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University. Micrdfilms International 300 N /EEBRO AD. ANN ARROR.MI 48106 13 BFDFORD ROW, LONDON WC 1 R 4FJ. FNGLAND BOO 1684

ARMBRUSTFk, CAROL ANN DEATH IN TMt POETRY OF JEAN DE SPUNDE JEAN—BAPTISIE CHASSIGNFT.

THE OHIO STATE UNIVcRSIIY, P H .D ., 1979

C OPR • 1979 ;RMFiRUS Tt. R , CAROL ANN UrtversJtv . M k jdrBms International N z e e s r o a d , ANN a r b o r , m i a b io b

© 1979

CAROL ANN ARMBRUSTER

ALL RICHTS RESERVED DEATH IN THE POETRY OF JEAN DE SPONDE AND JEAN-BAPTISTE CHASSIGNET

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By Carol Ann Armbruster, B.A., M.A.

* * * *

The Ohio State University 1979

Read ing Commi ttee: Approved By Robert D. Cottrell Micheline Besnard-Coursodon Charles G.S. Williams Advisor Department of Romance Languages and Literatures To my mother, Christine and Sarah

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Robert Cottrell and my readers Drs. Micheline Besnard-Coursodon and

Charles G.S. Williams for their reading of this disser­ tation and for their very helpful suggestions. I would especially like to thank my family for their patient support and understanding throughout some very trying years. A special thanks also goes to Josette and Chuck Wilburn for providing a home in Columbus and a very special friend­ ship.

iii VITA

December 14, 1947. . . . Born - Berea, Ohio 1969 ...... B.A., magna cum laude, The Cleveland State University, Cleveland Ohio 1971 ...... M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1969-197 3 ...... University Fellowship, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1970-197 4 ...... Teaching Associate, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1974-1976...... The Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 197 5-1977...... Lecturer, part-time, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

197 5 ...... Participant in Charles S. Singleton seminar "Dante: A Reading of the Commedia," Folger Institute of Renaissance and Eighteenth-Century Studies, Washington, D.C. 1976-1977...... The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 1977 ...... Participant in H.W, Janson seminar "The World of Donatello," Folger Institute of Renaissance and Eighteenth-Century studies, Washington, D.C.

iv 1979 Visiting Lecturer, Denison University, Granville, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: French Language and Literature Sixteenth-Century Literature. Professor Robert D. Cottrell Seventeenth-Century Literature. Professors Hugh M. Davidson and Charles G.S. Williams Minor Field: Italian Language and Literature. Professor Albert N. Mancini

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page DEDICATION...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... iii VITA...... iv

INTRODUCTION...... 1 PART I: THE THEMATICS OF DEATH...... 6

Chapter I. The Late Middle Ages...... 7 II. Evangelism...... 30

III. Renaissance...... 58 IV. Calvinism...... 30

PART II: THE DEATH POETRY OF JEAN DE SPONDE AND JEAN-BAPTISTE CHASSIGNET...... 92

Chapter I. The "Stances de la Mort" and the "Sonnets sur le mesne subject" of Jean de Sponde.. 93

II. The Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort of Jean-Baptiste C has signet.' 161

CONCLUSION ...... 220 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 230 APPENDIX...... 243

Vi INTRODUCTION

Death being an issue of central concern to man, it is a fundamental issue in many kinds of discourse and systems of organized thinking. Philosophies, theologies, religions and, of course, thanatologies are founded on it. In poetic discourse, death occupies an equally central place by serving as one of the more basic poetic themes, along with others such as love, time and truth. Themes as basic as death, however, are broad, heavily abstract and often elusive subjects. Frequently it is by means of smaller, more specific sub-themes that one approaches such a subject and attempts to define and/or discuss it. The sub-themes chosen and developed reflect both a conception of the subject and a reaction to it.

During the late Middle Ages, from about the middle of the fourteenth century throughout the fifteenth, French literature was particularly rich in works dealing with death. Concentration on the theme of death was remarkably intense and reflected considerable emotional preoccupation with the subject. According to Huizingua, "No other epoch has laid so much stress as the expiring Middle Ages on the thought of death.Theodore Spencer qualifies the late 1 2 medieval concentration on death even further: "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in Northern Europe the 2 whole fifteenth century was frenzied about death." This intense interest in the phenomenon of death and in death as a subject of poetic discourse led to a rich development of the theme of death in literature. In late medieval poetry many death sub-themes were created and developed, sub-themes which would continue to appear in poetry throughout the sixteenth century. During the sixteenth century man maintained an equally intense interest in the phenomenon of death, and in both the visual and poetic arts, death continued to be a dominant theme. As Marc Bensimon says, "L’homme du XVIe 3 ^ cdtoyait la mort chaque instant," and Hans-Joachim Lope, commenting on late sixteenth-century poetry on death, speaks of "une tradition jamais vraiment interrompue depuis le A 4 moyen age." In addition to using many of the medieval sub-themes, sixteenth-century poets developed others which reflected changing philosophical and religious attitudes towards death as well as different poetic treatments of the theme. In a survey of late medieval and sixteenth-century French poetry one can ascertain a definite evolution of the theme of death. Two works in particular can bear witness to this fact: Edelgard DuBruck's The Theme of Death in French Poetry of the Middle Ages and the 3 Renaissance and Christine Martineau-Genieys' Le Theme de la mort dans la po£sie frangaise de 1450 & 1550.5 By the end of the sixteenth century, then, a poet using death as the main theme of his poetry was writing, and one can assume writing very consciously, within a well established and well-known tradition. His selection and use of particular death sub-themes and his poetic treatment of them made a statement on the subject as well as on the poetic treatment of it. Two poets, Jean de Sponde and Jean-Baptiste Chassignet, are particularly known tor their poetry on death. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze and compare their death poetry and to contribute to a better understanding of each poet's position within the tradition of early French poetry on death. Both Sponde and Chassignet wrote their poetry on death during the last two decades of the sixteenth century, and the two collections of poetry were published within only six years of each other. Sponde's "Stances de la mort" and "Sonnets sur le mesme subject," were first published in 1588 as an appendix to his Meditations sur les Pseaumes XIII. ou LIII. XLVIII. L. & LXII. Chassignet's Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort was first pub­ lished in 1594.** The similarity of the main theme of the poetry and the contemporaneity of the poets makes a comparison of Sponde and Chassignet especially interesting. The method of analysis will be a combination of thematic and stylistic analyses. In Part I of our study, we will provide a historical survey of the thematics of death. In this part we will be primarily concerned with a review of late medieval and sixteenth-century attitudes towards death and the resultant death sub-themes. In Part II we will study each poet individually in order to ascertain his selection and poetic treatment of those sub-themes and, in this way, determine each individual poet’s statement of and on the subject. Comparisons between the poetry of Sponde and Chassignet will be made throughout Part II, with a final and summarizing compari­ son to be made in the Conclusion. NOTES

^J. Huizingua, The Waning of the Middle Ages (trans. F. Hcpman, 1924; rpt~ Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor-Doubleday» 1954), p. 138. 2 Theodore Spencer, Death in Elizabethan Tragedy (New York: Pageant, I960), p. 32. 3 Marc Bensimon, "Ronsard et la mort," MLR, 57 (1962), p. 183. 4 Jean-Baptiste Chassignet, Le Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort, ed. Hans-Joachim Lop€ (Gendve; Droz, 1967), p. XLVII. 5 Edelgard DuBruck, The Theme of Death in French Poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (The Hague: Mouton, 1964) and Christine Martineau-GSnieys, Le Thfeme de la mort dans la poesie francaise de 1450 & 1550 (Paris: Champion, 1977) .------g To date no manuscripts have been found for either of these works. For our study we will therefore use modern reprints of their first editions: Jean de Sponde, Meditations avec un Essai de poemes Chretiens, introd. Alan Boase (Paris: Corti, 1954) and Hans-Joachim Lope’s edition of the Mespris cited above. We will comment on these editions in Part II in Chapters I and II respec­ tively , As the biographies of both poets are largely unknown, it is uncertain as to when exactly the poets wrote their poetry on death, but it is generally assumed, with some credible substantiation, that they wrote it within a year or two before it was published. For the most complete biographical information on Sponde, see the introduction to the edition of Sponde*s Meditations we are using for this study or Boase' s more recently published Vie de Jean de Sponde (Gen&ve: Droz, 1977). For Chassignet, see Raymond Ortali, Un Poete de la mort: Jean-Baptiste Chas­ signet (Geneve: Droz, 1968), especially pp. 13-28.

5 PART I. THE THEMATICS OF DEATH I. THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

The late Middle Ages, from about the middle of the fourteenth century throughout the fifteenth, is a period in which one can see the crystallization of one sense of death and its transformation into another. Earlier medieval attitudes towards death and the thematics used to express them evolve into a final, if not decadent, form.^ Different attitudes and thematics evolve from these "spent" forms and evolve into something very much in contradiction with the earlier forms. In our survey of the late medieval thematics of death we shall attempt to point out both this crystallization and the trans­ formation .

The most fundamental of late medieval death sub-themes was the memento mori, a continual exhortation for the reader (or more often the audience) to remember death. Originally a vehicle of monastic and ascetic meditations, memento mori was meant to remind man of the finite nature of all earthly things and creatures, espe­ cially man himself, and thereby turn his attention from temporal concerns to more spiritual and eternal matters. Vanitas imagery, which depicted the frailty and therefore also the vanity or emptiness (Latin vanus = empty) of all

7 8 things terrestrial, was the primary means of presenting this sub-theme. Death itself was not originally intended to be the focal point of this imagery nor of the memento mori sub-theme. The reminder of death was to serve more as an impetus for the preparation for what followed death, i.e., divine judgement and the retribution for one's sins, than as an opportunity to discuss the phenomenon itself.

Continual emphasis on death as the inevitable fate of man reminded man not just of his mortality and of an after life for which one must prepare, but also of the essential nature of death in regards to the human condition. That all men would and did die was not just an empirical fact. Much more important for medieval man, human mortality had profound religious significance. Death was not an acci­ dent; man was born to die, it was his destiny. By trans­ gressing God's law, and thereby suffering the Fall, man had brought about his own death as punishment and now must suffer that death in order to atone for his sin of disobe­ dience and regain Paradise. Death was thus the penalty for original sin, and all descendants of the orignal man and woman who committed that sin, namely all men born on earth, must atone for it. Eschatologically, as well as physically, then, death was an integral part of the human condition and as such was the inevitable fate of all men. 9 The fundamental nature of the sub-theme of memento mori cannot be stressed enough. Without this sub-theme and belief in its implications, the other death sub-themes might not have existed at all. The force and popularity of all late medieval death sub-themes rested on the fact that they were dealing with a phenomenon that affected, indeed defined, the empirical nature of man, as well as elucidated a certain aspect of man's relationship with his creator. Death had drastically altered man's original empirical nature and thereby had modified the original dignitas hominis as designed by God to include the miseria 2 hominis brought about by man. As Alberto Tenenti tells us, "la psychologie chretienne ... ne peut separer la mort ni du jugement, ni 3 de ses deux issues possibles: l'Enfer et le Paradis." Nowhere is this more obvious than in the ars moriendi, an exercise written for the dying Christian who, while on his deathbed, still has time to prepare for death and will go through a series of mental and physical tortures in an 4 effort to secure salvation for his soul. Moriens, the dying man, is faced directly and concretely with the two realms of afterlife. Angels and demons surround his death bed and battle for the soul which is about to be given up.

Moriens goes through a series of temptations which cause him great mental and physical pain. Should he yield to even one of these temptations, even the temptation to 10 despair, his soul will be lost to the devil who anxiously awaits it. The deathbed scene is a veritable battlefield, with demons and angels locked in a vicious battle over Moriens' soul. The battle is fierce, for the victory is extremely important. Moriens' ability to resist tempta­ tion is a final test of his worthiness for salvation. The eternal fate of his soul depends upon the outcome of this one battle. Nancy Lee Beaty finds this "oddly fearful and intense concentration of the late-medieval Church on the precise moment of death— and on the Christian's behaviour at that 5 instant— as of peculiar spiritual significance." Its significance has as much to do with one's life as with one's death. Moriens' entire life, which is often de­ picted in a book of life, is shown to him as a series of temptations. In the review of his terrestrial existence

Moriens must maintain a midway position between the temptation to succumb to its attraction and the tempta­ tion to feel too much pride from his having lived a good life. His battle with these temptations is the final life act he will perform, and this act is of utmost im­ portance for it will define and determine the value of all of Moriens' previous acts. It will thus determine the reward or punishment waiting for him after death. Moriens' individual biography will be given a definitive significance for which he will enjoy or suffer the 11 consequences in another life.® The sub-theme of the ars moriendi, or deathbed repentance, is important for late medieval poetry for two major reasons. First, it reflects the emphasis of the late medieval Church on man’s need to prepare to meet death. Man's fate after death is dependent upon the state of his soul at the moment of death. His whole life, therefore, is judged on the basis of this one moment. Moriens' having the time to absolve himself of his sins at the last minute shows the effectiveness and the necessity of deathbed repentance. The ars moriendi is also important for its well-known iconography. A popular genre of the late Middle Ages, it was widely distributed, primarily by means of woodblock prints, and established a crude and very corporeal depic­ tion of the deathbed scene and all its temptations. This iconography will continue to appear in poetry throughout 7 the sixteenth century. Moriens goes through terrible agony before his soul is finally rescued from Satan by St. Michael. His fear of death is obvious as well as very characteristic of an attitude towards death as seen in late medieval thematics. The fear of death is a major sub-theme in late medieval poetry, fear being caused for both spiritual and physical reasons. 12 The ars moriendi and the Quattor hominum novissima (the four last experiences of man, i.e., death, judgement, hell and paradise) show death to be a terribly frightening O ordeal. Fear of physical torments after death is nearly more than one can bear. According to Tenenti, it was 9 because of this fear that the ars moriendi was created. Unlike during the earlier Middle Ages when man believed in a benevolent and forgiving God who allowed man to enter paradise fairly quickly and easily, late medieval man saw death as a horrifying experience entail­ ing a judgement which might result in an unfavorable sentence. No longer was death a scene like that of Roland's death in the Chanson de Roland where singing angels descend from heaven to receive the soul upon its release from the body and to carry it back to God. With the advent of the plagues and other disasters, from the middle of the fourteenth century on, man felt that God was less inclined to be forgiving, less free with re­ deeming grace, and that man was more likely to pay for his sins with the torments of hell.1^ Christian death became synonymous with the death of a sinner, and afterlife, where one's sins could be punished, became much more frightening. It was no longer the fairly well-assured return to heaven, but a venture into the uncertain, and the element of uncertainty was not see as advantageous to man. Matthew 25:41 ("Then shall he say also unto them on

the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels") provides the basis for a belief in the eternal fire of hell. The late medieval Church used this passage, along with the austerity of St. Augustine's teachings, to stoke, literally, the fires of hell.^"1 Hell was vividly portrayed in all 12 its grossness and detailed torments. The Church used the threat of hell, if not always all its threatening aspects in an effort to motivate men, by means of fear, to turn 13 to the Church and its sacraments. The Church no doubt had some success in its efforts to achieve religious goals, but it seems that the same efforts to achieve those goals were also "in large measure responsible for that neurotic obsession with death in its most gruesome and unspiritual 14 aspects." The emphasis on the depiction of hell and the care taken in the detail of its tortures is one example of such "gruesome and unspiritual aspects" of death with which the late Middle Ages preoccupied itself. Death was feared not only for the possibility (or rather perhaps from the late medieval view, the probability) of its being followed by a tortuous afterlife but also for the physical pain of the actual experience of dying. The moment of death itself, the separation of body and soul, was often portrayed as nothing short of traumatic. That death is fundamentally and necessarily a fearful and 14 painful event has a tradition as far back as Aristotle, who qualifies physical death as the most terrible of terri­ ble things.*'5 It was not Aristotle, however, who served as a basis for the idea of death being so horrible. Besides medieval man's experience of the pain of d e a t h , ^ the death of the son of God, the Passion of Christ, showed him that death was a time of extreme mental and physical anguish. The late Middle Ages stressed this aspect of the Passion to the near total exclusion of any other more spiritual aspect. Spencer finds the late medieval emphasis on the Passion and its interest in the more physical and anguishing aspects of its as significant: In the first place I believe that the development of realism and emotion it illustrates is the funda­ mental cause for the concentration on death which is one of the most notable facts about the later Middle Ages; and in the second place, it seems very likely that the continued contemplation of Christ's death made the individual^ontemplate, with in­ creasing fervor, his own. The pain of death, which was, as Spencer points out, realistically and very emotionally depicted, was then personalized for the individual meditating on the Passion. His horror of Christ's sufferings could only increase when he thought of his own sufferings to come, for unlike the dying Christ, a sinful Christian was not divine nor was he capable of being in the same state of grace as the son of God. Beaty, when speaking of the ars moriendi, a treatise written to reduce primarily the spiritual danger 15 of death, speaks of "the matter-of-fact assumption of the author that dying is in itself an experience to be dread- e d . ,f 18 And Huizingua tells us of the pervasiveness of

this late medieval fear of the pain of death: Nothing betrays more clearly the excessive fear of death felt in the Middle Ages than the popular belief, then widely spread, according to which Lazarus, after his resurrection, lived in on con­ tinual misery and horror at the thought that he should have again to pass through the gate of death. Death then as a physical phenomenon was viewed in the late Middle Ages as a much dreaded experience, and the fear of enduring this experience appears as a frequent sub-theme in the literature of the time. Another sub-theme to have gained great popularity during the later Middle Ages was that of ubi sunt, an elegiac listing of celebrated people of the past. That the most famous people of history were now dead was proof of both the inevitability and the universality of the phenomenon of death. That the most famous people of his­ tory had been reduced to dust was proof also of the great leveling power of death. All men, without exception, would die. Power, wealth, beauty and even virtue were no deterrents to death. Death collected everyone and reduced everyone to the same indiscriminate level. The equalizing and leveling powers of death, along with other aspects of death which we shall discuss, were perhaps most vividly expressed by the danse macabre. A European phenomenon of the fifteenth century, the danse macabre was a series of pictures and verse, which had brought together and developed further earlier artistic and poetic uses of the theme of death. Its wide circu­ lation and immense popularity made it a, if not the, major source of inspiration (and thus a major source of sub-themes) for later poetry and art on death. 20 Poetry is definitely the subordinate genre in the danse macabre. In the earliest versions of the danse, the verse consisted of no more than "mere tituli," 21 very simple explanations of the pictures intended to be read to a basically illiterate public. Later, the verses developed into lengthier and more artistic poetry, but even in these later danses, the visual art maintained its 22 priority. The importance, however, of the danse macabre „ for late medieval and sixteenth-century poetry merits the inclusion of a brief discussion of it here. The danse macabre was a series of scenes, either continuous in a fresco or tapistry, or separate in a book of woodblock prints, showing men being taken and escorted from life by a corpse or a skeleton. 23 The corpse or skeleton led, one by one, men, women and children of all ages and occupations in a procession towards death. The verses below the pictures identified death's victim and told the reader that the person in the picture was on his way to death. Verses of later danses would often go on 17 to moralize on the scene. The variety of people portrayed as victims in the danse implied first of all the universality of death.

Death was for all; it collected everyone. Since most of the danse macabrg processions were ordered following the social hierarchy of the day, i.e., led first by high-rank­ ing members of the clergy, such as popes and bishops, and then by emperors, kings and other members of the aristoc­ racy, the variety of victims also implied a fundamental equality among men. No matter how one was distinguished within the social hierarchy, that rank was ultimately supplanted, indeed ignored, by the greater cosmological hierarchy which classified all men together. Nothing was a better reminder of the common lot of all men than death, the common heritage of all mankind. 24 The variety of people shown as victims in the danse macabre also indicated a frightening aspect of death. Death not only approached men of all social standings, it also approached its intended victims regardless of their age, state of health or current activity. Death could come at any time and in any place. It approached new-born infants, youths and men in seemingly good health, as well as the old and the sick. It approached the cobbler in the midst of performing his trade, as well as the soldier in the midst of battle. It could even approach a pope leading a religious procession. During the Renaissance, 18 when the scenarios were given much more detailed backgrounds, portraying men very actively involved in their daily occupations, the fact that death could come at any time or in any place was most acutely depicted. Death was imminent, always very close, and it was sudden. It did not forewarn its victim; it just appeared and col­ lected.

The imminence and suddenness of death was a very frightening thing to medieval man, a fact confirmed by the expressions of horror and reluctance in the scenarios of the danse. As we mentioned in our discussions of the memento mori and ars moriendi sub-themes, according to the Church and a long monastic tradition, man had to be pre­ pared for death. He had to meet death as a repentant sinner who had expiated all his sins as well as he could on earth. If he were to meet death suddenly and unex­ pectedly and have no time to make a last minute repentance, he would have to face judgement uncleansed of his sins and would most certainly be damned because of it. The threat and fear of unexpected death was a sub-theme in late medieval literature, a sub-theme in which resounded the threat and fear of hell. The expressions of surprise and fear seen on the faces of the victims in the danse macabre are also indicative of more earthbound concerns in the face of death than the threat of hell. The victims of the danse are confronted 19 by corpses, or later skeletons, and are therefore

confronted with a macabre image of death. The sub-theme of the macabre is a very important one for the danse

(giving it its name) and one which is, in even more exag­ gerated form, important as part of the late medieval attitude towards death. One of the antecedants of the danse macabre was Le 25 Pit des trois morts et des trois vifs. A combination of visual art and verse, the legend told of three young nobles who, while on a hunting expedition, suddenly came upon the decomposing bodies of three dead men, who had themselves been members of the aristocracy during their lifetime. The dead men told the young of their own past glory and displayed their present miserable state as the certain future of the young nobles. Death had reduced them to rotting corpses, a physical state with no re­ deeming virtues. Death here was depicted as the disinte­ gration of man's earthly body, and there was no apparent attempt to transcend this image for religious or supra- terrestrial purposes. As Tenenti qualifies it, the Pit des trois morts was the "premiere image macabre" and was extremely impor­ tant in the history of medieval man's sense of death as it was "la decouverte, pour l'homme, de son etat physique ^ 26 apres la mort." It was the introduction of the very earthbound death sub-theme of the macabre. The sub-theme of the macabre was meant to reinforce the memento mori, to remind man, in a most direct fashion, of the frailty and temporality of his body. Originally intended to motivate man to move beyond this sight, this ultimate image of the vanity of things terrestrial tended during the later Middle Ages to crystallize into a form which had little or no transcending value or power at all.27 The corpse in all stages of putrefaction became an endless source of inspiration, or at least fascination, to both artists and poets alike. Of all late medieval death sub-themes that of human decomposition was one of those to be used most frequently and to gain great popu­ larity. Late medieval man regarded the decomposing corpse in very physical and sensual terms. Descriptions of these corpses were usually vivid, stressing both the visual and olfactory aspects of the corpses in the most explicit and sensual imagery. The descriptions were also often exten­ sive and belied strong emotions of lament, fear and even hatred. There was also often a conspicuous lack of effort to transcend or transform this sight to a spiritual plane.

The poet's eyes often seemed riveted on this sight and incapable of going, or unwilling to go, beyond it. All he could see or describe was the disappointing frailty and impermanence of the human body, and that also, consequently, of all earthly life. The late medieval predilection for the macabre can be understood in religious terms. It was the final and extreme result of a religious strategy begun at the end of the twelfth century. At that time, an attempt was made to increase emotional involvement in spiritual matters by the use of physical representations of objects or beings of spiritual contemplation. The most noted example of this practice was the personification and concretization of the Virgin Mary.

