I. DE SMET: Violence, Religion and Revolt in Renaissance France
Ronsard, Discours
WORKSHEET
Recommended edition: Ronsard. Discours. Derniers vers, ed. Yvonne Bellenger (GF Garnier
Flammarion).
1) Organising your notes / preparing the ground:
a) The author and his work:
 Find out more about Ronsard and his milieu: when did he live? – what people and what circle(s) is
he associated with? – What is he especially remembered for?
 Find out more about his principal works: titles, dates, influence.
‘[Ronsard] n’est pas seulement un poète de l’amour, de la mort, de la guerre, un poète
philosophique, un poète de cour, un poète scientifique: il est tout cela à la fois, et dérange à cause
de cette richesse.’
[Y. Bellenger (ed.), Ronsard. Discours. Derniers vers, p. 16].
What works of Ronsard would you link to each of these descriptors? What does Bellenger mean by
the statement as a whole?
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b) The Discours: general
What place do Ronsard’s Discours take in his oeuvre as a whole?
When were they written? For whom? Why the poetic form?
Look into the material form of sixteenth-century editions of the Discours (use the links listed
below and/or on the module website). How do you think the format influenced the poems’
dissemination and interpretation?
Would you describe the Discours as: conciliatory or confrontational? Truthful or biased? Justify
your answer with concrete examples.
Find out more about the early reception of Ronsard’s Discours. What were the main issues on the
part of the Catholics? On the part of the Protestants?
N.B. You may wish to look at:
 Jean-Paul BARBIER, Bibliographie des discours politiques de Ronsard, Travaux d’humanisme
et Renaissance 205 (Geneva, 1984).
 F. CHARBONNIER, Pamphlets protestants contre Ronsard (1560-1577): bibliographie et
chronologie des pamphlets protestants contre les Discours de Ronsard, avec une édition
critique de trois pièces inédites et d’une pièce peu connue (Paris: E. Champion, 1923).
 Jacques PINEAUX (ed.), La polémique protestante contre Ronsard (Paris: M. Didier, 1973).
3. Analysis:
We shall concentrate on the Discours (Élégie) à Guillaume Des-Autels, the Discours des misères de ce
temps, the Continuation du discours des misères de ce temps, and the Prognostique…, but any further
reading (extension work) is warmly recommended.
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Group work: pair up with a friend (or two) and read one of the four texts and summarize its
arguments. Prepare notes on the questions below, in a form that can be shared with the other
groups on the module.
 Group A: Discours (Élégie) à Guillaume Des-Autels
 Group B: Discours des misères de ce temps
 Group C: Continuation du discours des misères de ce temps
 Group D: Prognostique…,
How is each poem structured? How are transitions achieved?
Find out more about the dedicatees / contemporaries named in each poem, and the circumstances
in which each piece was written. What similarities and what differences do you note?
Find out more about the élégie and the discours as literary (poetic) genres. What effect do you
think the poet envisaged by choosing this particular poetic format for the contents?
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I. DE SMET: Violence, Religion and Revolt in Renaissance France
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Discuss the Discours’ ‘language of militancy’. Try to devise various categories and give concrete
examples for each.
To what extent is it possible to distil Ronsard’s personal religious views from the Discours?
N. B. You may wish to look at:
 M. YOUNG, Guillaume des Autelz his life and work, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance
(Genève: Droz 1961).
 Philip Ford, ‘Biblical Imagery in Ronsard’s Polemical Poetry: An Own Goal?’, The Renaissance
Journal 2 (2005) 4. See http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/publications/journal/twelve/ (and
click on Philip Ford).
 Marcus Keller, ‘The struggle for cultural memory in Ronsard's Discours des misères de ce temps’,
in David LaGuardia, Cathy Yandell et al. (eds), Memory and Community in Sixteenth-Century
France (Ashgate, 2015) (on order for the library).
4. links:
 ‘The Ronsard Polemic’, The Renaissance in Print: Sixteenth-century French books in the Douglas
Gordon Collection:
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/rmds/collections/gordon/religion/ronsard.html
(allows you to view photographic reproductions of the original editions of the Discours, with brief
introductory notes by François Rouget).
 Various editions can also be consulted on Gallica (http://gallica.bnf.fr/), then click on ‘Recherche’
-> ‘auteurs’ (always check the notice [reference details] first to know which edition you are
consulting).
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