., 1873–1876), on the whole the best, but there is a very good selection with a still better introduction by See also:Charles d'Hericault, the See also:joint editor of the Jannet edition in the larger Collection Garner (no date). An elaborate edition by G. Guiffrey remained incomplete, only vols. ii. and iii. (1875–1881) having been issued. For See also:information about Marot himself see Notices biographiques des trois Marot, edited from the MS. of Guillaume Colletet by G. Guiffrey (1871); H. See also:Morley, Clement Marot, a study of Marot as a reformer; 0.

Douen, Clement Marot et le psautier huguenot; the See also:

section concerning him in G. Saintsburys The Early See also:Renaissance (1901); and A. See also:Tilley, Literature of the French Renaissance, vol. i., ch. iv. (1904). (G.

End of Article: MAROT

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
MAROONS 		[next]
MAROT, DANIEL (seventeenth century)

Site © 2006 - Net Industries