The strategy, started with bonafide religious intentions, deteriorated by the fifteenth century, with the distancing and eventual separation of the physical representation from its spiritual inspiration, the latter eventually replaced in contemplation by the former. The emotion evoked, originally intended for the spiritual object or being, now remained focused on the representa- tion. 28 Tenenti best qualifies the emotional preoccupation with the macabre as "la prise de conscience, tourmentee et 29 dramatique des limites de 1’existence terrestre." In the macabre, man is confronted with and reacting to what T.S.R. Boase terms "the predicament of mortality."^® In the danse macabre, the victims are suddenly confronted with the fact of their mortality, and their reactions of surprise, horror and regret are very understandable from 22 a terrestrial point of view. The victims of the danse are not looking forward to a reunion with God when death ap­ proaches them. They are leaving life, and this distresses them. Other sub-themes manifested this human, as opposed to more religious, reaction in the face of death. One of these sub-themes was the contemptus mundi, a contempt for the world based on man's regret that this world was tem­ poral. Like the memento mori, the contemptus mundi had also had religious origins and purposes, but by the late

Middle Ages, those original purposes tended to be lost in man's shorter vision when he considered the phenomenon of death. The contemptus mundi became a materialistic sub-theme deploring the finite nature of man's world in very emotional terms. The emotion of the deploration re­ solved itself in a denunciation and a rejection of the world. The world was contemptible because it did not last. Everything good, strong and beautiful was a deceit, for death was part of it all, and death was slowly, but surely destroying it. Death was feared for its subversive nature. Although often portrayed in both poetry and art as a very corporeal personality with tangible and very distinctive attributes (which we shall discuss later in this chapter), death was not understood to be a purely external phenomenon. As we mentioned above, death was regarded, on both empirical 23 and religious grounds, as an integral part of the human condition. Death was that element in the body which made it weak, caused it to grow old, to lose youthful beauty and, finally, to disappear altogether. Death was so feared and hated partly because it was such a subversive enemy. Its attacks were not always sudden and overt. They were often slow and subtle and often went unnoticed until the full damage had been done. Two sub-themes in particular denote this slow, often imperceptible destruc­ tion of death.

The sub-themes of fleeting time and old age were intimately linked in late medieval poetry on death, for it was often by means of one that the other was expressed. Time passing was viewed as destructive, and the slow de­ struction of the body, its weakening, its loss of youthful beauty and strength was seen as a tangible sign of this passing. At no other stage in life were these signs more visible than in old age, when the destruction had already taken place, and when the results of this destruction were distinct. Man's reactions to the results of the process can be seen in his opinion of old age. Old age in late medieval poetry is a time of lingering, devastated exist­ ence. There was no respect voiced for accumulated ex­ periences or deepening wisdom, only lament, and often disgust, for the deteriorating body. 31 24 With the increased emphasis on the negative and more materialistic aspects of death, a positive and more truly Christian view of death was lost nearly altogether. No longer seen primarily as the passageway which led man to a much anticipated reunion with his divine creator, death was seen as something destructive and painful. Death caused man pain, it took away all his earthly possessions, and it subjected man's body to the totally humiliating process of putrefaction. Looking less often beyond death, at least less often in anticipation of a satisfying after­ life, late medieval man found death to be an enemy.

The sub-theme of death as an enemy was supported and popularized by the materialization in both art and litera­ ture of a death figure. The iconography of this figure became fairly well standardized throughout Europe. Death appeared as a warrior, complete with spear, arrows and often with military aids. Reminding man of his own future state and of the special nature of this enemy, death was portrayed as a corpse or skeleton. Death was an enemy very much feared and resented, for unlike man's other enemies, death would engage everyone in battle and, worse yet, would inevitably be victorious over his opponent.

The personification of death is one more example of the late medieval tendency to concretize a phenomenon which was basically not understood as a purely corporeal matter. As exclusively material as the death figure and 25 other vividly portrayed death sub-themes may appear we must remember that we are working with images of the late Middle Ages, a time when religion was still widespread and very powerful. The materialistic aspect of the religion, and also of death, 3hould not be interpreted as irreli- giosity, but rather as a concentration on the material manifestations or representations of the unshaken religious beliefs. Man had intermingled the spiritual and the physi­ cal, the religious with the secular to such a degree that the two realms were now nearly synonymous. As Huizingua states, "in the Middle Ages the demarcation of the sphere of religious thought and that of worldly concerns are 32 nearly obliterated." Death, the conception of it and reaction to it, was part of this fusion. Never losing its eschatological im­ portance, death remained a punishment for sin and the will of man's creator. Powerless in the face of death, man resigned himself to it as he resigned himself to divine will. The material aspects of death fascinated late medieval man, but served only to increase the hopelessness and despair of his resignation. The fusion of the spir­ itual and the physical aspects of death therefore resulted in a very grim conception of it. It will be up to the sixteenth century to separate again the realms of the spiritual and the physical and thereby alter the vision of death. NOTES

The idea that the late Middle Ages is a time in which earlier medieval thoughts and forms reach a final, crystallized stage is most consistently expounded by Huizingua in his Waning of the Middle Ages. 2 I agree here with Hugo Friedrich in stating that the miseria hominis only modifies, not destroys the dignitas hominis: "In dieses wtlrdebild vermochte die katolische Theologie die Erkenntnis der miseria hominis einzuftlgen, — nicht als eines fundamentalen Gegensatzes dazu, sondern als einer geschichtlich im Sdndenfall verursachten Modifikation, die zwar tief die empirische Natur des Menschen, nicht aber die Gottesebenbildlich- keit und Begnadbarkeit seines Wesens angreift." Hugo Friedrich, Montaigne (Bern: Francke, 1949), pp. 150-151.

Alberto Tenenti, La Vie et la mort & travers 1'art du XVe si£cle (Paris: Colin, 1952), p^ 10. 4 For a very detailed study of the Ars moriendi as a genre see Sister Mary Catharine O'Connor, The Art of Dying Well: The Development of the Ars Moriendi (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1942). See also Nancy Lee Beaty's chapter "The Ars Moriendi: Welispring of the Tradition" in her Craft of Dying (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 1-53 for an excellent description and analysis of the medieval tract.

5Beaty, Craft, p. 24.

Philippe Arids emphasizes this aspect of the ars moriendi in his Essais sur l'histoire de la mort en Occiclent du moyen &ge A nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 1975) , p~. 37. 7 Tenenti reproduces a complete ars moriendi illus­ trated text. See Appendix C in his Vie et mort, pp. 97- 120. 26 27 g Huizingua, Waning, p. 147. q Tenenti, Vie et mort, p. 41.

^See Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 35-39.

^T.S.R. Boase, Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgment and Remembrance (New York: McGraw-Hill, I9T2TT^ p. 21.

12Beaty finds late medieval demonology a "vivid example of the naivete and decadent concreteness of late-medieval thought." Beaty, Craft, p. 12. Sr. O'Con­ nor cites St. Gregory as the source and chief authority on the devil and his wiles. O'Connor, Art of Dying, p. 27.

13Boase tells us that "official teaching soon dis­ regarded such grisly fancies, but the popular mind clung to them as a theological problem that they could both understand and visualize." Boase, Death in Middle Ages, p. 37. 14 Beaty, Craft, p. 43.

15 "What then are the fearful things in respect of which courage is displayed? ...Now the most terrible thing of all is death." Aristotle, Ethics, Bk III, cap. VI, 6.

16 "Death was grim business in the Middle Ages. With no alleviation of pain, no dulling of the horrors of sur­ gery, the acerbitas mortis, the bitterness of death, was very real." T.S.R. Boase, Death in the Middle Ages, p. 9. 17 Spencer, Death in Elizabethan Tragedy, p. 21.

18 Beaty goes on to say, "Not only to laymen, but even to the religious— those in orders— the 'passage of deth' is difficult, dangerous, and ’ryght ferefull and horrible* because of their 'unkunnyng of dyinge.1 Its fearfulness is not considered a popular superstition, but a reality accepted by the educated and the devout as well as the ignorant." Beaty, Craft, p. 7. 28

19Huizingua, Waning, p. 147.

20 See J.M. Clark, The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Glasgow: Jackson, Son & Co., 1950) for a listing of these dances.

21DuBruck, Theme of Death, p. 65.

22 ^ Ibid. 23 The skeleton is a later development. "It is only towards the end of the century /the fifteenth/ that the figure of the great dancer, of a corpse with hollow and fleshless body, becomes a skeleton, as Holbein depicts it." Huizingua, Waning, p. 146. 24 "La mortality commune est bien le sujet de ce theme, et c'est la Mort, individualisee pour chacun, qui est incarne par tous ces cadavres, la meme mort qui re- duit en poussiere grands et petits, qui intervient au beau milieu de la vie mondaine des hommes pecheurs." Tenenti, Vie et mort, p. 29.

o C * Le Pit des trois morts et des trois vifs was a late thirteenth-century poem whose subject was soonvisualized and became a motif for both the visual and poetic arts. For examples of the artistic use of the motif, see T.S.R. Boase, Death in the Middle Ages, pp. 104-107 and Emile M§le, L*Art religieux de la fin du moyen age en France (Paris: Colin, 1949) , pp. 355-360. For a literary history of the poems themselves, as well as the texts of five of them, see Stefan Glixelli, Les Cinq poemes des Trois Morts et des Trois Vifs (Paris: Champion, 1914).

2 fi Tenenti, Vie et mort, p. 14. 27 ^ "...cette attention nouvelle pour la depouille de l'homme ne se relie pas a sa transformation apres la resurrection finale: elle immobilise les sens sur un objet qui, par lui-meme, n'a aucune signification chretienne. C'est done le souci de voir directement ce qui reste du corps, intferet pour son destin materiel, souci et int^ret m&lis a 1'intention pieuse de faire se ressaisir le spec- tateur." Tenenti, Vie et mort, p. 14. DuBruck finds the "funereal naturalism" of the late Middle Ages an "extreme naturalism /which7 really goes beyond Christian piety; it 29 is rather a spasmodic reaction against excessive sensuality and touches the realm of the pathological.” DuBruck, Theme of Death, p. 51.

28Spencer, Death in Elizabethan Tragedy, p. 16. 29 Tenenti, Vie et mort, p. 24.

30T.S.R. Boase, Death in Middle Ages, p. 126.

Martineau-G^nieys, Theme de la mort, p. 132.

32Huizingua, Waning, p. 156. II. EVANGELISM

The sub-themes developed during the later Middle Ages maintained their popularity well into the sixteenth cen­ tury and thus constituted a strong and vivid background for further development of the theme. Also providing a background for the development of these sub-themes were two interrelated movements which took root in French culture early in the sixteenth century, two movements which concerned themselves very much with the phenomenon of death and which remarkably affected man's view of it. The two movements were Evangelism and the Renaissance, and the views on death expounded within each of these movements were to have considerable influence on the theme of death in French poetry of the sixteenth century.

Evangelism, an early reform movement within the

Church, was primarily an attempt to renew religion by returning to the Christian ideals expressed in the Gospels of the New Testament.^" In contrast to the late medieval religious practices, the religion of the New Testament emphasized the more spiritual aspects of Chris­ tianity. As we have seen in the discussion of the late

Middle Ages, religion, and the vision of death, had be­ come extremely materialistic by the fifteenth century, so 30 31 materialistic that the spiritual quality of the original religion and of the original beliefs concerning death seemed to have disappeared altogether. Evangelism was an overt reaction to this extreme materialism. It was a conscientious attempt to reverse it and thereby give back to religion and thus also to the vision of death their original spiritual quality. The Gospels of the New Testament were a rich and important source of ideas for the spiritual transformation of the phenomenon of death. As the death of Christ is both the foundation and the core of the New Testament, death 2 is here a central issue. The death of the son of God is viewed primarily as a cosmological transformation of the phenomenon of death, transforming death from the final event of m a n ’s life, and the event which led man to eter­ nal life with his creator. The Gospels emphasize the spiritual transformation which took place in the death of Christ, and which is to take place in the death of every man. The corporeal aspects of the phenomenon are nearly totally ignored, or rather devalued, because of the over­ whelming importance placed upon the spiritual aspects. Christ's transformation of death is viewed as a victory over death, a victory which negated the importance of the death of the body in favor of a promise of a sustained and improved life of the spirit. 32 The Evangelists, by returning to the "evangiles" (the Gospels) for guidance and inspiration, also made death a central issue in their thinking. As Paulette LeBlanc says, Or ce qui frappe, quand on etudie les lettres de Bri§onnet et les oeuvres de Marguerite, c'est pre- cisement la place considerable qu'ils accordent a la mort dans leurs meditations religieuses: 'Toute la vie du Chrestien doibt tendre a mort, et plus en approche plus est Christiforme', ecrivait ll&veque & Marguerite. /Lettre du 22 novembre 1521/ Martineau-Genieys makes the same observation: "la mort se trouve au coeur meme de la doctrine evangelique, qu'anime un puissant desir de mort."4 Following the Gospels, they also transformed physical death from something dark and final into a spiritual victory. Such a transformation is apparent in the sub­ themes concerning death in poetry inspired by the Evan­ gelical line of thought. To the materialistic, macabre and earthbound nature of late medieval sub-themes con­ cerning death, the Evangelists opposed much more spiritual (and much more obviously religious) sub-themes. It is interesting to note that many of the sub-themes used in their poetry can be directly juxtaposed to those of late 5 medieval poetry. The sub-theme of cupio dissolvi, the intense desire for the dissolution of the body, was one of the more popular and fundamental Evangelical sub-themes and one which responded directly to the late medieval pathological 33 concentration on the death of the body. Fear of physical death was replaced by an ardent desire for it. That the body should die was considered a supreme good, for only

then would the spirit be free to join God in eternal life.** It was the strong concentration on the spirit that allowed man to set aside his fear and alarm of physical death. To stress, in true Platonic tradition, that the spirit was the essence of man and that the spirit ardently longed for the death of the body was an effective response

to man's anxiety in face of the confusing and frightening phenomenon. The spirit, created by God and of divine nature itself, was temporarily imprisoned within the earthly body. Its separation from God and its life on 7 earth were viewed as a tormenting exil. The spirit never ceased to lament this exil and passionately yearned for its release. As the spirit had been created in a divine and immaterial environment, very unlike the environ­ ment of earth, its yearning was prompted in part by a nostalgic desire to return to its original home and natural surroundings. Its earthly prison was heavy, dark and cumbersome in comparison to the infinite spaciousness and brightness of its original home with God. Life on earth was restricting and stifling, and the soul could only look forward to the end of it. Consolation was offered to the miserable soul by the thought that earthly exis­ tence was only temporary and, in comparison to the 34 eternal life the soul had been given, earthly life was very brief. Nostalgia was only one of the reasons that the spirit longed to be released from the earthly body. Frustration was another and equally important reason. The difference in origins and natures of the body and the spirit made the union of these two elements of man very difficult. The spirit had been created in the celestial spheres, was made of the divine and spiritual elements of that realm, and, while on earth, was constantly seeking to return to its natural home. The body, in stark contrast, was born on earth and made of the earth’s material. The earth was the body’s natural home, and it did not want to leave it. As the spirit, with its strong yearnings to return to the celestial spheres, was imprisoned within the body, which had equally strong desires to remain on earth, the situation was one of continuous discord. The only way to resolve the discord was for one of the two elements to be subordinated or even suppressed. For the Evangelists, there was no question as to which of the two elements it would be. Since the soul was immeasureably superior in every way to the body, the body must be subordinated. The desire for this subordination can be seen in the sub-theme of the mespris de la v i e . The mespris de la vie is a disdain of earthly life and of all things terrestrial, the terrestrial aspect 35 being more explicit in the term mespris de la terre, which was often used as a synonym. At first, the sub-theme of mespris de la vie looks very similar to the sub-theme of contemptus mundi. The two are comparable, but we would like to distinguish immediately the differences between the two sub-themes as they were used in late medieval and sixteenth-century poetry.

In late medieval poetry, contemptus mundi usually expressed a real contempt for the world (or, at the very least, an irreparable disheartenment) based on the frus­ trating disappointment over the world's impermanence. The world was devalued and held in contempt because it was finite, because it did not stay as it was forever, and because man could not live in it forever. The view ex­ pressed by this sub-theme was more limited or shortsighted than that expressed by the sixteenth-century mespris de la vie sub-theme, in that the view expressed by contemptus mundi was very earthbound, while that of the mespris de la vie was not. The mespris de la vie, as used by the Evangelists, transcended rather than stopped with the disdain of the world. Adhering much more closely to the original spirit and purpose of the contemptus mundi, as it was used in earlier medieval monastic and ascetic meditations on death, the Evangelists exposed the weakness and impermanence of the world in order to devalue it and thereby dismiss it 36 and ultimately go beyond it. The world was very obviously imperfect. Man, even in his earthbound ambitions felt that to be true. When, however, one emphasized, as did the

Evangelists, the frustrations of the spirit on earth, the terrestrial realm appeared to have nearly no redeeming value whatsoever. The imperfect and finite nature of the world was totally incompatible with the divine and eternal nature of the spirit. As the spirit was the true essence of man and the executor of man's destiny, one could not allow the world to deny the spirit's ambitions and thereby frustrate the fulfillment of man's destiny. It was conse­ quently the demands of the world (most often expressed as O the demands of the body) which were to be denied. It was not always an easy task to deny the world, for although the spirit may have been the true essence of man, the body was just as integral a part of man, and the desires and ambitions of the body were very strong and not easily suppressed. Having been born on earth, made of the material of the earth and destined to remain on earth, the body had very 3trong affinities with this world. It was very much attached to terrestrial existence and very reluctant to suppress it, much less give it up. If the spirit attempted to subordinate the body's earthly desires and demands for the fulfillment of its own, a ful­ fillment which could only mean total suppression of those of the body, the body reacted, usually violently, to this. 37 The result was a tanse and continuous conflict. As long as the body and spirit were joined on earth, this conflict would not be resolved. Life then was a constant battle, and somewhat paradoxically, it was a battle against life on earth. The sub-theme of the mespris de la vie expressed the Evangelical attempt to conquer the body in this battle in order to assure victory to the spirit. Ones this world were defeated and done away with, the spirit could go on to fulfill the destiny of man. From this point of view, life was disdained as being inferior to death "dans la masure ou l'^tat de la mort est infiniment plus heureux que I ’etat de vie."^ The sub-theme of esse cum Christo, the union with Christ, served as the goal, as well as the explanation of the sub-themes cupio dissolvi and mespris de la vie. Union with Christ was man's destiny. Everything man did on earth was to work towards this destiny. Union with Christ was a situation of completely unselfish love, wherein man gave himself wholly to God. Man, the less perfect being, sub­ mitted himself entirely to God, the all-perfect being, by means of total humiliation, total self-denial and virtual self-dissolution. The process of self-humiliation and self-denial, begun on earth, was rewarded by the culmina­ tion of the process in the union with Christ, wherein God accepted man's sacrifice of himself and accepted man into 38 eternal life with him. in this union, man found complete fulfillment of all desires and ambitions. His spirit was finally at rest, for it was finally resting again in God. Death then was defined as the spirit's release from its miserable existence on earth. The spirit could rest after death, for it was no longer in constant battle with the body, which from the first moment of its union with the spirit had tried to thwart the spirit’s attempt to return to God. As the body had tried to maintain the separation of the spirit from God, it had thus tried to maintain a state of sin, for separation from God virtually defines the state of sin. Life on earth was, therefore, inherently and inescapably sinful. Death was a release from this life and thus also from the state of sin which it perpetuated.^ Death was also the passageway to a completely

satisfying life with God. To be with God in heaven was man's destiny, a destiny which was assured by the promise of God and the sacrifice of Christ. The assurance of a happy afterlife, or salvation, is intimately linked, in the sixteenth century, with the doctrine of predestination. The two main senses of predestination, as they are put forth very explicitly in the Bible, are (1) the fore­ ordination by God of all things from eternity and (2) the foreordination by God of man to salvation, also from eternity. Predestination in the first sense is found 39 throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, and was generally accepted by both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Reformers. Predestination in the second sense, however, a sense which is a further speci­ fication of the first, is found only in the New Testa­ ment,^ and was a hotly debated and very divisive issue between the Reformers and the Church.

The problem stemmed from the fact that the Bible offered two different views of the predestination of man to eternal glory. In Timothy 2:4, it is stated that God wills the salvation of all men: "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” In Romans 8:28-30, however, it is stated that salvation is meant only for a select group of men: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he inigKt be the firstborn among many brethern. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. The Evangelists believed in the predestination of an elect to salvation. 12 The reasons for God's electing one person as opposed to another were known only to God and were incapable of being known to man. As God willed the fulfillment of his decree, he provided the chosen people with a prevenient and irresistable grace which initiated the process of salvation by inspiring in the chosen people 40 a belief in Christ and a faith in God. God also gave the elect the "gift of perseverance" which maintained man in faith and prevented him from going astray,. Salvation, then, was totally dependent upon God and attributable only to Him. Salvation was always the result of God's freely given grace and of God's constant direction of man towards his foreordained goal. Man himself was totally incapable of attaining salvation on his own, totally incapable of even desiring it without God's aid, for in the Fall, man's will had been corrupted, and he, in his own nature, could desire only sin. In order for man to attain eternal life, he would have to be chosen for it by the all-merciful God and then driven inexorably to it by this same all-powerful God.

The Catholic Church disagreed with the Evangelists on several points. 13 First of all, the Church taught that God desired the salvation of all men, not of an elect alone. To maintain that God did not have a universal salvific will was to imply that Christ died not for all men, but only for a few, a view that was totally incon­ sistent with the concept of an all-loving, all-merciful and just God, as well as being inconsistent with the stated purpose of Christ's sacrifice as found in the Gospels. The Church found the belief of the Evangelists in the selection of an elect nothing less than heretical. 41 The Church also disagreed with the Evangelists' predestinationisin, the belief that God selected and then inexorably drove man to salvation. According to the

Church, the process of salvation was initiated by God alone, and if salvation were attained, it was due solely to God's mercy. Man, however, had a role to play in the process and in fact co-determined his own glorification. Through the gift of prevenient grace, God provided man with the grace necessary to effect his conversion from sinner (man's inherent nature since the Fall) to penitent.

After receiving this unmerited and unsolicited grace, man had to decide, in the exercise of his free will, whether to accept God or reject him. If he accepted God, God would then reward him with additional grace and thus continue the process of salvation. If man continued to earn grace, through the performance of meritorious deeds, which in turn were inspired by divine grace, God would continue to grant man more and more grace, and thus in­ sure man of eternal life. In this way, God fulfilled His predestination of man to salvation; He offered man the possibility of glorification and the means by which man could attain it. In this way also, however, man was made co-responsible (in the sense of obligation) for his own salvation.

To understand the difference in the Catholic system of merit and the Evangelists' doctrine of predestination 42 is to appreciate the major difference between late medieval and sixteenth-century views of death set forth by the Evangelists. Being able to merit or work towards salvation gave a value to life, whereas predestinationism did not. With one's eternal fate already decided, life on earth, with all the evils brought into it with the Fall, could only be time spent in a world of sin. Death, consequently, was seen as a release from this undesirable state and as such was seen as a thing to be desired. 14

The Evangelists' belief in the divine predilection of an elect was used mostly to assure the faithful of salvation. By making God totally responsible for the salvation of man, the reformers attempted to counter two evils which they felt were fostered by the Church's be­ lief in a system of merit. The first of these evils was pride and its relative sin presumption.

Pride, the Evangelists felt, was fostered by the belief that man was in some sort of dialogue with God in regards to eternal life and that man was capable of af­ fecting God's working of supernatural affairs. Although the Evangelists and the Church both believed that the salvation of man was due entirely to the mercy of God, and that man was inherently unworthy of this mercy, the

Church had given man a very definite and important role in the attainment of his own glorification. Man could and would decide his own supernatural future by his 43 efforts to earn grace*

According to the reformers, to believe that man could earn grace was blasphemous, for it changed the nature of grace from a free gift of God to something which could be bought and sold. 15 As the Church had institutionalized a whole system of meritorious deeds by which man could earn grace, a system which had deteriorated into a notorious materialism by the fifteenth century (one of the more notorious practices of this system being the sale of pleniary indulgences),16 the Evangelists had what they felt were moral as well as theological reasons for their attacks. 17 Man had become presumptuous, and even blas­ phemous, in his attempts to secure eternal life. The Evangelists tried to work against this by taking the matter entirely out of man's hands. The Evangelists thus also tried to re-establish a distance between the terrestrial and the spiritual realms and the affairs of each. In the Evangelists' teaching of the predestination of an elect to salvation, an attempt was made to combat another evil which was thought to be fostered by the belief in man's role in the procurement of salvation. That evil was the fear and despair into which man so easily fell while attempting to reach God by his own strengths. 44 Fear and its all too frequent solution, despair, were

two very fundamental elements in the late medieval vision of death. Man's fear of death was manifest in all late medieval death sub-themes, most obviously in the Quattor

hominum novissima and the ars moriendi. Despair was also

evident, i.e., in the ars moriendi1s instructions to over­ come the temptation to despair, as well as in the late medieval predilection for the macabre, another form of

despair over the inevitability of human death.

Much of this fear and despair was based on the

apprehensions of an uncertain, but vividly interpreted

afterlife. Man would enjoy or suffer the afterlife he merited through his acts on earth. As late medieval man had a very pessimistic view of his relationship with God, he viewed the attainment of a rewarding afterlife as more exceptional than not. Emphasis in the vision of after­

life was on the pains of hell. To this vision based on fear and despair, the

Evangelists opposed a much more certain and optimistic view of afterlife. God had elected his followers to an eternal life with him. Many may not have deserved this election, in fact it was usually stressed that man did

not, but it was a gift from God, a gift freely given and one which would not be taken away. Man was assured sal­ vation and should rejoice in this. Fear and despair were symptoms of a lack of confidence and hence a lack of 45 faith in God. They were also signs of being among the reprobate, those who were condemned to eternal perdition. The elect maintained their confidence in God and in the fulfillment of his promise of eternal life, and by this confidence made their election to salvation evident. Predestination was a very sensitive subject, and as a result many of the early Reformers who were trying to reform the Church from within and remain within the estab­ lished Church, i.e., the Evangelists, tried to avoid an overt antagonism with the view taught by the Church. Bri^onnet denied most vigorously that he believed in the predestination of an elect, but statements in his letters to Marguerite de Navarre reveal how tenuously he maintained his distance. Taking a stand against the efficacy of works, claiming that works are signs of the elect rather than a 18 means to salvation, an obvious alignment with the re­ forming view, he later argues that he is not subscribing to a doctrine of predestinationism: Et ne fault pas par ce entendre que la divine semence n'ayt este capable de remplir toute la terre ou qu’il se seme fes ungs et non es aultres, car il est venu indiferamment se seiner par tout et semer tout le monde. II previent et appelle tous, mais chacun se faict, par le liberal arbitre, en laissant Dieu, ou terre de chemin et passaige ou rochere^gu espineuze, en regectant la grace de Dieu...

Then again, Bri^onnet's image of God the organist seems to state something different: 46 Dieu congnoist et choisist ses tuyaulx, esquels plus commodement il faict ses operations. C'est toutesfois ung mesraes esperit qui est en toutz les chrestiens, qui se manifeste par la touche du grand organiste, qui est Dieu, 6s tuyaulx qu'il luy plaist eslire... Such contradictions, and the ensuing ambiguity on the subject, were very typical of Evangelical poetry, 21

for unlike Luther, and later Calvin, who were much clearer and more specific about the doctrine of predestination, the Evangelists were trying to stay within the Church and thus were forced, by the threat of excommunication on the grounds of heresy, to modify constantly any statements that approached too closely the doctrine of predestination as taught by the Reformers. As Martineau-Genieys states, ...chez Marguerite, pas plus que chez Marot ni Briqonnet, nous ne saurons avec nettete si les elus, dont la definition est, somme toute, de triompher par et dans la mort, ont ete designes par Dieu de toute eternite. Dans le Dialogue /dialogue en forme de vision Nocturne by Marguerite de Navarre/ rfegne sur ce point l'amb^juite carac- teristique de la pensee evangelique. Whether or not they retracted their statements supporting predestination or were in general ambiguous about it, the Evangelists promoted an optimistic vision of death based on the confidence inspired by the contro­ versial doctrine. According to the New Testament, God had sent His only son to earth in order to engage in direct battle man's greatest enemy, death, and defeat this enemy forever. Christ's victory over this powerful enemy had very important and positive implications for 47 man, implications wnich often appeared as sub-themes in sixteenth-century poetry. The Passion of Christ, a popular sub-theme of late medieval poetry, appeared again in sixteenth-century poetry, this time however from a different point of view. During the late Middle Ages, man had concentrated on and identified with the physical aspects of Christ's death. Some physical aspects of His death had even been ritu­ alized. The Evangelists, consistent with their attempt to spiritualize death, concentrated on Christ's victory over death and on His transformation of the phenomenon. By submitting Himself to death, Christ had allowed His earthly body to die, seemingly a victory for the figure of death, but He had sacrificed His physical body so that His spiritual body would be free of it forever and thus could enjoy eternal life. Life then was the result and hence defeat of death. As Christ's triumph assured man of the grace necessary to overcome death and enter into eternal life with God, the power of death had been nullified. Death could no longer conquer man, nor separate him forever from his creator. Man was like Christ in death; man would be resurrected.

The Resurrection, the union of the soul with a purified body, was a moment much anticipated by the Evangelists (as well as by most other Christians). The Resurrection was that moment "quant le corps sera 48 resuscit£ et deviendra tout spirituel et de pareille 23 nature que I’ame..." Maintaining the attempt to spir­ itualize the phenomenon of death (and thereby also an attempt to negate the physical aspects of death), the Evangelists stressed the coming of the day of Resurrec­ tion when the spirit would be joined by a spiritualized body. The earthly body, in which little or no value at all could be found, as it was a source of sin, was left behind on earth to a fate which need not concern man. It was man's fortune that such a vile object had been left behind. On the day of Resurrection a second body, a spiritual one, would join the soul in heaven. In this state, man, once again made of body and soul, could fully enjoy and participate in the joys of celestial life. As the body had been transformed into the same nature as the spirit, the two parts of man now lived in perfect harmony.

The sub-theme of the Resurrection, then, portrayed the Evangelists’ anticipation of the perfection of man, perfection in the sense of total absence of sin and of all the imperfections caused by sin. Man in his resur­ rected state would live in perfect harmony with himself and with God, something which could never be attained here on earth.24 Death, then, was made appealing. It offered joys, peace and harmony unknown on this earth. As man by 49 nature acutely felt his inadequacy and that of the earth's, he looked forward to the time when his disappointments and frustrations would end. The sub-theme of hell, a popular and usually horrifying sub-theme of late medieval poetry and art, appeared much less frequently during the sixteenth century. On the occasions that it did appear, especially in Evangelical poetry, it was used to recognize 25 the magnificent grace of God and the sacrifice of Christ.

Man without God deserved hell and all its horrors because of the original sin. God's grace and the sacrifice of

His son, however, had given man a new afterlife. This gift was a sign of God's love, forgiveness and acceptance of man. This gift was a sign of God's desire to share eternal life with man, His unworthy creation.

The promise of such a fulfilling and blissful afterlife brought a new death sub-theme into Evangelical poetry, a sub-theme which Martineau-Genieys terms "la

^ ^ 2 6 volupte d 'etre mort." Death had become so appealing that it became desired. The desire was expressed in terms of a longing for union with a lover. This love, so ar­ dently desired, once attained was the greatest love man could know, for this love provided not only joy, but also peace and a sense of security gained only by knowing that this love was complete and eternal, and that this love 27 would never weaken nor die. 50 With such incomparable love to be enjoyed by man after death, man began to desire death intensely. We will borrow another term from Martineau-Genieys, le bondissement vers 28 la Mort to designate another sub-theme used frequently by the Evangelists. Le bondissement vers la Mort, a term which Martineau-Genieys herself takes from a passage in Bri^onnet's letters, refers to man’s intense desire for death, a desire so intense that man cannot wait for death

to come to him. Man anticipates death, he seeks it, he leaps towards it with unbounded energy. His enthusiasm can only be increased with the thought of what death promises: union with God in heaven, marriage with Christ. The Evangelical enthusiasm for death went so far as to inspire sub-themes which expressed a disdain, or at least a criticism, of those not joining in the enthusiasm. One such sub-theme was what one might call an anti-mourn­

ing sub-theme, a criticism of the practice of mourning and of all other earthly laments and ceremonies for the dead. Mourning was considered futile and misdirected, for in mourning, one laments one’s own loss, the loss of the terrestrial presence of the dead person. One completely sets aside the dead person's spiritual gain in favor of a display of one’s own selfish sorrow. Funerals and tomb sculpture (which itself was often 29 a material nomento of the funeral procession) had de­ veloped rather extravagantly during the fifteenth century 51 and continued to do so at the beginning of the sixteenth. An example of such extravagance can be seen in the funeral procession of Philippe le Hardi: A la mort de Philippe le Hardi, en 1404, il avait fallu 2.000 aunes de drap noir pour revetir ceux qui devaient accompagner son cercueil, depuis Bruxelles ou il etait mort, jusqu'a Dijon ou devait reposer son corps. Le lent voyage funebre avait dure un mois et demi. The death of a Christian was a happy occasion. To mourn someone's death was a show of disrespect for God's will as well as a wish for misery for the dead person. The deceased was with God in glory; to wish that person alive was to wish to remove him from a situation of com­ plete joy and harmony. Thus the Evangelists and their poetry offered man a much more optimistic vision of death than did the poets of the late Middle Ages. The late medieval vision of death had concentrated too much on the physical aspects of the phenomenon, aspects which were horrible enough in their own right without tne help of an obviously frenzied obses­ sion with the macabre. Late medieval man was left hopeless and often in a state of despair by the prospect of death. Even his religion, a religion which was founded on the death of its god and which potentially had ample resources for consolation, even joy as the Evangelists demonstrated, in the face of death, was of little or no help. It too had fallen into an unredeeming realism and had concentrated 52 on the physical death of its saviour.

The Evangelists reacted to this desperate situation

by offering a vision of death which, in many ways, was in

direct contrast with the vision of the late Middle Ages. Evangelism was a direct and overt attempt to do away with

this horrifying vision of death. Death was made into something positive, even something for which one might yearn. The fear of and despair over physical death, the end of terrestrial life, was replaced by a strong belief

in a much better, even perfect, life after death, and

the attainment cf this afterlife was assured by nothing less than an all-powerful God. The Evangelists, thus, counteracted man's despair over physical death by denying that it was the end of

life. By offering eternal life only at the price of death and by depicting it as a transformation of earthly life with all its imperfections and frustrations into a life

so faultfree that man could not even imagine it, the Evangelists not only denied death, they also denied man's life on earth. Their success in this attempt was not, quite understandably, total. Marguerite de Navarre, the recipient of so many of the letters in which Bri^onnet

stated and restated reasons for an irresistible drive

towards death, was an excellent example of an Evangelist struggling to accept death as a desired thing (and often appearing to succeed) and yet having her moments of 53 weakness when the reality of death seemed unredeemable.

The Evangelists succeeded, for the most part, in undoing the late medieval fusion of the spiritual and corporeal realms, but they did it at the price of nearly totally denying the corporeal. As this is an extreme demand to make of man, a being very much of the corporeal realm, the Evangelists’ attempt to alter the vision of death by denying death's finality and by also denying the value of life met with limited success. Their success should not be underestimated, for man was desperately in need of some relief from the depressing late medieval vision of death, and the Reform movement, which by and large subscribed to a view of death very similar to that of the Evangelists, was just beginning. As a result, the views taught by the Evangelists were found in poetry throughout the sixteenth century.

At about the same time that the Evangelists were propagating their views, however, another movement, re­ lated but different in orientation, that of the Renais­ sance, was beginning to propagate its own. This movement also took a keen interest in the phenomenon of death, and it too was working against the late medieval vision.

In our next chapter we shall study the way in which the

Renaissance alters man's attitude towards death. NOTES

The following books are particularly helpful for an understanding of Evangelism: H.A. Enno Van Gelder, The Two Reformations in the 16th Century (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961); W .G . Moore, La Reforme allemande et la literature francaise (Strasbourg: Faculty des Tettres a l'Univ., 1930); and Augustin Renaudet, Pre- reforme et humanisme k Paris (2 ed., Paris: D'Argences, 1953). 2 "Le christianisme est l ’ultime religion de salut, la derni&re qui sera la premiere, celle qui exprimera avec le plus de violence, le plus de simplicity, le plus d 'universalite 1'appel de 1'immortality individuelle, la haine de la mort. ETTe sera uniquement determines par la mort; le Christ rayonne autour de la mort, n'existe que pour et par la mort, porte la mort, vit de la mort.” Edgar Morin, L 1Homme et la mort dans l'Histoire (Paris: Correa, 19 51)7 p7 19 9. 3 x Paulette LeBlanc, La Poesie religieuse de Clement Marot (Paris: Nizet, 1955) , p7 92'. 4 ^ Martineau-Genieys, Thfeme de la mort, p. 4 61. 5 ^ Martineau-Genieys' chapters on Marot and Marguerite de Navarre provide the most extensive general study of the theme of death in poetry inspired by Evangelical thought, an area usually overlooked in other surveys of the theme, including DuBruck's Theme of Death. Our survey of Evan­ gelical death sub-themes is therefore based primarily, but not exclusively, on Martineau-Genieys* study. See Martineau-Gynieys, ThSme de la mort, pp. 4 39-58 5. For more detailed information on the individual poets, one should consult Michael A. Screech, Marot evartgelique (Geneve: Droz, 1967); C.A. Mayer, La Reglion de Marot (Geneve: Droz, 1960); Paulette LeBlanc, La Poysie religieuse de Clement Marot (cited aboveTT and Robert Marichal, ed. Marguerite de Navarre: La Navire ou Conso- lation du Roi Francois Ier d sa soeur Marguerite (Paris: Champion, 1956). 54 55

It must not be interpreted here that the Evangelists were totally insensitive to the plight of the body after death. Speaking of Marguerite de Navarre, Robert Marichal tells us that "elle n'a point echappe a ces terreurs qui sont de tous les temps... elle n'a pas 6chapp£ plus qu'une autre cfc ce herissement de la chair devant la corruption du tombeau, a ce refus passionne d'admettre que I'etre cher se dissolve en poussiere, a ces souvenirs lancinants d'une presence il jamais evanouie, £ cette espece de re- niement, de desinteressement devant une ame depouillee, immaterielle, impensable." Marichal, Marguerite de Navarre, pp. 4 5-46.

7 Seeing life as a temporary exil for the spirit is basically a Platonic theme but one which can also be found in very Christian contexts such as St. Paul and St. Augustine. It was a primary premise in the thinking of Guillaume Brigonnet, Bishop of Meaux and spiritual leader of the Evangelists. As such it is of fundamental importance in an understanding of the Evangelical attitude towards death. See Martineau-Genieys* section on "L'exil augustinien," Theme de la mort, pp. 469-471. Q The mespris de la vie sub-theme also has much to do with the doctrine oF predestination which we will discuss in this chapter.

^Martineau-Genieys, Theme de'la mort, p. 4 54.

^°This is an Evangelical reform attitude towards death which we shall discuss further in our discussion of predestination.

^ New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 ed., s.v. "Pre­ destination (in the Bible).

12For the basis of our statements on the reformed beliefs in regards to predestination we are using The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church, 1965 ed., s.v. "PredestinationH and New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 ed. S.V. "Predestination (in non-Catholic Theology), both of which provide historical as well as current information on the subject. 13 For the basis of our statements on Catholic beliefs in regards to predestination we are using the New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 ed., s.v. "Predestination (in Catholic Theology). 56 14 Marichal, Marguerite de Navarre, p. 47. 15 Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, Erasmus: De libero arbitrio, tran's. and ed. E. Gordon Rupp, Luther: De servo arbitrio, trans. and ed. Philip S. Watson, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), p. 25. 1 fi Ari£s goes into particular detail on this. See his Histoire de la mort, pp. 79-100. 17 ^ Leontine Zanta talks of the need felt in the early sixteenth century for a moral and religious 'renaissance*: "Or la France, des le debut du XVIe siecle, commengait, elle aussi, a sentir les atteintes de la corruption du luxe et du bien-etre; le clerge n ’etait point capable de la sauver du peril, car il y etait lui-meme trop expose. ... Il est facile de comprendre comment se fit sentir ce besoin de renovation morale et religieuse, qui rapproche, pour un temps, catholiques et reformes dans la recherche d'un ideal tout mystique; mais cette aspiration commune, purement ideale, devait tomber devan*- le dogmatisme pro- testant. " La Renaissance du stoicisiue au XVIe siecle (Paris: Champion, 1914), pp. 24-2 5. 1 ft See Brigonnet's letter as cited in Martineau-Genieys, Thfeme de la mort, p. 463.

19 Martineau-Genieys, ^ Theme de la mort, p. 463.

20Ibid., p. 464.

21 Claude A. Mayer, in contrast to Martineau-Genieys, feels that Marot is an exception here: "...qu’au moment ou il &crit 'La Deploration de Florimon Robertet’, Marot adhere entiferement aux idees nouvelles, qu'il proclame hautement le dogme de la justification par la foi, qu'il est convaincu de la vanity des oeuvres et croit que la foi est donne par un acte de grace. En outre il ne croit pas au purgatoire, mais affirme que l'homme est incapable d'eviter le pechS, etant sauve entiferement par la foi et 1'amour. Ces idees hardies sont exprimes avec beaucoup de clarte.^ II n'y a rien ici de ce qu'on a parfois appele: ’vague evangelisme'. Des le commencement du discours de la Mort, Marot montre que c'est bien une doctrine nouvelle 57 qu'il proclame, une doctrine opposee a la religion orthodoxe..." La Religion de Marot (Geneve: Droz, 1960), p. 126.

22 ' v Martineau-Genieys, Theme de la mort, p. 537. 23 Brigonnet’s correspondance with Marguerite de Navarre (57 vo, I. 5-7) as cited by Martineau-Genieys, Thorne de la mort, p. 462. 2 4 Martineau-Genieys stresses the difference between the late medieval and the Evangelical views of the Resur­ rection: "Certes le Grand Jour n ’etait pas absent des textes de la periode precedente, mais nous constatons le deplacement de 1*accent. Le Jugement Dernier n'y est point evoque comme instant de terreur, ainsi qu'il 1'etait toujours chez nos Grands Rhetoriquers et leurs predeces- seurs, tel Nesson, mais, par le biais de la Resurrection, comme victoire sur la mort et reemergence a la clarte du raonde." Theme de la mort, p. 447.

25 ^ Martineau-Genieys cites a passage from Marguerite de Navarre's "Miroir de l'ame pecheresse" as an example of this. Th&me de la mort, p. 539.

2 6 ^ x Martineau-Genieys, Theme de la mort, p. 535.

27Ibid., p. 536.

28Ibid., p. 466. 29 One of the more spectacular examples of this is the tomb of the Senechal de Bourgogne carved by Philippe Pot. It depicts a funeral bier being carried by eight hooded pleurants. The tomb is now located in the Louvre.

^°LeBlanc, Clement Marot, p. 95. III. RENAISSANCE

It was the sub-theme of glory that most distinguished the Renaissance attitude towards death from that of the Evangelists as well as from that of the late Middle Ages. The glory of man, understood in the sense of earthly achievement and fame, played a much different role in the Renaissance view of death than it did in the late medieval and Evangelical views. Its importance in understanding the Renaissance concept of death cannot be overestimated, for as DuBruck Says, "The concept of glory seems to be the pivot of the Renaissance attitude towards death."* The nature and significance of the role played by glory and how glory was used as a death sub-theme in French Renaissance poetry will be the object of our discussion of the Renaissance attitude towards death. Glory in Renaissance poetry reflected a more positive attitude both towards man and, more importantly, towards man's terrestrial life. The Judaeo-Christian tradition, from its beginnings, i.e., in the book of Genesis, provided man a basis for a positive view of himself. According to biblical and patristic sources, man was created in the image of God which meant among other things that man was

58 59 given special creative capacities, the power of reason and 2 a moral nature. By virtue of these gifts, man was the crown of creation, a fact further emphasized by his being ^ ^ 3 a microcosmic resume of creation. No other creature had been so favored by the creator; all other creatures had been made for the purpose of serving man. Even in regard to the supernatural end of the terrestrial realm, only man was destined to participate in divine glory directly. Only man would truly know God in his essence. All other crea­ tures would know God only indirectly, through their service 4 to man. As Fran^oise Joukovsky, in her excellent study, La gloire dans la poesie frangaise et neolatine du XVIe siecle states, "Malgre 1*episode du peche originex et de la chute, peu de systemes ont autant confiance en 1' homme. " The Renaissance did not, therefore, need to create a

basis for a positive belief in man. It already had one

in the dominant theological and philosophical framework of the time. Even when one tempered Christianity's exaltation of man with its own restraints, i.e., by in­ sisting on the corruption of man's originally pure nature and will when he committed the original sin and fell from God’s grace, man was still the king of creation, and that belief could be a source of great joy and optimism to him. During the late Middle Ages, however, especially with the advent of the plagues which were often interpreted 60 as signs of divine dissatisfaction with man, the Church did not generally encourage a positive attitude towards man. In fact, its attitude was quite negative. Man was a sinner, a doer of evil, a severe disappointment to his creator. God was unhappy with man, hence the plagues and hence also the eternal pains of hell for all but the most ascetic, religious people.6 Humanists, returning to more optimistic but equally valid sources, chose to assert the more positive belief in man and emphasized his dignity rather than his depravity.

It is interesting and important to note that humanist treatises written on the dignity of man, especially the earlier ones, were often based on religious and theological arguments. Bartolommeo Facio, who wrote the earliest of these treatises, defended man's dignity in what Kristeller 7 terms a "strongly religious and theological context." Later, philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni

Pico della Mirandola, who defended man's dignity in terms of his special metaphysical position, still used arguments which were basically religious, for they claimed man's dignity to be based on his position vis-a-vis God and on Q his ability to achieve salvation. Joukovsky finds that

"au XVIe siecle les plus vibrants eloges de l'homme, roi de la creation, apparaissent dans un contexte theolo- g gique." The humanist belief in the dignity of man, then, although much reinforced and encouraged by the rediscovery 61 of man as a natural being,1® was based very much on a Christian religious foundation as well. This belief, al­ though certainly not unopposed as we shall see later, was emphasized to a greatly noticeable extent, much more so than it had ever been throughout the Middle Ages and ac­ cording to Kristeller, even during classical antiquity.11 The Renaissance also asserted a positive and optimistic attitude towards earthly life. Once again, humanists had only to turn to Christian sources to find the basis for an attitude which was more optimistic than the one most often expressed in the late Middle Ages. Emphasizing the fallen nature of man and the entry of Satan into the world because of original sin, late medieval religion did not leave much room for a positive apprecia­ tion of this life. St. Bernard and St. Thomas, however, had shown that the world could be good and that it could even be instrumental in man's efforts towards achieving salvation.

The humanists did not, however, simply resurrect or reinforce a positive Christian view of earthly life. Christianity, even in its most positive moments, had al­ ways viewed life on earth as a time and place when and where man prepared himself for death and a supraterrestrial state which followed it. Man's eyes were to be directed beyond this earth, not on it, and all things on earth were to be put in the perspective of man's final goal, i.e., the 62 achievement of salvation. When Petrarch, in his Secretum, stated that "...this is the natural order, that among mor­ tals the care of things mortal should come first," it was the first time under Christianity that a preference for the pursuit of earthly goals had been so seriously and 12 explicitly asserted. Petrarch felt that all need not be totally subordinated or oppressed by the Christian con­ cern for another world. Things of this earth, i.e., a man's individual life and the earthly glory he might earn for it, were worthy of man's serious attention and greatest efforts. Christianity had traditionally looked askance at such an attitude, especially in regard to the pursuit of earthly fame. Man had been created for the glory of God, not for the glory of himself. Church Fathers such as Ter- tullian and St. Thomas Aquinas had allowed the achievement of what Joukovsky terms a limited glory, namely one that was either a stimulus to or reflection of one's virtue, a glory that reflected or stimulated one's work for the greater glory of God.^ Other Church Fathers, however, like St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure, felt that the pur­ suit of even such a limited and subordinate glory was 14 dangerous for man. It was likely to lead him into temp­ tations of vainglory and into the sins of concupiscence and pride. It was likely to separate man from God. 63 Separating man from God may have been a bit beyond what Petrarch had in mind in his assertion of man's right to pursue earthly glory but something related to this did seem to be Petrarch's goal. In his explicitly stated attitude towards earthly fame, Petrarch attempted to separate things human from things divine. This tendency was also obvious in his concept of history. Rejecting tne concept of a universal and teleological history as maintained by medieval Christian chroniclers whereby the events of this world were recorded as the working out of Divine Providence, or as Benedetto Croce qualifies 15 it, as being "in labor with and towards God," Petrarch recorded human events within a temporal framework and put man in the central place that God had occupied in medieval history. Human rather than supernatural motives were sought to explain events. Man, as individuals, groups or nations, was now seen as responsible for human events, and he was seen as having purely terrestrial motives and goals for his acts.'*'® In secularizing human history, Petrarch did much to dissolve the late medieval fusion of the spiritual and terrestrial realms, and this was to have a decided effect on the appreciation of man's earthly life as well as his death. The Renaissance emphasis on the achievement of earthly glory, as well as its new definition of it, are indicative of this new appreciation. The desire for fame is generally conceded to be a natural human desire and as such is seen to be as much a part of the medieval mentality as of that of the Renais­ sance humanists. The difference, then, was not so much a matter of intensity of desire, but rather a matter of foundation. Medieval fame was primarily oriented around the chivalric code or, in other words, was primarily military in nature. During the declining years of the Middle Ages when the military bases of chivalry had weak­ ened to the point of disappearing altogether, chivalric fame was based more on form, i.e., adherence to social codes, ostentatious display of luxury and indulgence in ceremony, than on any virtue, military or otherwise. 17 The Renaissance humanists decided upon a totally different basis for fame. Reviving the Christian belief in the imago dei in human nature, the Renaissance humanists, reinforced by the concept of man they had rediscovered in classical literature, insisted upon those qualities of man which had long been neglected. Greater value was given to man's creative abilities, his power to reason and the 18 development of his moral nature. Equally important was the greater confidence expressed in man's ability to use these gifts for good ends. Man was seen to have greater social and ethical responsibilities than he had had during the late Middle Ages, responsibilities 65 which although inherent in the original Christian religion had become lost in the later religion's emphasis on other- 19 worldliness. Renaissance humanists focusing less on another world and much more intently on this one gave greater importance and a decidedly more secular orientation to these responsibilities. Their view of fame was indica­ tive of this, for they saw fame as an award, or as an outward sign, 20 of an individual's acceptance and achieve­ ment of these responsibilities. The importance of the Renaissance definition of glory and especially the secular aspects of it cannot be stressed enough, for in them lie several very important aspects of the Renaissance attitude towards man, his life and his death. with the increased emphasis on man as a natural being, man was seen as a more autonomous and self-responsible being than he had been considered in the more religious atmosphere of the Middle Ages. His 21 human nature was considered to be essentially good, unlike the medieval view of man as a fallen creature, and greater confidence was expressed in the ability of human reason to guide man in the development of a good moral character. Man's life on earth was also given a significantly different value than it had had during the Middle Ages. Man’s life in the world became more important in and of itself, independant of otherworldly sanctions. Its 66 significance was defined from a terrestrial point of view, and it was not necessarily related to a supernatural realm beyond it. This secular focus on life and the renewed interest in Stoic and Epicurean philosophies that reinforced its value had an important effect on man's view of death as well as his life, for as Agnes Heller states, "Here we are at the end of a long historical epoch during which men had become accustomed to living their lives from a perspective of death and life after death." 22 With a reduced emphasis on an afterlife in which man's life in the world would be given its ultimate value (and reward), death, the passageway to this afterlife, lost much of its religious and supraterrestrial significance. Death be- 23 came a much more secular life-expenence; it became the final act, the definitive conclusion of a man's life. Death thus became more of a philosophical than a religious concern, and the moral qualities one sought in one’s life, one also sought in one's death. Virtues such as courage and honor in the face of death were now considered much more important than religious and eccle­ siastical deathbed rituals, for one's focus was still on this life and one's conclusive definition of it rather than on a life beyond death. In this way, as Beaty sug­ gests, death became subordinate to man rather than the contrary which had been the tradition since the early 67 24 Middle Ages. In this way also man could stand back from his death and intellectualize it. The degree to which this was done is indicated by Beaty's remark that "the challenge of death has been abstracted to a surprising degree." 25 The secular aspect of Renaissance glory was significant in another area related to death, namely man's concern for immortality. Although fame had been made sup­ plemental to and in some ways a reflection of man’s super- 2 6 natural and religious glory, fame was primarily a secu- 27 lar goal having terrestrial ends and means. Fame was ac­ quired through accomplishments which were ultimately secular in nature and was to live on in time in the memory of man who would continue and nourish this fame. 2 8 Man would acquire the fame, and man, in the sense of general humanity, would serve as the basis for its continuity. Man then was the basis and future of a certain kind of immortality, a terrestrial immortality, one acquired by the continued life of an individual fame. The effort put forth in the Renaissance to achieve this kind of fame and to acquire a kind of terrestrial immortality through it is indicative of man’s desire to meet death, or at least compensate oneself for it, on a temporal and secular level. Christianity in its belief in an immortal soul and an afterlife promised man con­ tinued life in a supraterrestrial state. Its doctrine of resurrection even assured man of the continued 68 existence of his own individual body, albeit in a transformed state. The Christian concept of immortality, in its promise of continued life of both body and soul, was thus a great comfort in the face of a possibly total annihilation. This comfort, however, was acquired by great sacrifice, i.e., the total surrender of one's ter­ restrial life, the only life one really knew and lived in, and the total surrender of the temporal achievements made in it. Enduring fame in the temporal realm was seen as a compensation, small as it was, for the sacrifice demanded by the Christian concept of immortality. It provided man continued recognition of his existence on earth, continued recognition of him as a temporal and secular being. This kind of compensation was sought by the medieval chevaliers as well as by the Renaissance humanists. What distinguished the humanists' hope in this kind of immor­ tality from that of the chevaliers was their belief in its durability. Having provided what they felt was a firmer foundation for glory basing it on intellectual and moral superiority rather than on adherence to superficial social codes, the humanists believed that their glory was a truer one than that of the late medieval chevaliers. A truer glory, they also felt, was more likely to survive time, and thus death, and provide man with a more enduring renown here on earth. 29 69 One can also read into the avid interest displayed in the Renaissance in securing longlasting fame an insecure belief in the Christian idea of immortality. As Joukovsky says,

En effet l'individu qui croit a une certaine survie dans 1*autre monde et qui la trouve satisfaisante eprouve moins le besoin de miser sur 1'immortalite terrestre et limitee que lui offre la gloire post- hume; inversement, l'athee qui nie 1'immortalite de l’ame ou l'individu qui ne s'en satisfait pas est tente parQla gloire humaine, pour ne pas perir tout entier.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul became a much debated issue. Paul Kristeller sees the debate as basi- cally one over the philosophy of Aristotle, or perhaps more so Aristotle's commentators, i.e., Averroes and his Latin followers, and the philosophy of Plato. 31 Aris­ totelian philosophy did not allow for the immortality of an individual human soul, whereas Platonism did. With the rise of the Renaissance's sense of individualism, greater concern was voiced for the immortality of the individual soul. The work of Marsilio Ficino, especially his major work, the Theologia Platonica, which has as a subtitle, De immortalitate animorum, and which Kristeller 32 qualifies as the "Summa on the immortality of the Soul," was indicative of Renaissance efforts to conciliate the philosophy of Plato with the Christian religion to rein­ force a belief in the immortality of an individual human 70 soul, a belief which Christianity can support only by

reference to patristics as there is no scriptural basis 33 for it, and a belief which seemed to be weakening, as one can see by the concern voiced over it.

So great was the debate and so great was the concern of the Church that in 1512 the Lateran Council felt it necessary to condemn the basis of the Aristotelian argu­ ment against individual human immortality, i.e., the unity of the intellect, and proclaim the immortality of 34 the soul as a dogma of the Church. In 1516 Pietro

Pomponazzi, an Aristotelian philosopher, published his treatise on the immortality of the soul, his De immortali- tate animae, in which he claimed that the immortality of the soul had to be accepted as an article of faith as it could not be proven on either "purely natural or Aristo­ telian grounds." The strong and impassioned reaction to Pomponazzi*s treatise was indicative of the sensitivity of the issue. As Kristeller says, "the strong and wide­ spread reaction to Pomponazzi*s treatise is sufficient to show that the problem remained at the center of philosophi­ cal and theological attention during the first half of the sixteenth century."35

The concern for longlasting fame was thus linked with a concern for the immortality of the individual, with the

fear of possible annihilation, as well as with an interest

in sustained recognition of an individual's accomplishments 71 and/or his moral and intellectual development. The example of the Ancients had shown that fame could survive and even, 3 6 should it suffer a period of neglect, be revived. Their example had also shown what the best medium for the preser­

vation of fame was, i.e., poetry. One knew of Hector and Archilles as well as Homer and other great men of the past

through poetry. Poetry had outlasted monuments of marble 37 and bronze, as Horace had sard it would. It had proven and now exalted itself as the true guarantor of lcng-

lasting fame, as the true guarantor of a type of immor­

tality. Poets themselves claimed even greater powers for poetry than assurance of enduring renown. Ronsard, who made glory a veritable source of poetry, claimed that when poetry sang the glory of an individual, it had the

power to bring that individual into contact with the gods of Olympia and allow him to share in the divine nature

and the immortality of those gods. It had, in effect, the power to deify, and thereby immortalize, an individual, 3 8 and do this during the person's lifetime.

Poetry was also seen to contain a generative, creative force. In the Renaissance revival and imitation of ancient

poetry, one had seen how poetry, or more specifically poetic

inspiration, could inspire and generate more poetry, or more poetic inspiration. Thus, poetry was the carrier of the creative phenomenon of inspiration, a factor that 72 would guarantee the survival and continued regeneration of an individual poet's inspiration. A poet's intellect, then, would survive the poet’s physical death. A poet was thus assured of the immortality of his intellect 39 through poetry. The Renaissance belief in the ability of glory, and subsequently poetry, to insure man, especially the poet, of an individual immortality was, however, limited. First of all, the same source that had provided much of the enthusiasm for man and the belief in the ability of glory to survive time, i.e., the Ancients, also provided rein­ forcement for a belief in the opposite. Pliny and Lucre­ tius stressed the weakness of man, and Epicureanism, in its description of man as a natural being, presented man 40 as no better than the animals. Aristotle saw annihila­ tion as the fate of the individual person, and Plato, whose philosophy was used as the basis for the immortality of the individual soul, did not provide for survival of the entire individual as Christianity did. Plato did not see the survival of the body, but rather its destruction. Both Plato and Aristotle, then, had seen destruction, or in Plato's case, at least a major metamorphosis, as the inevitable fate of the individual person. 41 In their cyclic notion of history, which allowed for the periodic destruction of the cosmos, the Ancients saw the periodic 42 destruction, and thus limited life, of glory. As for 73 the special privilege of poets, Pindar, Horace and even Cicero reminded one that poets, in the end, were mere mortals. Fame also was often shortlived and could not 43 assure anyone of a terrestrial immortality. The Ancients then reinforced the medieval fears of death as much as they refuted them. An even greater reinforcement of the medieval fears, however, came from Calvinism. Attacking the basis for a belief in glory and its powers against death, namely the dignity of man, and the value of earthly life, Calvin asserted a different view of man, his life and his death. NOTES

^DuEruck, Theme of Death, pp. 101-102.

2 Beaty, Craft, p. 78. 3 "La th^orie du microcosme, qui fait de l'homme une creature privilegiee, resume de la creation, et qui a des sources platoniciennes et stoiciennes, est une creation du Moyen Age et non pas de la Renaissance: Scot Erig&ne, Alain de Lille, Bernard Silvestre la formulent avant Agrippa de Nettesheim ou Cardan." Franyoise Joukovsky, La gloire dans la poesie franqaise et neolatine du XVIe sifecle (Geneve: Droz, 1969), p^ 75. 4 Catholic Encyclopedia, "Glory of God (End of Creation) , * p^ 515. 5 Joukovsky, Gloire, p. 76.

^Paul Kristeller feels that a pessimistic view of man and his state is typical of thought throughout the Middle Ages, not just in its later years. See Paul Oskar Kris­ teller, "The Dignity of Man," in his Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 5. 7 Kristeller, "Dignity," p. 7. He also states that "It seems significant that the humanists Facio and Manetti wrote their treatises on the dignity and excellence of man as supplements or as criticisms of Innocent III /who wrote in 1195 one of the more violent treatises on the contempt of the human condition, De miseria humanae condi- tionis, commonly known as De contemptu mundi♦ See Martineau-Genieys, Theme de la mort, ppl ill-119 for a brief description^/^ drawing for their arguments not only on classical sources such as Cicero, but also on the Church Fathers, especially Lactantius." "Dignity," pp. 5- 6. See also Bernard Murchland, trans. and introd. Two Views of Man; Pope Innocent III On the Misery of Man/ Giannozzo Manetti On the Dignity of Man (New York: Ungar, 1966). 74 75 Q See The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Cassirer, Kristeller, Randall (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, rpt. 1969), pp. 185-254. q Joukovsky, Gloire, p. 76.

^®"In the medieval Christian tradition..., the dignity of man rested primarily on his status as a creature made in the image of God and capable of attaining salvation, and less on his worth as a natural being." Kristeller, "Dignity," p. 5.

after the beginnings of Renaissance humanism, the emphasis on man and his dignity becomes more persis­ tent, more exclusive, and ultimately more systematic than it had ever been during the preceding centuries and even during classical antiquity." Kristeller, "Dignity,” p. 6.

12 English translation and statement on its significance by Spencer, Death, p. 40.

13See Joukovsky, Gloire for Tertullian, p. 4 5 and for St. Thomas, p. 49. 14 See Joukovsky, Gloire for St. Augustine, p. 4 5 and for St. Bonaventure, pi 49.

^Benedetto Croce, History: Its Theory and Practice, trans. Douglas Ainslie (New York: Russell & Russell, I960), p. 206. See his chapters on "Medieval Historiography" and "The Historiography of the Renaissance," pp. 200-242.

*6Wallace Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1946) , pp. 4-5. With Petrarch's attempt to revive the spirit of the ancient nonchristian past, and later with the humanists' success in doing so, came a new historical consciousness which allowed man to compare himself with great men of the past as well as with his contemporaries and to see his achievements in light of a progressive development of man on earth. Unlike in medieval Christian history, where man always saw himself in relation to God and his divine will, within the framework of a temporal human history, man saw himself more often in relation with other men rather than with God. See Andr£ Chastel and Robert Klein, 76 L 1Age de 1'humanisme (Bruxelles: Editions de la Connaissance, 1954), pp. 100-101 and Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (1969; New York: Harper & Row, rpt. 1972), pp. 112-113. Panofsky says, "The classical past was lcoked upon, for the first time, as a totality cut off from the present; and therefore, as an ideal to be longed for instead of a reality tc be both utilized and feared." p. 113. See also Theodore Mommsen. "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'," Speculum, 17 (1942), pp. 226-242.

17Huizingua considers this another example of the tendency in the late Middle Ages for forms of life to lose their original significance and to disintegrate into mere form. See Huizingua, Waning, pp. 67-107 and 248-253. For a more extensive study see Sidney Painter, French Chivalry: Chivalric Ideas and Practices in Medieval France (1940: Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, rpt. HT51).

18 Beaty, Craft, p. 78.

19Beaty reminds us of the presence of these respon­ sibilities in the early Christian religion. "...the work of the Holy Spirit is precisely that of leading man to Christian commitment, guiding his growth in faith within the community of the Church, and thereby restoring in him the imaginem dei— understood primarily in terms of his interrelationships with his fellowmen. " She comments in a footnote to this statement that "The New Testament in general lays special emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiring and directing the Christian koinonia; and almost all of the fruits of the Spirit, as listed by St. Paul (Gal. 5:22-23), imply interpersonal relationships: 'love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.. , ' See Beaty, Craft, p. 78.

20This term comes from Jacob Burkhardt's study of the Renaissance concept of fame. Although certain of Burkhardt's ideas have been revised by later historians, there is still much value in his work, and his comments on Renaissance glory merit some attention. See Jacob Burkhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, tran3. S.G.C*! MLddlemore (New York: Harper & Row, 1929, rpt. 1958), pp. 143-162. 21 Zanta, Renaissance du stoicisme, p. 1. 77 2 2 Agnes Heller, Renaissance Man, trans, Richard E. Allen (Boston: Routledge-Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 109.

2 3Late medieval man had also viewed death as a life- experience, a fact which is most evident in its predilec­ tion for the macabre, but his appreciation of a life- experience was considerably different from that of a Renaissance humanist. The difference in the conception of life thus serves as the basis for the difference in the late medieval and Renaissance concepts of death.

2 4Beaty, Craft, p. 65.

2 6See Giuseppe Toffanin, Storia dell'Umanesimo, vol. 2 (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1964), pp. 304-311 and Alberto Tenenti, II Senso della morte e l ’amore della vita nel Rinascimento (Torino: Einaudi, 1957), pp. £1-47. 2*7 Tenenti, Sen3o della morte, p. 23.

28Ibid., p. 24. 29 See Burkhardt, Civilization, p. 157 and Chastel and Klein, L'Age del1 humani sine, pp. T7-18. The change in tomb sculpture is indicative of one's change in apprecia­ tion of the ability of personal glory to survive death. Religious concerns for the supernatural future, which had dominated the medieval tomb, were now seen coupled with, and sometimes nearly completely, and even boastfully, sup­ planted by, concerns for the glorification of one's earthly life. Unlike the medieval tomb, whose inscriptions expressed a concern for the uncertain future life of the departed soul. Renaissance tombs exhibited what Erwin Panofsky terms "a pagan glorification of the past." (p. 67) It is interesting to note that it was the professors "...who first insisted on being remembered rather than saved and preferred the perpetuation of their academic function, lecturing, jaer saecula saeculorum, to the anti­ cipation of their admission to paradise." Erwin Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture: Four Lectures on its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini, fed. H.W. Janson. NewYork: Abrams, 1964), p. 70. See also his chapter "The Renais­ sance, Its Antecedents and Its Sequel," pp. 67-94 and T.S.R. Boase, "Memorials to the Dead," in his Death in the Middle Ages, pp. 73-117. 78

Joukovsky, Gloire, p. 29.

^Kristeller, "The Immortality of the Soul," in his Renaissance Concepts of Man, p. 31. 32 Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, trans. Virginia Conant (Glouchester: Peter Smith, 1964}, p. 346. "Ficino gave his principal work, which he dedicated to the expression of his entire philosophical doctrine, the out­ ward form at least, of a Summa on the immortality of the Soul, thereby subordinating all other doctrines and problems to that of immortality." See also "The Theory of Immortality," pp. 324-350. 33 Milton Gatch, Death; Meaning and Mortality in Christian Thought and Contemporary Culture (New York; Seabury, 1969) , p. 43". See also his chapter "The Biblical Tradition," pp. 35-49.

■^Kristeller, "Immortality," p. 36. 3 5 Kristeller, "Immortality," p. 40. For a more detailed study, see Giovanni di Napoli, L*Immortality dell'anima nel Rinascimento (Torino: Soc^ Editrice Inter- nazionale, 19617. 3 6 In the myth of the eternal return, the Ancients themselves had proposed the possibility of a revival, or periodic revivals, of fame which failed to be continuously maintained. (Joukovsky, Gloire, p. 33) The Middle Ages with its concepts of translatio imperii and translatio studii also allowed for a renewal of glory, albeit in different geographical locations. Petrarch's faith, however, in the ability of a people to revive their own past grandeur ("Who can doubt that Rome would rise up again if she but began tc know herself" translated and quoted by Mommsen, "Petrarch," p. 232) did much for the Renaissance belief in the revival and resurrection, in the religious sense ("When the men of the Renaissance, instead of describing the new flowering of art and letters as a mere renovatio, resorted to the religious similes of rebirth"i illumination and awakening, they may be pre­ sumed to have acted under a similar impulse: they experi­ enced a sense of regeneration too radical and intense to be expressed in any other language than that of Scripture." Panofsky, Renaissance, p. 38) of a past glory which could then serve as the basis for a better future and a future 79 which would, hopefully, continue the traditions (and the fame) revived, renewed and built upon during the Renais­ sance. The concern for continued life and appreciation of one's fame thus appears as an important factor in the humanist effort to revive and build upon a tradition which they hoped to perpetuate in the future. As Jacques Choron says in his Death and Western Thought (New York: Collier, 1963), "It is impossible to assess correctly the extent to which the urge to escape the all-pervasive thought of death and the conflicts assailing the conscience of be­ lievers contributed to the appearance of the entirely new consciousness that is characteristic of the Renais­ sance." p. 93. 37 Horace, Odes, III, xxx, w . 1-5. 38 Joukovsky, Gloire, pp. 205-206. She concludes that "Aussi la cel^bration de la gloire est-elle une c^r&monie religieuse. II s'agit de consacrer un nouveau dieu." p. 206. 39 Joukovsky, Gloire, p. 195. Also, the theory of divine fury, whereby the poet was seen as in communication with the Muses, claimed the immortality of poets, by virtue of their special affinity with the realm of the spirit. This immortality was similar to the one claimed by Ronsard for those whose glory was sung in poetry. See Graham Castor, Pl@iade Poetics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964), pp. 24-36.

40Joukovsky, Gloire, p. 75.

^ Ibid., p. 86.

42See Ibid., p. 32. 43 DuBruck, Theme of Death, p. 106. IV. CALVINISM

Calvinist views on death can be seen as a response to both late medieval and Renaissance views on the subject. In its response to the late medieval views, Calvinism is a continuation of the Evangelical effort to "de-materi- alize" the phenomenon and emphasize its spiritual aspects.1 In its response to the Renaissance views it addressed primarily the Renaissance concept of man and of man's earthly life. The key to understanding Calvin's concept of death is an appreciation of the emphasis that Calvin placed on a God-centered cosmology. As Auguste Lecerf tells us, Calvinist doctrine, as it is found in the Institution de la religion chrestienne, is "avant tout une doctrine des 2 rapports de Dieu et du monde." Calvin’s God is the all-powerful creator upon whose will everything depends; nothing exists or happens independent of divine will. The existence of creation implies an absolute dependence upon 3 God; existence itself is viewed as continuous creation. As God is all-powerful and as creation is totally depen­ dent, we have a situation of absolute divine independence and absolute creatural dependence ("1'independance absolue

80 81 de Dieu et la dependance absolue de la creature"). The absolute aspects of this situation were very important in the Calvinist attitude towards life and death. Making God absolutely independent of his creation was a definitive break in the late medieval fusion of the spiritual and physical realms. The divine and the human were seen as existing with an unbridgeable gap between them, and the sixteenth-century Calvinist was acutely 5 aware of this gap. God was set far apart from man and, very importantly, from m an’s influence. This separation of God from man was an obvious reaction to several be­ liefs and practices of the late medieval Church.

Most obvious in this distancing of God from man was an attack on the Church's belief in the efficacy of sacraments and the whole penitential system which the Church had built upon the sacrament of penance. Calvin strongly objected to the Church's beliefs and practices in this area for three important reasons: First, the belief in the efficacy of sacraments was based on a belief in man's ability to reach God in part at least through his own efforts. This was an obvious source of spiritual pride as there was an immeasurable distance between man and God which made this impossible. In focusing more particularly on the sacrament of penance and the whole system of merit that had evolved from it, Calvin objected in the strongest manner to the 82 element of satisfaction inherent in the system. This

element implied an ability on man's part to atone (or make satisfaction) for the sins of the world. In Calvinist doctrine Christ alone was the satisfaction for these sins; only He could have accomplished such a feat and his pro­ pitiation of the sins was effective throughout time.6 Human efforts to do the same thing were futile as they 7 were both ineffective and unnecessary.

These efforts were also essentially directed against

God's will for they kept man from his duty of devoting his life to the glory of God. They also often led man to despair, separating him even further from God and in this way interfered even more with man's duty. The interference with the performance of the duty for which man was created 0 was Calvin's third objection.

Pursuing further the Evangelical effort in this area, the Calvinists insisted much more strongly on a doctrine of predestinationism, a doctrine which answered all of the above objections and a doctrine which promoted a much less corporeal sense of death. According to Calvinist doctrine man could not earn an individual salvation through a system of merit, for God alone, absolutely independent of human influence, decided who would be saved and who would be damned. God's decision was based solely on divine will, unfathomable by human reason, and was made in eterni­ ty, thereby making it an irreversible decision. The 83

Church'3 manner of preparing man for death by means of the sacraments and its insistence on the importance of deathbed repentance was thus invalidated in Calvinist doctrine. Man's fate after death had been decided in eternity, and nothing he or the Church could do would affect the divine will. The deathbed scene itself then should be less hor­ rific for in view of predestination it had lost the crucial importance it had had in the late medieval view of death.

The selection of an elect to eternal life was meant to be a comforting doctrine, for it was a sign of God's mercy. Man in his state of corruption brought on by original sin deserved the punishment of death which his sin had incurred. That God did not will all men to

Eternal life and that he in fact willed some of them to damnation was evidence of both man's corrupt state and g God’s justice. The emphasis, however, in Calvinist doctrine is not on the reprobate but on the elect, and from this point of view, Calvinism can be seen to offer a very positive solution to the problem of death. God's decision to forgive man and to send Christ to propitiate once and for all the sins of the world made salvation once again possible for man. Calvinism stressed the uniqueness of Christ's propitiation and the assurance that the elect might have in attaining salvation because of it. Through Christ man was "forgiven, cleansed and made a new creature",10 a transformation which allowed him 84 to enjoy a positive relationship with God. God himself thus became transformed in the eyes of man. No longer the frightening judge and weigher of souls, God became a re­ deemer, a merciful ruler, even a gentle father figure.^"1 As a result Christians should not fear God nor death which returns them to Him, but welcome God and trust in His 12 will. Faithful Christians would then be confident in the face of death, confident not in themselves, their 13 lives, nor in anything human, but in God and his will. The eschatological importance of death was thus stressed more by Calvin than it had been in late medieval and Renaissance views. The late medieval emphasis on the macabre and the physical pains of death and afterlife had concentrated attention on the human implication of death. The Renaissance's emphasis on man's secular life diminished even more the eschatological aspect of human death. Cal­ vinism however re-emphasized the view of death as the passage of the soul into the perfection of afterlife with 14 the divine. As David Holwerda says, in Calvinist doc- trine "death appears to be the key eschatological event."15 It was thus the spiritual and religious aspects of death which were foremost in the Calvinist views, and it was Calvin's insistence on a God-centered universe which made it so. By intently focusing on God, His will and an afterlife to be enjoyed with Him, Calvinism reinforced and carried to a further extreme the more spiritual views 85 of death propagated by the Evangelists. Attempting to re-establish a more truly Christian understanding of death, Calvinism attempted to divert man's attention from the decomposing corpse. Death in Calvin's God-centered universe was seen primarily as the return of the creature, in a purified form, to his creator. The centrality of God in this view is manifest in man's total dependence upon him for salvation.16 The recompense for this dependence, though, was the security in death offered to the faithful Chris­ tian in the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Man was assured in his faith that he need no longer fear death, that it was no longer a passageway to the eternal and physical torments of hell but rather the happy return of his spirit to eternal life with his divine and merciful creator.

Taking leave of this life was thus made much less fearsome and painful by an emphasis on death as a spiritual return to a better and eternal life. It was also made less painful by the Calvinist effort to devalue man's terrestrial existence in favor of his future supernatural one. Responding directly to the Renaissance effort to exalt man and consider him from a predominantly secular point of view, Calvin stressed man's inherently corrupt and dependent nature. The late Middle Ages had developed 86 a substantial tradition of depicting man as an essentially vile and corrupt creature living in an equally vile and corrupt world. Calvin needed only to emphasize this well-established image of man as a natural creature to quell any enthusiasm one might have about instrinsic hu­ man worth and capabilities. The emphasis on this aspect is considerable, but one must understand that when Calvin speak3 of man in this way, he is speaking of man indepen­ dent of God and responding to those who insist upon viewing him in this light.

As Vos tell3 us, in Calvinist doctrine, "to consider man apart from God is to consider him in abstraction." 17 In a God-centered theology, to view man from a purely secular point of view was to distort man's true nature and to understand him as an independent, autonomous crea­ ture, which he was not. Such a view of man tended to give false values to man, his reason and his ability to fulfill the eschatological role for which he was created. Viewing man as an independent creature served only to lead man further into sin, for his reason as well as his body had been corrupted in the Fall and by itself could only lead man deeper into the deceptions of this world. 18 Man needed the guidance and authority of God to lif± him out of the snaring corruption of the world. Without him, man was doomed by his own nature to perdition. 87 Han's total dependence upon God and the primary importance of God in Calvin’s world view are also evident in the Calvinist view of poetry. In contraposition to

Renaissance poetics which made man and nature the major source of poetic inspiration and which had purely secular goals for poetry, Calvin saw poetry in purely religious terms. God was both the inspiration and the purpose for poetry. It was not muses, but rather the holy spirit which inspired the poet. It was also not the pagan Greek and Latin literatures which were to serve as models but rather the Bible, and in particular the Psalms. The poetic art itself was justified only in its contribution to the greater glory of God. The Renaissance idea of procuring some sort of immortality either for the poet or the person sung and thereby dominating death rather than submitting passively to it was offensive to Calvin. It demonstrated inex­ cusable pride as well as misdirected effort. God had al­ ready conquered death for man. Poetry need, then, only sing praises to God, and in its power to persuade, lift the spirits of men to Him who had secured their salvation for them. Modeling poetry on the poetic art of the Bible was modeling it on the story of man's salvation and free- 19 dom from death. Thus Calvinism incorporated and responded to the views of death expounded by the late Middle Ages and the 88

Evangelical and Renaissance movements. Its picture of death incorporated the late medieval fears but also pro­ moted a determined confidence in the attainment of an afterlife which would fulfill man's individual destiny and accomplish his eschatological purpose. Man and his death were thus both given a value, an aspect of Calvinism which can align it very closely to the Renaissance. In view of Calvin's God-centered cosmology, however, this value was of second rank (the essential difference from the Renaissance view), and as we shall see in the next chapter, the Calvinist consolation in the face of death was not always a thoroughly comforting one because of this. KOTES

We are not implying here that the Evangelical movement was the sole or even the major inspiration of Calvinism. We are focusing on the treatment of death in these movements and within this narrow focus one can see a continuity. 2 Auguste Lecerf, Etudes calvinistes (Neuch&tel: Delachaux and Niestl£, 1949) , p"I 12. 3 ^ "Aussi, pour Calvin, creation implique conservation, qui n'est alors que creation continue. En donnant a Dieu le titre de createur, il 'faut entendre que comme le monde a ete fait par lui au commencement, aussi que maintenant, il l'entretient en son etat, tellement que le ciel et la terre et toutes creatures ne consistent en leur etre sinon par sa vertu.1 (Inst. VI, 175}." Lecerf, Etudes calvinistes, p. 14. 4 Lecerf, Etudes calvinistes, p. 16.

^In her discussion cf Thomas Becon's Sicke Mannes Salve (1561), which Beaty subtitles a "Calvinistic 'Crafte'," Beaty comments on the Calvinist appreciation of "the unbridgeableness of the gulf between Gcd and man. So depraved is man, so wholly other is God, that— metaphorically speaking— only doctrine can truly heal the breach." Beaty, Craft, p. 146.

g For an excellent study of the importance and effect of Christ's unique sacrifice within a framework of linear time, see Oscar Cullmann, Christ et le temps (Neuch&tel: Delacroix and Niestle, 1947).

7Calvin was attacking all aspects of the penitential system with particular emphasis on deathbed and funeral rites, as well as prayers for the dead which assumed a power to intercede on the dead's behalf. (For this parti­ cular aspect of the penitential system, see T.S.R. Boase,

89 90 "Prayers for the Dead," in his Death in Middle Ages, pp. 59-74.) Calvin consequently also objected- to li.he doctrine of purgatory which had developed during the Middle Ages, for as Gatch says, this doctrine "rests on a false, sacramentalized understanding of repentance and on the custom of prayers in memory of the dead. It is an abomination because it undercuts the sole ground of salvation: the sacrifice of Christ by whose merit alone the elect are redeemed." Gatch, Death, p. 118. See his discussion of Calvinist objections to the Catholic penitential system, pp. 117-120. p This objection involves the belief that Christ's full satisfaction of man's sins freed man from having to make this satisfaction and thus freed man to continue in the fulfillment of God's will. For man to attempt to atone for his sins is in essence a lack of recognition of the full significance of Christ's sacrifice as well as a neglect of his duty to pursue the fulfillment of divine will. For a more detailed discussion of this see Louis A. Vos, "Calvin and the Christian Self Image; God's Noble Workmanship, A Wretched Worm, or a New Creature?" in David E. Holwerda, ed. Exploring the Heri- tage of John Calvin (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), pp. 85- 94. g "'Nous croyons que de cette corruption et condamnation generale en laquelle tous les hommes sont plonges, Dieu retire ceux lesquels en son conseil eternel et immuable il a elu par sa seule bonte et misericorde en Notre-Seigneur J-C, sans consideration de leurs oeuvres, laissant les autres en icelle m&me corruption et condamnation pour demontrer en eux sa justice comme es premiers il fait luire les richesses de sa miseri- corde. Car les uns ne sont pas meilleurs que les autres, jusques & ce que Dieu les discerne selon son conseil immuable, qu'il a determine en J-C devant la creation du monde. Et nul aussi ne se pourrait introduire a un tel bien de sa propre vertu: vu que de nature nous ne pouvons avoir un seul bon mouvement, affection ni pensee, jusques a ce que Dieu nous ait prevenus et nous y ait disposes.*" from Article 12 of the Confession of la Rochelle as cited by Lecerf, Etudes calvinistes, p. 26.

10Vos, "Calvin," p. 88.

^Tenenti, Senso della morte, p. 288.

12Vos, "Calvin," p. 89. 91 13 Vos states that it is the later Reformed tradition which is responsible, in part, for the emphasis on the negative view of man and of his relationship to God. Calvin presented a more complete picture of man in his Institution. There one finds "man-as-created conformed to the image of God, man-in-sin deformed in the image of God, and man-in-Christ re-formed in that image." Vos, "Calvin," p. 105. The final statement on both man and his relationship to God appears as a positive one. 14 Gatch points out Calvin’s failure to recognize that the concept of an immortal soul and its return to its place of origin was of Greek rather than of purely biblical origin. Gatch, Death, p. 120.

^David E. Holwerda, "Eschatology and History: A Look at Calvin’s Eschatological Vision" in his Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin cited above, p. 113.

*6"...all sacramental help is rejected in favor of the all-sufficiently of ’faith...prayer, and...the word of God' alone." Beaty, Craft, p. 153.

^7Vos, "Calvin," p. 82.

^®Ibid., p. 83. 19 "La definizione della poetica calvinista non puo dungue essere disgiunta da questa esigenza 'esistenziale', dalla subordinazione dell*arte al problems della salvezza, completamente risolto soltanto dalle Scritture." Mario Richter, "Aspetti e Orientamenti della Poetica Protestante Francese nel Jecolo ;CVI," in his Jean de Sponde e la lingua poetica protestante nel Cinguecento (Milano: Cisalpino- Goiiardica, 1973), p^ 197. For more detailed information on Calvinist poetics see Richter's entire article, pp. 165- 202 and Leon Wenc€lius, L'Esthgtique de Calvin (Paris: Societe d ’Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 193"?). PART II: THE DEATH POETRY OF

JEAN DE SPONDE AND JEAN-BAPTISTE CHASSIGNET I. THE "STANCES DE LA MORT" AND THE "SONNETS SUR LE MESME SUBJECT" OF JEAN DE SPONDE

The "Stances de la Mort"1 The "Stances" are an interior debate between the poet and his soul. Terence Cave qualifies them as a "peniten­ tial lyric, albeit an unusual one," and his definition of a penitential lyric serves as a good introduction to an understanding of Sponde*s "Stances:" ...the penitential prayer-poem or lyric will be a poem which develops themes of self-examination, confession and penitence, without substantial reference to the Passion. The tone of the poem usually moves between a direct address to God and a first-person monologue: the poet rarely speaks explicitly to a2wider audience, either to narrate or to moralize. The reader of the "Stances" thus participates in the poet's self-examination, adopting it as his own as much as he can and undergoes the experience of the poet's attempt to reckon with the phenomenon of death. The position of the first person in this very instropective poem is thus shared by both poet and reader.

Sponde opens the "Stances" by addressing his eyes, asking them to turn away from the blinding material world, to cover themselves completely with darkness so that in this darkness they may recover from the blindness caused

93 94 by the "brillans rayons de la flarameuse vie" and be better

able to see a different and more vivid light when they leave the darkness. The reader is immediately struck by

the predominance of imagery evoking light and darkness

and by the explicit references to these antithetical qualities. An understanding of the play on and with light and darkness in this first stanza is necessary for an

understanding of the thematics and structure of not only the first stanza, but also, as we shall see, of the entire

series of "Stances."

At first glance, the play on the images of light and dark may look like a simple movement from one kind of light to darkness and then on to a different, more intense light. In this initial six-line stanza, the first two lines are devoted to the light of this world, lines 3-4 refer to darkness and negation, and lines 5-6 refer to the promise and future enjoyment of a second light. As light and dark are traditional images of life and death, and as the title of the poem is "Stances de la raort," one can say that the movement in this first stanza is from

life to and through death and on to afterlife. The relationship between light and dark, and thus between life and death is, however, more complicated than

it first appears. The light of this life, although very bright, does not allow a person to see clearly or as well as he might. The eyes at the beginning of the "Stances" 95 are qualified as blind ("esblouye") by the end of the same line. "Esblouye" is also the first word which contains the sound /*i/, a sound which is echoed in the following line in the word "brillans," thus establishing a relation­ ship between blindness and light, and a sound which is further reinforced and finally defined in the last word of line 2, "vie." As "vie" appears at the end of line 2, it is paired in an end-rime with "esblouye." The reader then associates life with blindness; by the end of these two lines which are devoted to light, he has established a relationship between light, life and blindness. Darkness, usually understood as a dimming of light and as a weakening of the ability to see, is depicted here in a more positive view. Darkness, in "Sillez-vous" at the beginning of line 3, immediately follows life

("vie" at the end of line 2 ) and thus appears to be the end of light and of life. In fact, however, by maintaining the sound / i j of "vie," darkness, or death, is not equated with the total extinction of life. Life is maintained in death just as "vie" is maintained in "Sillez-vous."

Looking at lines 3-4, lines which we have designated above as referring to darkness, one can see several other refer­ ences to light and thus the reinforcement of the pattern of light in dark or the sub-theme of life in death. The poet's eyes are addressed at the end of line 3, thus set­ ting an image of sight and life in the middle of the two 96 lines speaking of darkness. We also find that the negation of line 4 is, in fact, negating the destructive activity of the verb "estouffer." In other words, darkness, or death, is not destructive; it will not diminish the sight, or the life, of the poet's eyes. Eyes often being used as a metaphor for the soul, or at least for the gate of entrance to the soul, line 4 can be understood as an affirmation of the continued life of the soul in death. This affirmation is further reinforced by the alliteration of the /f/ in "estouffer" with the

in "flammeuse” in the expression "flammeuse vie*' (line 2) .

The f f j in "estoufter'' is only the second /f7 in the stan­ za at this point and vividly recalls the only preceding

f f j which is in "flammeuse." Semantically, the two words are related, and in this way the recall is further rein­ forced. "Flammeuse" also contains "Sme," and in the ex­ pression "flammeuse vie," the images of fire, soul and life are all related and all recalled in line 4 when the power of death to destroy the power of the eyes, cr the life of the soul, is denied. The alliteration of the /v/'s in "vos vigueurs" reinforce the /i/ of "vigueurs" as well as the word "vie" in "vigueurs." Their occurence

immediately after the f f j of "estouffer" further reinforces the recall of "flammeuse vie" by repeating the sound pat­ tern of f-v as well as the sounds of and the entire word of "vie." "Coutumieres" in an end-rime with "lumieres" 97 reinvokes an image of light, and thus the lines of darkness conclude with the assertion and reinforcement of images of light and life, two images which have also been closely associated with the soul. The final two lines of the stanza, which we have designated above as referring to a second, future and more vivid light, maintain the reference to light, life and the soul developed above by maintaining the f-v pat­ tern in "feray voir," as well as repeating the f-v-v pattern of line 4 in "feray voir de plus vives lumieres." A crescendo of effects can be felt from the alliteration of the /v/*s in line 5 ("vous...voir...vives"), which increases the effect of "vie" in "vives" and renders the light at the end of the line more vivid by virtue of

"lumieres"1s maintaining the f \ J of "vie." The light of the last two lines is thus much more vivid and full of life than is the light of lines 1-2. "Lumieres," in an end-rime with "coustumieres, also further reinforces the image of light at the end of the lines on darkness. In the final line of the stanza, the poet moves from darkness to light. The verb "sortant" relates, in its /^:r 7 , darkness to death ("mort"), but also, in its being a verb of motion, negates the finality of death. The eyes, or the soul, do not remain in death; they pass through it and on to another light, or another life. The word referring to death is "nuit," which contains 98 the £ \ 7 which by now immediately reminds us cf "vie."

There is thus life in death, or rather at the end of the passage through death, /I/ being the final sound of "nuit."

The futurity of this second light is stressed by the future verbs "feray" and "verrez;" the futurity of the life of the soul is stressed by one more repetition of the f-v pattern. The superiority of the second light is designated not only by the accumulative effects of line 5, but also the great contrast depicted between darkness and vivid light in line 6 . Coming from darkness, eyes will be far more sensitive to light than they would have been had they been in light all along. Eyes already blinded by light will probably not notice an increased intensity in light. Eyes coming from darkness, however, will be better prepared to appreciate the more intense light. In order to see this second light, then, the eyes must undergo a period of darkness. The final word of the stanza, "rnieux," not only reinforces the superiority of the second light, as well as the eyes' "seccnd sight," if one wishes, but also stresses the inferiority of the eyes* present sight.

"Mieux" is in an end-rime with "yeux" (1 . 3), and the

"mes yeux" of line 3 refer back to the "Mes yeux" which open the "Stances." The reader is thus returned, after a promise and anticipation of a better future, to the present state of things, as they were depicted in the first two lines of the poem. "Mieux," in its final position in the stanza, may conclude the movement of this stanza, but it also, in its reference to the beginning of the stanza, brings us back to a recognition of the present state of affairs. Clearer vision is promised for the future; pre­ sently our sight is very poor. In the stanzas which fol­ low, the poet will start with the present state of affairs and, working with the imagery and thematic structure established in the first stanza, will attempt to fulfill his promise to lead his eyes, and his readers, out of the complex and often confusing maze of light and dark and onto a greater light which we will be able to see with clearer vision. Before examining the next stanza, we should note that by using the images of light and darkness Sponde places himself squarely within one of the most venerable of Christian traditions. Ever since the time of St. Augustine, the central metaphor of Christian epistemology had been the Pauline "now we see through a glass darkly (per speculum in aenigmato); but then face to face" (I Corinthians 13:12). Repeatedly throughout his Epistles, St. Paul had conveyed the notion of the Christian's per­ ception of God as a movement from darkness to increasing luminosity. Chapter IV of II Corinthians is particularly rich in these metaphors. "The God of this world hath 100 blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who in the image of God, should shine unto them" (II Corinthians 4:4)* Reminding his readers that "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, both shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," (II Corinthians 4:6), St* Paul concludes this chapter with the following statement: "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (II Corinthians 4:18). Resorting to Pauline metaphors that were charged with epistemological and ontological implications, Sponde was in fact using images that bore a rich cargo of meaning. In Stanza II, which Wladimir Weidl£ qualifies as "le plus directement personnel que l'on trouve chez 3 Sponde," the poet starts a monologue in which he describes his present state. The poet is tired of life, and the weight of his earthly existence is breaking him down. Life is equated with a storm at sea ("l'orage"), and he seeks only a port where he can land safely and leave the storm behind him. The image of a port at the end of a storm is a traditional image of death. The :r/ of "port" reinforces its power to evoke the thought of death, 101 a sound which is repeated two more times in the last two lines in the words "orage" and "horreux1. " This incanta- uion of a sound reminiscent of death and the poet's total pessimism, his disdain and rejection of earthly life leads the reader to expect a more explicitly stated de­ sire for death. Rosalie Brosilow in her article "Struc­ ture and Theme in Jean de Sponde*s 'Stances de la Mort’," suggests that the model provided in Stanza I suggests by analogy that the rejection or loss of life here on earth, 4 will be followed by a life after death. Thus the poet, miserable in his present, terrestrial life, thinks of death as the gateway or port to a better life. The mespris de la vie sub-theme is evident here. In Stanza III, the distance which the poet first tried to establish between himself and the earth in his rejection of continued life on earth, is increased to a seemingly irremediable degree by the placement of the poet and the world in antithetical opposition to one another. As Arnaldo Pizzorusso says in his analysis of this stanza, "II discorso figurato vuole esprimere una radicale diver­ sity, che motiva il rifiuto del Mondo, dei suoi principi, dei 3Uoi disegni, del suo modo stesso di essere (v. 17:

*...il s'asseure, et je tremble')." The poet thus feels that he is fundamentally different from the world, net only in his aspix'ations but also in his very essence, as different as are "delice3 " and "supplices," "Printemps" 102 and "Hyvers," "repos" and "peine," and assurance and trembling. Reconciliation of the two seems impossible. Death is suggested in the first tercet by the alliteration of / £ / ' s emphasizing "funestes," with afterlife following death suggested once again by the of "Hyvers" im­ mediately following "funestes." The second tercet shows not only opposition between the world and the poet, but also agitation on the part of the poet. While the world is calm, the poet is trembling. In Stanza IV, the poet explains more explicitly the differences and demonstrates the conflict between the world and himself. The first tercet is devoted to de­ scribing the world, its immobility and its deforming closed attention upon itself. The immobility of the world suggested in Stanza III (in "son repos" and "il s'as- seure") is further reinforced here in the verb "croupist," a verb indicating no action whatsoever. Line 19 opens with the world which closes upon itself by the end of the line ("dedans soy-mesme"). Line 20 immediately, and most definitely, negates a verb of motion ("N'esloigne point jamais"), and closes with "ayme," a verb which is potentially active, but as it appears here in an end-rime with "soy-mesme," becomes reflexive by returning its action to the subject, the world. In the following line, we again have the potentially active verb of love, and this time, because of its ability to break out of 103 confining negation (by means of the "que" in "ne..,rier... que"), the reader is led to expect seme outward action on the part of the world. The object of the verb, how­ ever, is the world's own deformity. This has thus been, in the verb's return to its subject, another reciprocal verb. The world, in this way, has been portrayed as static and deformed, and because it is static and feeds only upon its own deformity, there appears to be no hope for improvement, no hope for the resolution of the poet's discontent.

in the second tercet of Stanza IV, the poet talks about the second half of the antithesis, his spirit. "Mon esprit," which begins this tercet, is the first definition of, and explicit reference to, the source of the agitation felt by the poet. Immediately following the tercet describing and making the reader feel the heaviness, the immobility and the deformity of the world, we have a tercet of lightness, movement and beauty. The word "esprit" immediately evokes images of light and life (especially in its /!/), and the feeling of movement is evoked by the preposition "hors," the active verb "emporte," and the causative construction "me fait ap- procher." The spirit literally and rhythmically takes flight. It even seems to attain its goal, the skies, and manage to stay there long enough to bid recognition to the beauty of the supraterrestrial realm. The 104 predominant imagery and feeling is thus one of liberation and acquired happiness. In its contrast to the darkness and heaviness of the first tercet, this tercet, with its lightness and joy, may initially make the reader think that the poet has already reached his final goal, the light after the dark. One need or.ly sharpen one's ear, though, tc hear in "hors," "empcrte" and "desormais" an incantation of death. Death, as we saw in Stanza I, is, at least initially, associated with darkness, and, as we also saw in Stanza I, there is no darkness in the second, very vivid light. Darkness in light can be found only in the first light, in the blindness suffered in man's terrestrial life. The poet's attempt to dis­ tance himself frcm this world and achieve the second light has thus failed. He is still in earth's imperfect light, and still very much a part of this world.

That the poet still belongs to this world is vividly portrayed in Stanza V in his abrupt descent from the height attained in Stanza IV. The "Mais" at the beginning of line 25 immediately breaks the charm of the celestial beauty being sung at the end of the preceding stanza and puts an end to the poet's rather short stay in, or at least aspiration to, the supraterrestrial realm. The poet is back on earth and is forced to admit that he cannot really free himself of the world as easily as he may have originally thought. The fundamental nature of the 105 problem i3 stated by the poet's depicting the interiority of the resistance he feels to this flight. Something inside of him complains. This is not an exterior obstacle, and the interior resistance aligns itself with the world. The poet must thus admit that he is not pure spirit, that he is also part flesh, and that in order to separate himself from the world, and thereby satisfy his spirit, he must separate himself from his own flesh. The poet is thus faced with the full implication of the cupio dissolvi he fantasised in Stanza IV.

The £5 :d/ of "gronde," repeated and reinforced in an end-rime with "Monde," reinvokes the image of the world as a tempestuous sea. Darkness pervades the entire tercet, both in the depiction of the problem being inside the poet (in "dedans moy" and "gronde") and in the verb "noir- cist," which is acting directly against the light of the skies and covering them with an "ombrage touffu." The tercet is also filled with nasals in "sens," "dedans," "gronde," "contre," "partisan," "Monde," and "ombrage," which serve not only to darken the images of light but also to slow and weigh down the rhythm of these lines, a slowness and heaviness which are especially noticeable by their stark contrast to the lightness of the rhythm in the last tercet of the preceding stanza. The poet thus feels the darkness and the weight of his flesh in its opposition to the flight of the spirit. 106 The second tercet of Stanza V opens with reference to the spirit, and one expects, from the pattern and imagery established in preceding stanzas, images of light life. The alliteration of / i / ' s and the images of fire in Mfeu" and "enflairane" make the soul, contained in "en- flairane" appear to be intensely bright. Even the rain of line 29, rain which is evoked both semantically and rhythmically in "eau," "pleut," and "eaux," cannot ex­ tinguish the fire of the soul which stands at the end of the line and draws even more brightness than the single word "flamme" may have evoked by itself by being in an end-rime with "enflairane." The final word of the stanza is "feu," and it stands there victoriously, for the battle between itself, representing the soul, and the flesh has been a difficult one. The battle is not, how­ ever, completely won, for "feu," in an end-rime with "touffu," reminds us that the soul is not yet completely free and that the flesh is still an obstacle to its de­ sire to ascend to the clear, bright heavens. The sub­ theme of death as release from the fallen world is thus offered as a solution to the problem of the spirit which find3 itself frustrated by its emprisonment in the world.

The obstacle that the flesh does present to the spirit is described in the following four stanzas. In Stanza VI, the poet states the problem explicitly: both flesh and spirit are seeking life, but life for the flesh 107 is here on earth, while life for the spirit is in a

supraterrestrial realm. The life of the fle3h is depicted as vain, deceitful and, once again, closed upon itself ("enveloppee" rhyming with "pipee" and "vanitez," shows

the world to be closed upon its vanity, which in the

end is a deception for vanity, as we have already noted, comes from the Latin vanus meaning empty. For the first time, death is explicitly named as the outlet of the closed and deceptive atmosphere of the world and as the exit for the spirit through which it may pass on to the

life it seeks. The solution seems rather simple, except that the poet is not yet free from the desires, and re­ straints, of the flesh. He makes no definite decision here as to which life to choose. The final word of the

stanza, '’fort,” in both its £> and its very noticeable rhyme with "mort" suggests what appears to be the basic inclination of the poet. The poet would like to free himself from the obstacle of the flesh and take the exit of death in order to go to another world, but he is not yet strong enough to take this step or even fully recog­ nize and accept that death is the solution to the problem. Unable to resolve the situation himself, he turns to God.

The poet completely surrenders himself, as well as the responsibility for the outcome of the battle, to God. Recognizing his weakness as an earthly being, a creature 108 who is confused and easily misled by the deceptions of the world, the poet realizes that without God's help, he will not be able to find his way to the second light his soul is seeking. Even one of man's greatest gifts, a gift which is supposedly capable of and/or is designed to allow for direct contact with God and with the spiritual realm, i.e., man's reason, is seen as faulty and even deceitful. As Pizzorusso suggests, in human reason's reliance upon and preference for direct experience, as opposed to relying on promises for the future, reason

tends to support the argument of the flesh in its effort to maintain its existence.6 Why exchange the known for a very uncertain unknown? This ruse on the part of the flesh is expressed in the very curt maxim, "Et le fruict pour l'espoir ne se doit point changer” (1. 42).

Man's reason even tries to show that God himself is against the idea of destroying the life of the flesh. Basing its arguments upon orthodox beliefs regarding the creation of the world, reason reminds us that the world is a personal creation of God's, and that it was created for his pleasure and to reflect hi3 own beauty. The personal or direct interest that God has taken and con­ tinues to take in the world is stressed by the appearance of the very anthropomorphic hands of God, hands which 7 appear three times in this stanza. It is also stressed, both semantically and graphically, in line 44 with the 109 symmetrical juxtapositioning and resultant mirroring effect of the world's beauty with that of God's ("Dont la riche Beaute a ta Beaut§ responde"). Man, as the crown of crea­ tion, occupies a central position in this beautiful and divinely created world. The centrality of this position is emphasized in the varied repetition of "Tout pour elle fust parfaict" in the following line, with "elle (which refers to the flesh) occuring in central positions in the two central lines of the stanza. "Elle" occurs three times in this stanza and thus reflects or refers to the only other thing that appears three times, namely the hands of God. With the intimate relation thus established between God and his creation, the question at the end of the stanza as to the desire, and the logic, of God's wanting to destroy the flesh (understood to be man as a natural creature) appears to be conclusively rhetorical.

With the battle seemingly won in favor of the flesh, the poet abruptly interrupts the movement and thematic development of the preceding stanzas and announces that all that we have just been led to believe was pure deceit. The apparent clarity and logic of the argument was a ruse and did not allow the reader to see the true situation. While we thought we saw clearly, we were in fact duped. The images of darkness in light, as established in the first stanza, are reinvoked. 110 In the first tercet of Stanza IX# the poet plays a little more with the structuring theme of darkness in light, this time with the equally abstract concepts of good and bad. In the seemingly paradoxical line 50, the poet attempts to explain how man, by preferring and by trying to maintain his advantages as a natural being# will in the end work towards his own destruction. The flesh may very well be the crown of creation, divinely created by God and reflecting God's own beauty, but the flesh is only one half of man, and by asserting itself so strongly, and so exclusively# it weakens man's other and very important half# his spirit.

The spirit, as the poet has indicated before, is out of its own element and seems to have no current advantages it wishes to maintain. Unlike the flesh# then# it seems to have no present and constant incentives and/or rewards to strengthen and support its efforts towards its own goal. Thus, in view of the strength of the flesh in this battle, and the weakness of the spirit at this point# the poet sees no alternative to requesting that God personally intervene ("mets la main"). Thus concludes what Brosilow terms "the dilemma of the 'ruse','' according to which the battle of the spirit versus the flesh is fought on the grounds of the flesh which was itself created by g God..." The alliteration of /f/'s and the assonance of /^:r/'s in "effort," and the twice repeated "force," Ill incant the poet's plea for strength in this matter, as well as evoke the solution to the problem, i.e., "la mort." Sponde will once again attempt to assert the mespris de la vie and, as we shall see in the following stanzas, will urge his spirit to accept death and move towards a cupio dissolvi. In the following stanza, the poet turns to his spirit and, for the first time, addresses it directly. Urging it to set aside its fear and engage itself directly in active combat, the poet, while filling the stanza with military imagery, prepares both his spirit and the reader for battle. The poet encourages his spirit by pointing out its powerful asset, justice, and by juxtaposing its potential strength with the inherent weakness of the flesh. God himself will be on the spirit's side and will even arm the spirit with the strength of iron. The iron strength of the spirit's weapon, "fer," is juxtaposed to the fragile defense of the flesh, which is depicted in

"verre," the /c i r j of both words bringing the two weapons together and thereby emphasizing their opposite strengths. The images of strength are all related to the spirit, i.e., "ta puissante justice," "Dieu," and "fer," while the images of weakness and fragility are associated with the flesh, i.e., "verre" and "roseau." In the final line the poet states the projected outcome of the battle, an outcome which not only promises 112 victory to the spirit, but which also results in a complete reversal, and polarization, of the current roles played by the spirit and the flesh. The spirit, which is current­ ly enclosed and, if one wishes, entombed, within the body (and thereby suffering darkness in light) is promised future life. This second life, uncluttered by qualifying adjectives, is clear and bright. There is no darkness in this second life and it is thereby superior to the life one knows on earth. For the body, the poet forsees a tomb, an image of darkness and finality. The /5b/ of "tombeau” reinvokes the shadows ("ombres") which have been lurking throughout the previous stanzas, gathers them and encloses them in a tomb, as "ombre" is enclosed in "tombeau." A tomb being the final resting place for the earthly body, it is also the final resting place for all the darkness of earthly life, for, as we saw in Stanza I, darkness does not continue beyond the death of this life; it does not go beyond the tomb. The body, then, which has enjoyed light in the darkness of earthly life is brought to an end of total darkness. Thus the darkness of the tomb is shewn as complete as, and also as contrary as possible to, the light of the second life promised for the spirit. Death is then shown as final for man's body but not for his spirit. 113 The poet has thus armed the spirit with hope and confidence. Victory, and future life, for the spirit is assured. It need only enter the battle. Entering the battle, however, seems to be the problem. After having encouraged the spirit to act by depicting the uneveness of strength between the two opposing sides and by assuring the spirit the ultimate victory, the poet turns to point out the fundamental contradiction of the current situation. In Stanza 11 he net only states the contradiction explicitly as in lines 62-64 but also al­ ludes to it through various stylistic devices. The re­ versal of what seems to be the normal, or certainly preferred, order of things, is emphasized in the placement of grandeur in the subordinating position of direct ^ object rather than in the dominating position of subject of the verb "domine, 11 "Domine," in turn, is in an end-rime with "vermine" and thus associates an animal traditionally viewed as the lowliest of creatures with the action of dominating the divine spark of the crown of creation. The /yr/ of "endure" and "purger" brings together and heightens the antithesis of the present fact and the spirit's obligation. "Tu, " which refers to the spirit in this continued direct address, commands only two active verbs (other than "dois" which is more of a command to the spirit than a wilful action on its own part), and these verbs are "sers" and "perds." All 114 the spirit can do on its own, then, is serve and, consequently, lose the battle. In view of all the advantages on the side of the spirit, and of the basic contradiction of the present state of things, it is at first difficult to understand the spirit's reluctance, but we soon discover that this reluctance stems from the spirit's fear to engage itself in active battle. In the words "te garder" (1. 65), in the repetition of these words (1. 66), and in the play on the meaning of self-preservation, the poet has placed the self-contradictory reluctance of the spirit to work towards its own good. In line 65 one sees how the spirit is attracted to the idea of self-preservation in the sense of freedom from the finality of death and in the sense cf the achievement of a life in which it can fully develop its own essence unhindered by the restrictions of the flesh. In the following line, however, the same words, "te garder," express a fear of this same afterlife. The spirit, lacking the necessary faith in the promised victory, in the ability to survive death with its indi­ viduality intact (an individuality which is stressed in the singular possessive adjective "mon" of "mon Esprit"), it prefers to maintain its current existence, as imperfect and often miserable as it is, in order to preserve a known life and the individuality it fears so much to lose. In other worcs, the spirit is afraid to gamble its present 115 life and, more importantly, its individuality, for an unknown future, no matter how brightly and beautifully that future is promised to be. Sponde depicts here man's innate fear of death as a fear of annihilation. The poet's depiction of the spirit’s innate desire for this second life, its yearning for it and the subse­ quent dampening effect of its fear to strive for it establish a pattern of movement which is further developed in the following stanzas. In Stanza 12, the poet detects a slight agitation on the part of the spirit when it moves to think of its subordination to the flesh, but the agitation, as well as the thought, is quickly and easily depressed by the flesh. The spirit, in its very feeble state, can feel only a slight agitation and muster no stronger action, or clearer thoughts, than that, or those, of the act of dreaming ("songer"). Dreams are easily extinguished by the flesh's darkening tendency to sleep.

The spirit is only fully awakened to its obligation when God intervenes. Only God can pierce through the profound darkness of the life dominated by the flesh to awaken the spirit from its inactive state. One anti­ cipates now, with the spirit awakened by God, more definite action on the part of the spirit, but our hopes are quickly dampened by the spirit's return to a state of inaction immediately after the end of God’s 116 intervention. Thus the spirit has in this stanza twice been incited to action, tut so dominant is the darkness and heaviness of the flesh at this point that the spirit cannot fully act and reach the goal for which it has an innate desire. The darkness and heaviness of the flesh pervade this stanza in images of sleep, i.e., "songer," "songe," "sorameil," "profond sommeil," and "rendors." The final word of the stanza, "rendors," reinvokes "corps," and thus designates the source of all this darkness and inactivity as well as, in the assonance of Z^:r7, invoking the result of it all, i.e., "mort." The invocation of death at this point shows death to be the final and complete darkness referred to above in Stanza 10, a darkness originally intended only for the body; but in view of the spirit’s lack of action, its refusal to seek the light intended for it, and its per­ sistant alignment with darkness, it may well be the final end for the spirit as well. It is thus the death of the spirit which is being sounded here. It is fortunately not yet being sounded as fact, but rather as warning, a warning for the spirit to disassociate itself from dark­ ness. Sponde is still attempting to establish a mespris de la vie on the part of his 3pirit, but is also having considerable difficulty doing so. 117

In Stanza 13, the poet shows again that the spirit is not merely the victim of the oppressive flesh, as it may have appeared in the previous stanza, but is also, or rather still, suffering from a lack of desire to act or to act fully enough to attain its goal. The spirit's attempts to act in this stanza, which are the fullest actions on the part of the spirit to this point (having moved from agitation, awakening and now full action) are self-aborted before the spirit has achieved much at all. Efforts at ascent made in the first hemistiches of lines 73 and 74 are ended in the second hemistiches as quickly as they were begun. The repetition of "tantost" shows the capricious, as well as cowardly, nature of the spirit’s attempts and sudden changes of mind. The attempts have been utterly futile, for not only were they not sustained long enough to reach the desired goal, but upon the redescent of the spirit, we also learn that the spirit has gained nothing from it3 minimal effort. As soon as the spirit returns to the world, the world entwines itself around the spirit and holds it as captive as before. Flight has thus resolved itself in entwinement on the ground.

The source of the problem is not found entirely with the world, however, for as the poet points out again, and most explicitly, his spirit is a cowardly one. It knows and desires its goal and is quite capable of breaking out 118 of the binding entwinement of the snares of the world in order to achieve it. It does not, however, break out of its confinement, for it fears the endurance of a sacrifice which stands in the way of an immediate achievement of its goal. Physical death is this obstacle, an obstacle which must be overcome before the spirit can achieve the after­ life promised it. So great is the spirit's fear of physical death, that, as line 78 succinctly describes, rather than move towards its very much desired goal, the spirit moves in the opposite direction. The spirit is therefore unable and unwilling to separate itself from this life. Its attempts to take the darkness out of its life ("„..un nuage de poudre,/Que tu pousse en 1'air...") are futile and result in its allowing darkness to take it, the spirit, from light and work against its future attempts enveioppe tes pas," an image which is reinforced in the recall of lines 31-32 stating that the "... chair.../Veut estre dans sa vie encor enveloppee"). The occasional inspiration of the spirit to take flight and reach its celestial goal {as seen in the aerial imagery of lines 82-33) is always cooled in mid-flight, and the spirit, of its own choice, redirects its efforts and flies back down to earth. The downward flight away from a celestial goal recalls and reinforces the basic contradiction in the direction in which the spirit tends to move, a contradiction which was first 119 implied in "Et bref tu vois ton Bien, mais tu suis le rebours."

This last descent from flight has been the most discouraging for the spirit, for in the next stanza we find it in the depths of depi’ession. The spirit has fallen into a dark, damp and musty abyss, and is now over­ whelmed by these negative qualities of the world. The spirit in turn adds to these negative qualities by gener- g ating through sin even more darkness. The situation is so desperate, so dark and so lacking in illumination, that the spirit can only feel its way through the abyss. Its own brightness, its own divinely created spark can do nothing more than move about the thick clouds of smoke which it has itself helped generate in its complicity with the world. The "espaisse fum^e" recalls the "nuage de poudre,/...enveloppe tes pas," which in turn recalls "La chair.../Veut estre dans sa vie encor enveloppee," all providing an imaga of the 3pirit suffocating. Stanza 15 is the darkest stanza of the entire "Stances" and the one in which the poet gathers, by re­ invoking, all the previous imagery of darkness and opacity associated with the world and life dominated by the flesh almost as if in order to exorcise it. The tendency to gather and concentrate the negative imagery associated with the world continues in the next stanza with the poet recalling, in addition to darkness, the images of a storm 120 at sea and of closed space, previously expressed most often as self-containment. All these images are juxtaposed in succinct antithesis to their opposites. From the tension generated from this series of antitheses, the poet hopes to exorcise the negative and restrictive tendencies of the life dominated by the flesh and incite the spirit to take flight once again. This exorcism of the life of the body is reflected in the attempted exorcism of the negative imagery in the antitheses. From this point on, no longer will such negative imagery dominate the poem. This is truly a thematic turning point in the "Stances." The explosive action anticipated from the tension generated by the antitheses is represented in the imagery of the spirit breaking out of the body as the marrow of a piece of straw would break free ("Toy, mouelle d'un festu, perce a travers 1'§corce,/Et, vivant, fay mourir l'escorce, et le festu." (11. 95-96)). The exhortations to action have become much more urgent, even violent. No longer is the spirit gently encouraged by being given reasons for self-confidence. Urgency is felt in the use of imperatives. Each line of the second tercet of Stanza 16 has at least one imperative, and the last two of these, "perce" and "fay mourir" call for violent action on the part of the spirit. They demand, most explicitly, the death of the flesh, a death which was first called for in "Et 1'Esprit pour mieux vivre en 121 souhaite lei raort" (1. 33) , with "en" referring to "la Chair." Cupio dissolvi is being sounded here in a nearly desperate manner.

Urgency is insisted upon again in the following

stanza when, sensing the spirit's hesitation and/or pro­ crastination, the poet points out what can be seen as the ruse of time. The only life man as a natural being knows is one that exists in time. To maintain, or rather more correctly to continue, his life, man seeks more time. Time, however, being an integral part of this world as is any more material object, is subject to the continual movement or flux of this world. Its movement, its speed of movement and its ability to offer the peaceful sta­ bility sought by the spirit ("Quel doux largue au destroict de tant de vents battu?” (l. S3)) is stressed in the verbs "coule" (which recalls the water imagery of line 93), "se perd," "se haste" and “ne te peut attendre." Thus, the poet points out, stability in time, or indefinite time ("quelque longue duree"), is of another realm, an "Ailleurs," and this can be reached only after one has left the realm of measured time. The movement from measured and destructive time

into stable and indefinite time must take place by means of the transformation of an end into a beginning. The poet has called for the spirit to end its stay in measured time, to end the life it knows, in order to begin to live 122 a superior life for which it yearns. By transforming the end of life, as well as the end of this stanza, into a beginning, the poet maintains the impetus of his exhorta­ tion of the spirit to act. The call for liberation is maintained in the next stanza with the more precise definition of the evil which must be ended before the spirit's freer life can begin. The evil is, of course, the life of the flesh which not only empx*isons the body but actually, in its hunger for its own life, devours the life of the spirit. It is truly a question of self-preservation for the spirit, with the /5:r/ of "devore" invoking "mort,” both in the sense of a spiritual death as the result of continued emprisonment by the flesh, and in the sense of death as the liberation from this emprisoninent. The prison imagery of this stanza recalls the emprisoning imagery of Stanza 16 and adds to the explosive force of the call for liberation in line 1C5. The reward for this liberation is described immediately after the exhortation and provides a momentary relief from the urgent tone maintained since Stanza 16. Cne does not rest long though, for each gain anticipated,

i.e., "Calme," "beau jour," and "plaine," is immediately assalted by its juxtaposition to its opposite, i.e., "vents," "nuits," and "geine," each of which increases its force by acting, through active verbs, directly 123 against the respective goals of the spirit, i.e.,

"battent, "noircist," and "presse ta raison." As in Stanza 16, when the six antithetical elements met, ex­ plicitly and all at once, for the first time, and created enough tension to start the spirit moving out of the abyss, so here, with the increased tension caused by the double threat, in nouns and verbs, against the spirit's future life, is enough tension created to force the spirit into action, to compel it to sing a hymn dedicated to death. The sub-theme of cupio dissolvi is finally being sung. Death has become an object of desire and is seen as the resolution of the tension between the spirit and the flesh. The desire for the release from tension seems to have been a major factor in the soul's finally over­ coming its tendency to maintain an unsatisfactory existence and opting for the possibility of the promises of afterlife being fulfilled. It is interesting to note that the first advantage of death sung in this hymn dedicated to it is the relief from the tension created by the fear of impend­ ing death. Life after death is desireable for its freedom from this tension. Life on earth is qualified as cruel, cruel not only in the sense of its oppression of the spirit, but also in the sense that in its fear of death, it creates an unbearable tension which it cannot resolve. The image of the world and life in it as a tempestuous sea resurges here with the poet's insisting not so much on 124 the volatile connotations of this image as on its most threatening aspect, the threat of shipwreck, an extremely serious threat in this case, as the shipwreck is a certain one ("un asseure naufrage"). Resolution of the tension created here is in the soul's decision tc seek the ship­ wreck before it occurs in order to achieve so much more quickly the calm of the port, which is at the end of the storm ("...je prends, comme un port, a la fin de 1*orage

(1- ID ). It is important to notice that the poet has changed from the "tu,” with which he had addressed his spirit un­ til this point, to the "nous." In this stanza, then, the poet is no longer playing the role of consciance-director speaking directly to his spirit. In fact, he playing no direct role at all here. In the use of the pronoun "nous," the poet has allowed another voice to enter di­ rectly into the poem, i.e., the voice of his spirit, and he has, at the same time, introduced a new sub-theme into the poem. Up to this point, there has been antagonism between the flesh and the spirit, and between the kinds of lives they were both seeking separately. In this call to death, the spirit, which yearns so much for the life beyond this one, yet also fears, or is at least reluctant, to leave the flesh behind, invokes the promise of resurrection. The spirit will opt for death and urge the flesh to do 125 the same, believing that death will not separate them, at least not for long, will not permanently dissolve the unity of spirit and flesh which defines man, and that it will not result in the total disappearance of the indi­ vidual by the spirit's ascension into a supernatural realm and the body's dissolution on and into the earth. Death, in view of the promise of resurrection, is the perfection resolution to the tension between the two parts of one being which each seek a different life, but which also prefer to remain together rather than opt for the life of one or the other and thereby cause the destruction of the losing part. Resurrection allows death to take both the spirit and the flesh on to a second and better life, a life which assures continued existence for both and one in which there will be, for the first time, harmony between the two parts. Thus the spirit's enthusiasm ("0 la plaisante Mort qui nous pousse a la vie") and thus its urging of the flesh, in the use of first person plural imperatives, to join it in its call for death ("Faisons, faisons naufrage, et jettons-nous au Port"). The poet as conscience-director returns to the poem and again addresses his spirit. His spirit is now brimming with hope and great anticipation of the promised resur­ rection, but this resurrection is of the future; it is not immediately at hand. What is immediately at hand, 126 however, are all the ruses of the flesh, for the flesh has not yet died, and its power to subvert the aspirations of the spirit is potentially still very strong. To emphasize the strength of these ruses the poet shows how all the elements, i.e., air, water, earth and fire, concentrated within the closed atmosphere of the world (a concentration and restriction which are effec­ tively translated by the image of "ce Ciel qui ceint le

Monde"), are working directly against the efforts of the spirit to strive for a life beyond this world. The in­ tensity and directness with which these elements work are felt in the accumulation of transitive verbs in line 117. In these same lines, the poet reinvokes, and brings together for the last time, all the negative imagery heretofore associated with the world. The world will "enfle" (as in the swelling of a ship’s sails during a storm), "abymes" (by covering with the most profound darkness), "retient" (by entwining within the self-cen­ tered world), "brusle" (in its ability as a "flammeuse vie" to burn and to blind) and "estreint"^^(in all these ways restrict) the efforts of the spirit to strive for the life it so desires. It is recognized that the spirit has found, and is still susceptible to, some things on earth which it finds pleasant and appealing. The next world, however, will offer even greater pleasures and attractions. So great 127 are these pleasures and attractions, that the poet can only evoke them rather than describe them, and he does this by taking the adjectives "plaisant" and "avmable" which have been used to refer to things of an earthly nature, trans­ posing them interchangeably to nouns and adjectives which modify each other ("plaisans amours" and "aymables plai- sirs") and eventually, and as though magically in the transposition, making them absolutes ("Ces Amours, ces Plaisirs These absolutes, which are simultaneously spiritually and sensually attractive elicit a call from the spirit. It wants to be taken immediately from this world and into the next. The exhortative commands are violent and ex­ press great urgency. The tension is too great, and the spirit seeks immediate release from it ("finir au re­ pos . ") . Such is the will of the spirit, and it is well directed. It is, however, only the will of a creature, not the will of the Creator. The exhaltation of the spirit is quickly cooled by the ever-effective "Mais" and the recognition of its subordinate and very dependent position vis-a-vis God. Seeking death, or more precisely the life after it, with such eagerness, with one's own strength and for one's own gain, approaches the sin of pride. It is up to God to decide when one can attain His celestial realm. It is up to man to wait patiently and 123 to endure in humble obedience the tribulations of earthly life. The tension is thus not resolved at the end of the poem, as it cannot be resolved as long as the spirit re­ mains on earth. The irreconciliable antitheses of the final stanza express the prolonged tension and paradox of this life. It remains darkness in light, or death in life.

One can only wait for God to intervene directly and per­

sonally ("Tu m'estendras ta main, non Dieu..."); He alone can resolve this tension.

The poem ends on a note of hope, however, for the

spirit has succeeded in its strenuous efforts to free it­ self from the attractions of the flesh. It will continue to live on earth, not because it is too weak to leave it, but because it is the will of God, and the spirit humbly accepts God's will. With the assurance of ultimate sal­ vation, the spirit can better endure this life with all its tension, even though the tension will remain. Life

is now full of hope, and it is this hope which can trans­ form the end of life into a desired goal (Mun Bien est le bout et le but de ma vie”). It is also this hope, this secure faith in God's plan for personal salvation, that brings about the spirit'3 surrender into God '3 hands. At the end of the poem, the spirit totally surrenders the direction of the remainder of its earthly life to God. The spirit has thus separated itself from this life, takes 129 no more personal interest in it and submits to continuing it only in reverence, or as Pizzorusso suggests, in ser­ vice, to God's w i l l . ^

The "Stances" have thus been a struggle of liberation for the spirit. From the beginning, the spirit was dis­ content with its earthly existence, but was prevented by fear from doing what it really wanted and knew it wanted to do, i.e., separate itself from the world and end its earthly existence. The separation, and thus death, were desired so that the spirit could move on to the afterlife promised it. The spirit exhibited the confidence of one of the Calvinist elect in regard to its ability to attain this afterlife and longed eagerly for it. Physical death, then, should not have posed a problem for the spirit, but it did.

Death was not immediately embraced as the resolution to the painful tension suffered by the spirit because the spirit feared the loss of its flesh. The same flesh which imprisoned it in a miserable existence and of which the spirit claimed to want to rid itself was the flesh which incarnated it, which made it the individual man it knew and cherished. To dissolve the unity of spirit and flesh was to dissolve the entity which defined man, any mar. and certainly the individual man as man saw himself. Death in view of this dissolution was equivalent to annihilation, and this the spirit was as reluctant as the flesh to accept. 130 It was only when the spirit put its faith in God’s promise of a resurrection of the body that it could find any relief from the apparently unresolvable problem of physical death and the unbearable tension resulting from it. With the assurance that the whole man, with his individuality intact, would survive, the spirit could continue and even assert its longing for another life.

With such assurance, it could even dedicate the remainder of the life it has on earth to the service of him who promises eternal life for the individual man and thus preserves the individual from annihilation.

The "Stances de la Mort" thus end in an acceptance of death, an acceptance of its being the only resolution to the tension of this life. This acceptance is based on the denial of the negative aspects of death such as death’s finality, its irreparable destruction of the body and its annihilation of the individual. The Christian promises of an afterlife and of the resurrection of the body have diminished the power of death over man and have relieved him of the fear of its destructive powers.

By focusing beyond death rather than directly on it, the poet has relieved his spirit's fear of death and has diminished its reluctance to embrace it. 131 12 The "Sonnets sur le mesme subject"

When we turn to the "Sonnets sur le mesme subject," which directly follow the "Stances," we are immediately

struck by a change in voice as well as a change in imagery and sub-theme.

"Mortals," the first word of Sonnet I, immediately tells us that we are no longer dealing with an interior monologue or with a dialogue between the poet and his soul. The poet is directing his voice much more out­ wardly and is speaking to others. tlo longer the con- science-director of his own soul alone, he has also become that of others now. As Mario Richter suggests, the poet has taken on here the voice of a preacher. 13

"Mortels" also tells us immediately that we are dealing with death in a different sense than we have before. In the "Stances," death was presented as the desired-yet-feared resolution to the discontent acutely felt by the spirit. Death was presented as a problem for the spirit to solve. "Mortels," however, evokes death in a purely physical sense, and as the spirit is not mortal, this apostrophe is directed to the entire man in his physical state, to man as a natural being.

The apostrophe, material images such as "tombeau" and "maisons" and the pervasive rhymes of "vie" and "mort" in end and internal rhymes which resound throughout the sonnet in constant, unrelieved juxtaposition to one 132

another stress the fact and the inherent nature of death

in man's natural existence. Man is given life by mortals,

and this same life dies within the living body which is

a tomb. Everything about man's life is mortal or finite, and yet man lives as though there were no death, no end

to his life. In the poet's insistance upon the corpore­ ality and inevitability of death, he invokes the medieval sub-theme of memento mori. A hint of where the poet is trying to lead his readers is seen at the end of the poem when he somewhat

ironically and paradoxically excuses man's lack of concern for his personal mortality by claiming this forgetfulness as proof that death does not really end life. Man, as

Richter suggests, is unconsciously the witness ("le temoin 14 inconscient") of the existence of an eternity. To

forget death, then, is the natural thing for man, who is promised an eternity, to do.

After the brief reprieve of the poet's accepting, or pretending tc accept, man's forgetfulness of death, he comes down harshly with the insistant "Mais si faut-il mourir." The destructive aspects of death are brought to the fore, and death, almost personified, is seen as an enemy to this life. Man's sense of eternity is misplaced; he is often mistakenly led to believe that this life is the one that will endure, but the pervasive presence of death should 133 remind him that it will not ("...la vie orgueilleuse/Qui brave de la mort, sentira ses fureurs"). Traditional metaphors associated with death* traditional vanitas imagery such as a flower, a torch, a painting, waves, thunder, lightening, snow, floods and even lions (meta­ phors which Richter qualifies as emblems)1^ are lined up and processed in a relatively consistant pattern evoking, in the future verbs, an assured destruction. It is interesting to note that several of these things belonging to the material world are seen as responsible for, or perhaps rather containing, their own destruction, i.e., "L'huyle de ce Tableau ternira ses couleurs/Et ces flots se rompront a la rive escumeuse." Death is thus an integral part of their earthly existence. The final line ends with the recognition tha4: man does and, as we learned at the end of the "Stances," must live, but it also ends with a reminder that this life will come to an end, that man must suffer physical death. In the following three sonnets, the poet continues his preaching of the mementc mori message. Man's forget­ fulness of death and his valuation of earthly life is presumptuous, and the poet attempts to break down this presumption by a series of images depicting the fragility of life. 134 Sonnet III begins with a popular complaint about man's forgetfulness.^ Man remembers death only when he seeks it himself or is confronted with it in worldly en­

deavors such as wax* or sea voyages. As soon as the im­ mediate danger has passed, however, man returns to his usual complacent state, a state which is depicted in imagery of sleeping, i.e., "songer," "oubly," and "s'endort," imagery which is reminiscent of the same imagery used in Stanza 12 to depict the initially dormant

state of the poet's spirit. The repetition of "tantost"

also reminds us of the same repetition used in Stanza 13 to depict the sporadic and inconstant nature! of the poet's spirit's attempts to face or accept death. The poet sums up man's usual position on this matter, "Bref, chacun pense a vivre," ar.d then attacks it. Images of fragility abound and are juxtaposed to the presumptuous images man has of himself. The dominant

tone here is one of irony, if not sarcasm. Man's pre­ sumption is on trial here, and as the basis of this presumption, i.e., his own worldly achievements, is quickly and easily nullified by the fact of inevitable death, man is made to look ridiculous.

Sponde has once again taken traditional vanitas

images and succinctly placed them one after another to

emphasize the need to break dcwn a presumption which is obviously obstinate. The relentless series of images and the rapid and successive questions of the last tercet of Sonnet III and the first quatrain of Sonnet IV hammer 17 away at man's presumption with no relief. After these series, the poet relieves the tension of this hammering only for a moment, when he recognizes the need for man to fulfill some of his worldly ambitions ("Je vous accorde encore une emprise certaine"). He allows man, though, only limited ambition, reminding man, once again by means of traditional imagery, i.e., "Sceptres" and "Throsnes," 18 that the greater the height achieved in these endeavors, the greater appeal they will have for the still somewhat personified death-the-reaper. These images merely expand his epigrammatic statement that "Le Mont est foudroye plus souvent que la plaine." Sonnet IV ends with one more series of questions posed in a now familiar rhythmic pat­ tern, and the questions are answered by another epigramma­ tic statement telling us that all ends in death.

In Sonnet V, the poet appeals to human reason and asks it to consider the presence cf death in man's life.

Death is not just something for an indefinite future. It is here now; man has already suffered it in the sense that the life he has already lived is irretrievably spent. Life is thus equated to death; life is a continuous death, a statement which reinvokes "Mortels, qui des mortels avez prins vostre vie" (where the source of life is mortal, "Vie qui meurt encor dans le tombeau du Corps" (where life 136 is constantly, and presently, dying within the living body), and "S^ravez-vous bien que c'est le train de ceste vie?/La fuite de la Vie, et la course a la Mort" (where life is leading us directly, and hurriedly, towards death). The poet even addresses in the most explicit way the question of man1s presumption in face of the phenomenon of death. The /5:rJ in the verbs "implore" and "adore," verbs which describe man's efforts to realize his worldly ambitions, are related to and subsequently nullified by "La Mort" which destroys them. Man’s achievements are temporary and in the end are subverted, as is man. Death is certain; it lies in wait only for the proper moment. The hour and the moment of death, the "Bourreaux desnaturez" 19 of man's natural life, make both life and death painful. Man, with his "souvenir d 1une eternelle vie," his instinctive feelings that he has been created for an eternal life, complains of these "Bourreaux desnaturez" which destroy man's earthly life. The complaint is un­ founded, though, for as the poet says, man is merely misdirected, or shortsighted, in his focusing only on his earthly life rather than beyond it. This shortsighted­ ness and the presumption resulting from it have been the major theme and the main point of attack in the first 20 six sonnets. Man with his instinct for eternal life. 137 mistakenly believes that the life he knows now is the one which is meant to be eternal. As a result, he lives this life as though there were no end to it and sets his ambi­ tions as though there were no limit to them or his ability tc realize them. Man, though, is both mistaken and pre­ sumptuous in this assumption. The height of man's presumption is portrayed in what Richter terms a philosophical prayer. 21 The prayer, which begins thematically with "Je me veux despestrer de ces facheux destours," but lyrically with the apostrophe "Beaux s£jours, loin de l'oeil, prez de 1 'entendement" and con­ tinues for the remainder of Sonnet VI, is the ultimate effort on the part of natural man to understand or attain a life beyond this one, the life for which he is so sure he is destined. An invention of his own intellect and not a divine inspiration, it is yet one more demonstration of man's pride. 22 With Sonnet VII, the poet begins to speak more personally and more lyrically. Shifting from the outwardly directed sermon, if one wishes, of Sonnets I through VI, he moves to the personal pronoun "je" and becomes the protagonist as well as the conscience-director. The interior dialogue and the tension resulting from it are reminiscent of those of the "Stances"

We return in Sonnet VII to the pattern of irreconcilable antitheses and unresolvable paradoxes we 138 first met in the "Stances." The motif of the elements is here used both literally and metaphorically, designating both this world and another and relating the yearning for the latter within the former. Life rather than death is seen as martyrdom, and death, while only the last of trials on earth is still dreaded. It is no wonder that the poet feels uneasy in this situation ("A la fin je me trouve en un estrange emoy") that he does not feel at home in the world, and that he wants to look for a way out of it. This life is unbearable in its tension, a tension which he expresses in the paradoxical antithesis of "C'est mourir que de vivre en ceste peine extreme." As he finds no immediate relief, the situation seems desperate. Sonnets VIII and IX may at first appear to be a return to or a reinvocation of the voice of the preacher which we hear in the first six stanzas, but following the bipartite division of the sonnets as suggested by Richter, we can see that this is not the same voice of the earlier sonnets. This is a continuation of the interior dialogue begun in Sonnet VII. 23

After voicing his discontent with living in this world, but yet realizing that he is still attracted to it ("Je recerche a monceaux les plaisirs a choisir"), the poet turns to the same tactics he used to dispel others1 24 belief in the permanence and value of this world. 139 This pattern is similar to the one used in the "Stances" when the poet, realizing that all opposition to his spirit's acceptance of death was not coming from the flesh, but that some of it was to be found in the spirit itself, at­ tempted to dispel the attraction which this world held for the spirit. Sonnets VIII and IX recall this pattern. The poet uses the image of an arrow in flight and both thematically and rhythmically shows us the impossi­ bility of its maintaining a constantly upward flight or even sustaining any height at all. Its flight is limited, as are the number of our days on earth. 25

The question of the changing pronouns, from "vous" to "nous" to "tu," has received various explications, but if one relates the use of these pronouns to that of the same ones in the "Stances," one arrives at a slightly different answer than those so far suggested. 2 6 "Vous," as a plural address, indicates that the poet has taken a step away from the intimacy of the "je" of Sonnet VII and is now addressing his two opposing constituents, the flesh and the spirit as a third party. "Nous," repre­ sented in "nos," recalls the pairing of the spirit and the flesh in the hymn to death of Stanza 19. Together they watch, or listen to, the lesson of the arrow, as it affects both of them. The "tu," reminiscent of the "tu" of the "Stances," is directed to the spirit. It is reminded that the life it knows now is limited and that 140 the world in which it now lives is also limited. Epigrammatically, it is told that its earthly life and the world have no more strength or substance than a fea­ ther or wind ("Que ta vie est de Plume, et le monde de Vent" (1. 14)). With so little substance and value to be found in this life, life appears to be a charade, comparable to a theatrical presentation. No where is this more apparent 27 than in the life of the court. Each person is a masked actor belonging to the crazy troop which plays a game in which some actors are rulers, others valets and all are involved in the giving away or receiving of some indefinite or imaginary advantages ("De fumees de Court"). It all appears as a strange, theatrical fantasy and one which is not completely understood or shared by the poet. He poses a series of questions as to who these people really are 28 and what they are doing. It is confusing to him because

these actors are all around him. He and they are all to­ gether in the same life, yet he does not feel a part of it. He sees the others as moving aimlessly in the sea of life, looking to the stars and the wind as goals to be attained rather than as guides to lead them to port. The

poet finds their misdirection frightening and would fear for his life if he were one of them. He is not one of them, however, even though he shares the same lot of being on the sea of life. Unlike the others, he does not seek 141 the stars of this earth, he does not worship the life of this world ("...le coeur idol&tre/Se jette aux pieds du Monde..."). He yearns, as he has told us before, for a different life, a different world ("Tandis que dedans I'air un autre air je respire"). The poet closes Sonnet IX with the recognition of this difference, a difference which has made his awareness of the fragility and temporality of life and his discon­

tent with it even more acute. This heightening of aware­ ness and the increased discontent in turn motivate him to devaluate life completely, toknake it nothing more than the light guiding us through our voyage to the port of death. Sponde appears to have succeeded in acquiring a mespris de la vie. No sooner do we think that our poet has resolved at least some of the tension caused by his uncertainty about his attraction to earthly life, than are we accosted with the ever-disenchanting "Mais." It has been recognized that the flesh is fragile, temporary, and slowly but surely making its way towards death, but as reasonable as it seems to devaluate and maybe even abandon life on those grounds, the poet feels some resistance to this idea. The problem is seen here, as it was in the "Stances," as stemming from an inactive or dormant spirit. The spirit

is found sleeping (recalling all the previous uses of sleeping imagery) and in need of awakening. It is urged 142 to wake up and to stay awake and alert and to let the body sleep, so as not to interfere with the arrival of death. Death is portrayed as a thief, after the Biblical parable, a thief that one must be prepared to meet.

As Richter says. Sonnet X is the first time when the true protagonists of the spiritual drama we have been witnessing, i.e., the body and the soul, enter directly onto the scene. 29 The body has obviously been a strong protagonist in this drama, for the poet has found it ne­ cessary to spend most of his time trying to undermine its strategy in its contest with the soul. The soul has ob­ viously been a weak protagonist; the poet even needs to wake it up. With both protagonists alert now and con­ fronting each other with their opposing goals, the question is posed "Et quel bien de la Mort?"^

Why die, or rather why seek death? What are the advantages to dying? For the first time, Sponde uses imagery reminiscent of the medieval macabre sub-theme, but he uses it not as an end in itself, not to dwell on the material aspects of death, but rather to show the dissipa­ tion of the body from a material being into an intangible name which is dispersed about, contained by vanity and crowned with lies: Ce Corps... • » * Et sera ce beau Norn qui tant partout s'espard, BornS de Vanite, couronn^ de Mensonge. 143 The soul, which leaves for another world, leaves behind

in this world only a vague memory of its having been here at all. In other words, from a terrestrial point of view, man is dissipated into nothing, one could even say anni­ hilated, by death. What is, then, the advantage of this separation of

body and soul, a separation which has been urged up to this point, but which, as Carron points out, has suddenly become a lamented destruction of "ces noeuds si beaux." 31

The answer is the imposition of an indisputable fact. In order to live in the other world, the world which will provide us with the eternal life we seek, we must suffer physical death, so it is decreed in the divine plan.

Divine plan or not, the poet is still reluctant to dissolve himself as an entity into two ephemeral parts and to submit his body to the denegrating process of putrefaction. As Giuseppe Brunelli says,

... la morte del corpo mette pur sempre fra 1'io ed il suo Creatore una tenebrosa distanza sparsa di cadaveri, 'ou la vermine ronge/tous ces nerfs, tous ces os...". Tanto angosciosa visione non abbrevia certo il camxnino fra Dio ed i suoi, e fra Dio e il poeta cristiano... The poet complains of the passageway to the second life.

Why does he have to suffer the deterioration and loss of his body in physical death? Why is there not a more direct way to eternal life? The answer, which is imposed as indisputably as was the fact that one must die, is 144 that we have no more Enochs or Eliases. No one else after these two prophets will be assumed directly into heaven with body and soul together.

This last tercet of the sonnet is reminiscent of Stanza 19 when the poet's spirit sings a hymn to death on the part of itself and the flesh. In Stanza 19, it is the promise of the resurrection of the body which finally motivates the spirit to call for death so that it and the flesh would both enjoy the superior afterlife and live together as one harmonious unit. The spirit agrees and urges the flesh to agree to death on the pro­ mise that they would not be separated forever and that neither one of them would be transformed to the point of unrecognition. Death was agreed to as long as it did not threaten the individual, an individual who de­ fined himself, and wanted to preserve himself, as the union of the body and soul with which he was familiar on earth.

With the reference to Enoch and Elias, the question of the resurrection comes to the fore. The "vivre" of the first line of the tercet takes on a new meaning. It now appears to refer to a life meant for both the body and the soul, rather than for just the soul, as it may have at first appeared. The complaint of the lack of a short-cut becomes clearer. The poet seemingly has known of and maybe even truly believed in the doctrine of 145 resurrection, and is complaining, not about an irreparable loss of his body, but about the long and painful route his body must take to attain the life for which it too

is destined. The poet is here desirous of the second life, but he wants to attain it as did the prophets who were taken directly into afterlife from earth. He does not want to wait for an undetermined amount of time for a reunion, a reunion which his faith assures him, but whose delay makes him impatient, if not also doubtful. 33

At the end of this debate, then, between the soul and the flesh and the poet with Christian beliefs about 34 death, we find the poet still dissatisfied, showing himself to be impatient and still fearful of physical death. The final sonnet is a plea for help from God.

Unlike the prayer of Sonnet VI, this prayer is Christian, and it is making a very Christian request. It calls for the direct and personal ("...ta main, ta voix") inter­ vention of God in this matter. The forces of this earth, his desire to maintain an individuality he cherishes, are too strong for the poet to fight alone. He is only a man, and a man in a fallen condition. As such, much is pitted against him (as emphasized in the repetition of

"tout" in line 1) and he feels and recognizes his in­ ability to attain the eternal life God has planned for him and for which he has such a strong and instinctive 146 desire. The attractions of the flesh and of his own individuality are too strong. He is reluctant to give up his body for any period of time or submit it to putre­ faction no matter how much he really, and paradoxically, wants to. In the vers rapportes and the parallelisms of this sonnet, the poet depicts both thematically and stylistically the antithetical situation of his wanting to die yet fearing to do so. This antithesis is tradition­ ally viewed as the fundamental antithesis between man's spirit and his body. As the spirit, however, both in the

"Stances" and in the "Sonnets" has also put forth signi­ ficant opposition to the dissolution of their union, it seems as though the antithesis is not strictly between the spirit and the body. The spirit does not really seek separation from its body; its seeks separation from this world and its tribulations so that it, the spirit, 3 5 along with the body, can attain a superior life. This superior life, however, can be achieved only through the sacrifice of physical death, only through the sacrifice which the poet is forced but still reluctant to make. This sacrifice is being demanded by God, and it is to God that the poet turns for help in the matter.

The poet looks to God for the divine gift of grace, a gift and act of giving which are emphasized in the ques­ tion, "Me donras-tu?" which is set off by means of a 147 3 6 contre-reject. God, however, does not immediately respond. "Et quoy?" the poet asks, the tension continues. The last tercet of this final sonnet is the conclusion to the spiritual debate on death, but is it really a resolution to the problem of death? Various answers have been given to this question. Cave, who views Sponde's poetry on death in relation to devotional traditions popular at the time, sees this final tercet as a resolution very much in line with what he calls the "broadest area of philosophical and religious tradtion: 'Appren-moy de bien vivre, afin de bien 37 mourir.1" In other words, he finds it the perfect and very much expected conclusion to an ars vivendi, be it religious or secular. In calling Sonnet XII a prayer and relating it to the entire sequence of sonnets. Cave finds that "the prayer ot sonnet 12, which is an epilogue to the whole sequence, is in keeping with the normal pattern of a sermon— instruction is followed by a prayer for aid in 38 carrying out the lesson." Carron finds the sonnet an appropriate conclusion, "l'oraison finale, l'acte de foi en le Tout-Puissant," "l'hymne de confiance en 1'intervention divine." The final tercet states that "malgre la violence du combat, quelqu'un repond," and it serves as "la solution chre- tienne a I 1intuition d*infini que proposait le premier 148 3 9 sonnet (un souvenir d'une feternelle vie)." The "Mais" at the beginning of the tercet signals, as it has throughout the sonnet sequence, a change in the direction of the argument. One expects a reversal of the poet's complaints about the onslaughts of the world, perhaps even a change in his concern about his individuality. Line 12 in echoing line 10 also sets up the final tercet in opposition to what has preceded. Line 13 provides images, which, in their reference to peace and God, can elicit a feeling, if not a tone, of comfort and assurance. In line 14 one can also see, in the use of the future verbs, the assured relief from the tension of this world. Thus, the sonnet, as well as the debate on the problem of death, seems to end positively and in a resolution to the tension both created.

One cannot, however, remain insensitive to the rhythm of this final tercet. Despite the potentially interruptive "Mais" and despite the reprieve one may feel in the first hemistiche of line 12 ("Mais ton Temple pourtant"), a reprieve which may be at least partially acquired in anticipation of a slower rhythm because of the introductory "Mais," the pattern and rhythm of the triple constructions which have preceded this tercet are sustained throughout it. In other words, there has been no relief. The poet is as excited and anxious as ever. 149 Kurt Weinberg finds this last tercet to be a final and frantic attempt on the part of the poet to protect, or rescue, himself from the onslaught of the flesh’s opposition. He finds it to be a feeble bulwark, made of pious intentions and verbal assertions which bespeak wishful thinking rather than a firm belief in any truly efficacious remedy to the fatal antagonism of the Flesh and the Spirit. He may, in fact, be right, for so overpowering is the rhythm of the vers rapportes and the parallelism (paral­ lelism which Durand sees as being "carried to the ultimate 41 point" ) that one cannot really detect any true relief from the tension built up from it at all. Richter explains Sponde's sustaining the tension as indicative of the fact that "...il Dio di Calvino non e un Dio che concede pace nel mondo... La pace si realiz- zera soltanto nella morte, 1 ou ce charme perdra/Ou mourra cest effort, ou■s se rompra ceste Onde’.** 42 Richter, who finds Sponde to be heavily and consciously influenced by Calvinism and Calvinistic poetics, 43 feels that Sponde ...a compris que la vie chretienne proposee par Calvin ne saurait consister que dans un renoncement absolu, irrevocable, k la realite humaine et (sic) tant que Chair. Le salut reside done dans la nega­ tion de la Chair, dans la negation de l ’homme tel u'il est par sa propre nature: le salut ne peut ftre confi£ qu'a la folie d ’une foi qui fonde toute son esperance dans la mort, 'ou ce charme perdra/ 44 Ou mourra cest effort, ou se perdra ceste Onde'. (sic) Richter rightly points out the total sacrifice which man in a Christian framework is asked to make for the sake 150 of his salvation, or for the sake of attaining another life. The sacrifice appears too great for Sponde at the end of the “Sonnets." Unlike at the end of the "Stances'* where he reaches a point of accepting death and then submitting

to the necessity of earthly life, Sponde never really accepts death as the conclusion to the "Sonnets." His spirit never really joins with his flesh in assured anti­ cipation of a resurrection; it never sings a hymn to death here. Until the end of the sonnet sequence, Sponde remains much more concerned about himself as he is, as he knows himself to be, i.e., an individual creature made of a body and a soul, than about into what he may be transformed. Physical death remains an unresolvable problem for him. The Christian, or Calvinist, answer is not good enough. As Richter qualifies it, it is inhuman.^ Sponde thus retains a human perspective at the conclusion of the "Sonnets." It has been said that Sponde never really accepts death because he is far too attached to the world, to its pleasures, to the possible advantages he may receive from it. It seems, rather, in view of the analysis we have just made that Sponde fears death not as a loss of worldly gains but as the loss of his own self, his own individuality which he knows as the combination of flesh and soul. The doctrine of resurrection is not comforting or assuring enough for him to take the gamble of death, to accept comfortably, if at all, the 151 inevitability of the phenomenon. Too much is at stake, afterlife is too uncertain and, most important of all, Sponde*s faith in the possibility of his individual attain­ ment of the afterlife he seeks is weak. NOTES

"Stances de la Mort"

^For this study we will use Alan Boase’s 1954 edition of the Meditations avec un Essai de poemes chrestiens, which is based on a 1588 edition of this work discovered by Boase in 1950. According to Boase, the 1588 text is the first edition of the "Stances et Sonnets de la mort," and it is still the only edition we have which was pub­ lished by the poet himself.. Subsequent editions of Sponde's poetry on death were published posthumously, in anthologies with the work of other poets and often contain significant deviations from the original text. Boase's 1954 edition is not an entirely faithful reprint of the 158 8 text either, for he has thoroughly edited the text and made a number of changes. He has given the text a more consistent orthography, and has also taken the liberty of favoring the modern spelling of words when (1) that spelling occurs at least once in the original text and (2) when the older spelling, i.e. , peu for pu , could be confusing. These change*, along with a few other minor corrections which will be cited in this study if necessary, still give us a valid text of the poetry. The 1954 edition also shows the poetry in its original context, i.e., as part of one large work entirely written by Sponde. As the "Stances” have been somewhat neglected in Sponde criticism, in comparison with the "Sonnets," we shall offer a much more detailed technical analysis of them than we shall of the "Sonnets." A complete text of all the poems is provided in the Appendix. 2 Cave, Devotional Poetry, p. 104. 3 Wladimir Weidle, "Jean de Sponde," Cahiers du Sud, 307 (1951), p. 456. 4 Rosalie Brosilow, "Structure and Theme in Jean de Sponde's 'Stances de la Mort'," RomN, 13 (1971), p. 327.

152 153 5 Arnoldo Fizzorusso, "Le 'Stances de la Mort* di Jean de Sponde," in Studi in onore di Carlo Pellegrini (Torino: Soc. Ed. Intern, di Torino, 1^63), pi 194.

Sizzorusso, "Stances," p. 195. 7 Ilona Coombs, who is most interested in seeing the "Stances" in relation to the categories of baroque estab­ lished by Imbrie Buffura in his Agrippa d'Aubigne's 'Les Tragigues; A Study of the Baroque Style in Poetry (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1951) , says': "In the midst of this struggle where the spirit tries to resist the specious allurements of the ’charnelle ruse* (1. 49), one must comment upon the physical and actual presence of God. The poet appeals to Him as to an arbiter as well as to a protector, "mon Dieu, prens parti dans ces partis toy- mesme/Et je me rengeray du parti le plus fort" (11. 35- 36). Of special interest is the fact, however, that the godhead thus summoned materializes. The typically baroque image of the hands of God--"Incarnation" in the Buffum categories— appears several times. Divine mercy is in­ carnated in these helping hands: 'Et puis si c'est ta main qui fa^onna le Monde* (1. 43), 'Viens done et mets ta main, mon Dieu, dedans ce trouble* (1. 52), *Tu m'esten- dras ta main, mon Dieu, pour me gu£rir* (1. 141)." Coombs, "Baroque Elements in Jean de Sponde*s 'Stances de la Mort*," ECr, 1 (1961), pp. 86-90. The use of anthropomorphic metaphors for God has Scriptural authority and thus predates "baroque" usage as defined by Buffum. In fact, Christian literature from the earliest time is rich in such metaphors. In his Divine Names, for example, Dionysius the Areopagite notes that "in Scripture It /the Godhead7 is clothed in human (fiery or amber) shapes or forms." ed. C.E. Holt (New York: MacMillan, 1940), p. 63. This comment is followed by a list of the Biblical passages in which God is described as having ears, hands, feet, hair and other human attributes.

Q Brosilow,"Stances," p. 328. g "...the theme of sin is just beneath the surface in all the references to the world and the flesh— the pride of the flesh that dares to challenge God (stanza 11,), the heaviness of the flesh that weighs down the spirit (stanza 13), the darkness of ’ces relants abysmes/Que tu noircis sans fin des horreurs de tes crimes' (stanza 15)." Cave, Devotional Poetry, p. 173. 154

In Boase1s earlier edition of this poetry, Poesies, ed. Alan Boase and Francois Ruchon (Geneve: Droz, 1949), this word is "esteint,M which certainly gives a different meaning to this line. It is difficult to ascertain which word is the one Sponde intended to use here, because Boase gives no reason in his preface for this change. We can only rely on his statement that his 1954 edition is taken from a first edition of Sponde*s work and is intended to correct his and Ruchon*s 1949 edition which was taken from an edition prepared by an editor years after Sponde*s death.

"^Pizzorusso, "Stances," p. 201.

"Sonnets sur le mesme subject" 12 Laura Durand, in her unpublished dissertation, "The Poetry of Jean de Sponde: A Critical Evaluation (Michigan, 1963) has provided a very detailed and still valid technical analysis of the "Sonnets de la mort." See pp. 70-95. Mario Richter, in his various articles on Sponde which will be cited throughout this study, has also provided much technical analysis of these poems. Our study of the "Sonnets" uses these sources, as well as others, as a basis and will not repeat all the details which can be found in them. We will concern ourselves here more with tracing the development and use of the theme of death in the "Sonnets" in order to discover Sponde*s statement of the problem. The statement found in the "Sonnets" will in turn be related to that of the "Stances. **

13 "...dans les six premiers sonnets Sponde entretient un ton uniformement exhortatif, didactique, un ton detache qui se rapproche de celui d'un pr£dicateur (et cela en ayant recours au pronom vous)..." Mario Richter, "Les 'Sonnets de la Mort’ de Sponde," Aevum, 48 (1974), p. 407. For a discussion on late sixteenth-century French poets1 taking on the voice of a preacher, see "The voice of the preacher," in Cave’s Devotional Poetry, pp. 164-171. For a discussion of this voice in the poetry of Sponde, see his "The 'Stances et sonnets de la mort* of Jean de Sponde," pp. 171-182.

14Richter, Aevum (1974), p. 409. Richter finds the use of the indefinite articles significant: "Sponde non abbia voluto definire i contorni di quel tipo di 155 immortalita, che e lasciata intenzionalmente in una generica designazione attraverso l'impiego di una insisti- ta successione di indefiniti (Un oubly d'une mort/Vous montre un souvenir d'une eterneTle vie): slamo all'inizio della speculazione; essa muove da un cupo e squallido paesaggio di morte, che seinbra soffocare ogni valore umano, ogni possibility di uscita; questo spiraglio di eternita, scoperto in un comportamento istintivo dell'uomo, e solo dialetticamente intuito nella sua non definita possibilita di salvezza in virtu di un argomento soltanto umano, per tutti valido e pertanto in nessun modo defini- to." Richter, "Lettera dei 'Sonnets de la Mort* di Jean de Sponde," BHR, 30 (1968), pp. 327--45. 15 Richter, Aevum (1974), p. 410. Cave states that "the overall pattern of imagery is very much like that of the emblem-book,” Devotional Poetry, pp. 176-177.

16One can qualify this as a popular complaint (referring back to "chacun accuse" of Sonnet I) in view of the contemporary popularity of religious devotional meditations which used the reminder of death as an incite­ ment to meditate. Cave, in his Devotional Poetry, has done the most extensive work on this aspect of late six­ teenth-century French poetry, being inspired by Louis Martz's pioneering work in this field, The Poetry of Meditation: A Study in English Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century, 2nd ed., 19 54; rpt. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 19621 Richter points to Philippe DuPlessis-Mornay*s Discours de la vie et de la mort as a very specific source for Sponde's reference to the frequent reiteration of this complaint. Mornay's Discours was widely circulated at the time when Sponde was writing the "Stances et Sonnets de la mort" and no doubt had an influence on Sponde's poetry (as well as Chassignet's, as we shall see later). See Richter, BHR (1968), p. 333. So popular was Mornay's Discours and so important is it in understanding the background upon which both Sponde and Chassignet, as well as other poets, wrote their poetry that Richter has provided a reprint of the complete text of the Discours along with a substantial introduction to it in his II 'Discours de la vie et de la mort* di Philippe DuPlessis- Mornay. (Milano: Soc. Ed. Vita e Pensiero, 1964).

17Cave relates this type of accumulation, be it of images or questions to the sermon technique. As he con­ siders Sponde to maintain the voice of a preacher through­ out the sonnets, he states that "...accumulation of one 156 kind or another is often fundamental to the structure of Sponde's religious sonnets...," Devotional Poetry, p. 178. 18 The use of demonstrative adjectives with "Sceptres" and "Throsnes" can create a tone of irony, and, as Cave suggests, contempt and aggression. Seen as "an essential element of sermon technique," Cave sees Sponde's use of the demonstrative throughout the "Sonnets" as unusually liberal but at the same time very incisive. Cave at­ tributes to Sponde's use of it an invigoration of vanitas imagery which could have otherwise, because of its well-worn familiarity, been dull and ineffective. Devo­ tional Poetry, p. 177. 19 I agree here with Richter's attribution of "heure" and "moment" as the references for the aposition "Bour- reaux desnaturez," as he establishes it in his "Sull' Ironia di Sponde," BHR, 32 (1970), pp. 423-424.

20 See Richter, BHR (1968), pp. 334-335 and Aevum (1974), p. 411, especially for Sonnets III-V.

^Richter, Aevum (1974), p. 411-412, BHR (1968), pp. 336-337.

2 2 "L'admirable priere qui occupe le deuxieme quatrain et les deux tercets ae ce sonnet n'est point une pri§re chr^tienne (comme a pu le supposer M. Alan Boase), mais typiquement platonicienne ("Beaux sejours loin de l'oeil, prez de 1 *entendement") . C e s t bien la raison pour la- quelle personne ne dit cette priere, qui est en fait le resultat de l'orgueil de la Chair (c'est une priere philosophique, platonicienneT paienne). Richter, Aevum (1974), p. 412.

23Cave considers the tone of a preacher's voice to be very similar and complementary to that of a penitent. See his "The Penetential Prayer," pp. 94-145 and his "The Voice of the Preacher," cited above. As a result of his seeing the two tones of voice as complementary, he finds the tone of the sonnets "relatively uniform throughout," making exceptions only for Sonnets X, XII, IX and XII, all of which, interestingly enough, fall into the second half of the bipartite division of the "Sonnets" established by Richter. 157 24 "Sponde sente la necessita di riconsidere la caducity delle cose del mondo che tanto lo attirano...," Richter, BHR (1968), pp. 339-340. 25 Richter qualifies this image as a parable, BHR <1968), p. 340, whereas Cave considers the whole sonnet as "essentially an emblem-poem," Devotional Poetry, p. 177.

2 6 "Like most of the sonnets on death, this one is in the form of direct address? interestingly enough, be­ tween verse 1 and verse 9, the poet changes from "vous" to "tu," whether for reasons of expediency in versifica­ tion or for the effect of a subtle change in relationship between himself and his audience is immaterial, since, whatever his reason, the latter occurs. From the usual polite or formal relationship implied by "vous" has evolved one comparable, let us say, to a father lecturing his child, or a clergyman his parishioner. Sponde and his audience are at once more intimately associated and more separated by a difference in position as a result of the combination of the "tu" form with the nature of the moral the poet is pointing." Durand, "Sponde," pp. 87-88. Speaking of the spirit of a sixteenth-century Calvinist who is assured of being among the elect, Richter says that such a person is driven by a suprahuman force, "C'est 1 * Esprit que cette force sur-humaine; c'est lui qui ouvre les yeux de l'homme, qui lui permet de voir positivement 1'absurdite de la vie, du 'train de nos jours'. Et cependant c'est la Chair qui dicte k Sponde les vers a 1'allure m6lancolique du son. 8 ('C'est le train de noz jours... Voire ce sont noz jours...)," Richter, Aevum (1974), p. 413.

27 I agree here with Richter in his equation of the life at court with life in general, "...1'absurdite de la vie de cour (qui est— est-il besoin de le dire— la vie tout court)...", Richter, Aevum (1974), p. 414. The im­ portant aspect of this imagery is its depiction of the theatricality, the falseness and the play-acting of life. Sponde's presentation of the life of the court in this manner is the presentation of just one example of the overall theatricality of life in general. It happens to be an example with which Sponde, who spent considerable time with the court of Navarre and later with that of Henri IV, was particularly familiar. 158 28 It is the series of questions themselves which creates the strangeness of the others and which creates the distance between the poet and others whom, as Richter points out, the poet knows very well: "Certes, ce sont des gens tr£s bien connus, puisque le po£te, lui aussi, est engage, en tant que Chair, dans leur mime naviga­ tion.” The result of the questioning is the creation of “Tout un monde d 1inconnus-tres connus..." Richter, Aevum (1974), p. 414.

o q Richter, BHR (1968), p. 341.

30 Jean-Claude Carron suggests that in Sonnet X the soul actually separates itself from the body and leaves it to face death alone, "...ce dixieme poeme ou l'ame abandonne le corps explicitement; ici la separation resout 1'opposition corps-ame en liberant l'&me de son attache terrestre, c'est Ih 1 'unique resolution possible du conflit que puisse proposer le philosophe..." Carron, "Jean de Sponde: 'Et quel bien de la Mort?',*' F£3, 31 (1977), p. 131. From this point of view, one could say that this philosophical resolution recalls the philo­ sophical prayer of Sonnet VI. Man alone, without God, and without faith in God, can resolve the tension caused by the conflict between body and soul only temporarily, if at all. Thus the descent or immediate opposition, at the beginning of Sonnet XI. Carron finds this opposition to come from the body after the spirit has abandoned it. I agree that the opposition, or question, certainly con­ cerns the body, but I do not think that it is the body alone that is being questioned here. It seems, in reference to the pattern of thematic development in the "Stances," especially in the stanzas immediately pre­ ceding the hymn to death, that one can see both the spirit and the body, if not the spirit alone, questioning the benefits of death at this point.

31Carron, "Sponde," p. 132. 32 Giuseppe A. Brunelli, "Jean de Sponde 'Enoch et Elie' e il 'Sonnet XI'," SFr, 6 (1958), p. 431.

33 I tend to agree with Imbrie Buffum here in his suggestion that Sponde exhibits doubt as to the possibility of the Resurrection. _Buffum states, "I think it might be said that these men preferring to Sponde and Sceve/, de­ spite their generally Christian orientation, reveal through 159 their angoisse agonizing doubts as to the Resurrection." Imbrie Buffum, Studies in the Baroque, p. 246, as quoted in Durand, "Sponde," p. 129. See also Carron, "Sponde," pp. 134-135.

34The poet debates here both the necessity and the extreme measure of death which Christianity explains as a punishment for the original sin and as part of a divine plan for man's salvation.

35As Richter points out, although Calvin may have reached in his dogma at least some sort of synthesis of these two apparently irreconciliable elements of anti­ thesis, Sponde cannot, for Calvin takes recourse in religious mystery, whereas Sponde deals with the problems of death and the antithesis of body and soul on a purely human level. He explicates Sponde's use of parallelisms in relation to Calvinistic dogma: "Lo schema r.igorosa- mente rapportato dell'ultimo sonetto e in perfetta aderenza con il progressivo contrasto Chair-Esprit che da 1'impronta a questo secondo atto dei dodici sonetti. L'inconciliabilitei dei due termini dell'antitesi trova in questi versi conclusivi la sua piu esplicita deter- minazione stilistica: nelle opposizioni dei temi ("Monde," "Chair," "Ange-revolte;" "Temple," "Main," "voix") lo schema rapportato consente di tradurre quel caratterre di "symphonie inachevee" (la definizione e del Ganoczy) della dtruttura dialettica del pensiero calviniano e, conseguentemente, spondiano: i termini della materia e dello Spirito si oppongono parallelamente, ma non si uniscono in vera sintesi, non si armonizzano nel mistero del Verbo incarnato, i cui elementi della divinita e dell'umanita erano sentiti da Calvino, e qui da Sponde, come 'giustapposti*, o meglio, per usare le parole del Ganoczy, "superposes parallelement, de telle sorte que le premier non seulement domine absolument le second, mais s’abstient d'entrer avec lui en veritable contact d'union'." BHR (1968), p. 343. 3 6 "In questi versi conclusivi si fa luce, appunto, questa nuova realta, il cui unico protagonists e Dio, per la prima volta esplicitamente nominate nel suo rapporto personale col credente, col poeta ("Seigneur;" "mon Dieu'); e si fa luce, infine, anche il motivo del dono gratuito, tanto importante nel sistema della teologia calviniana: 1'unico vigoroso contre-rejet del sonetto, che impone una forte pausa, del tutto anormale, dopo la quarta sillaba del v. 7, mette in grande rilievo 1'inter- vento assolutamente gratuito e misericordioso del Dio 160 di Calvino..." Richter, BHR (1968), p. 344.

37Cave, Devotional Poetry, p. 173.

38Ibid., p. 175.

3^Carron, "Sponde," p. 13 5. 40 Kurt Weinberg, "Verbal Labyrinths in Sponde’s 'Stances' and 'Sonnets de la mort'," ECr, 16 (1976), p. 135. 41 Durand, "Sponde," p. 95.

d 2 Richter, BHR (1968), p. 344. 43 Most of Richter's studies are written within this frame of reference. In addition to the articles cited above, one should also refer to those cited in the bibli­ ography .

44Richter, Aevum (1974) , p. 418.

45Richter, BHR (1968), p. 345. II. THE MESPRIS DE LA VIE ET CONSOLATION CONTRE LA MORT OP JEAN-BAPTISTE CHASSIGNET

In his "Preface au Lecteur," Chassignet tells the reader who may be discouraged or disheartened by the length of the Mespris to ...lire de chacque fueille un fueillet ou bien la moiti6, puisque le sujet ne pousse pas tousjours sa carriere d'une mesme suitte sans interruption, discontinue de Sonnet en Sonnet et laissant le reste comme non adjoust£, temperant par ce moyen sa trop grande longueur, (p. 15) The poet thus implies that, unlike Sponde's "Stances" and "Sonnets de la Mort," there is no single line of thematic development in the Mespris that necessitates the reading of every one of the sonnets or the reading of the sonnets in any particular order. Most critics who have attempted to uncover a pattern of thematic development or even a general pattern of organization within this mas­ sive work have been unsuccessful and in retrospect have 2 taken Chassignet*s warning seriously.

Heinz Wagner defends the Mespris * s apparent lack of an essentially significant pattern of organization against the criticism that it is a chaotic mass of verse by claim­ ing it all to be organized within the bounds of the title 3 Le Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort.

161 162

Furthermore, he detects what he terms "Themen— und Motivballungen," thematic and motif concentrations which, although not always strictly defined or separated from one another, do offer, as loose as it may be, some sort 4 of thematic organization. We also have been unable to find a basic "architectural" principal for the Mespris, but like Wagner we have been able to detect some sort of thematic scheme, or at least consistency. Wagner's term "Ballung" may be the best description of what one finds in the Mespris, but one must understand this term with all the qualifica­ tions with which Wagner and we use it. A thematic con­ centration is the use of the same theme, or sub-theme to maintain our own terminology, for a series of subsequent sonnets. This sub-theme will be either the sole or the dominant sub-theme throughout the series, and this sub­ theme may or may not be related to the sub-themes found in the sonnets surrounding the concentration. The con­ centration itself is not a sharply defined or circumscribed unit, and that is why we say that one "detects" these units rather than identifies them. The concentrations vary in size, but most of them consist of three to four subsequent sonnets. They also seem to occur rather haphazardly, in both a mathematical and thematic sense, and thus seem to function more as some sort of refrain, or perhaps leit- 5 motif, rather than any organizing principle. The 163 sub-themes within these concentrations (as well as without) are, however, as Wagner suggests, circumscribed by the title of Chassignet*s work and together do make a statement on the phenomenon of death. Another factor working against a linear development of Chassignet*s statement on death is his particular use of the sonnet form. Both Sponde and Chassignet construct their sonnets well within the traditional pattern of argu­ ment, resolution and epigrammatic closing. As a result each sonnet can stand alone as an independent and signifi­ cant unit. However, because of a strong line of thematic continuity and a more open-ended sonnet form as well as some rather abrupt (or colloquial) openings, Sponde's sonnets can be read in much the same way as his "Stances.** Each sonnet can be read as one stanza in a twelve-stanza poem.® The sonnets themselves, then, although constructed as independent units lose some of their individual inde­ pendence and separateness in both a thematic and struc­ tural sense when one reads the entire twelve-sonnet sequence. Chassignet*s use of the sonnet form is very different. In the first place, by not developing his theme in a linear manner and by presenting his sub-themes somewhat haphaz­ ardly, his individual sonnets maintain their uniqueness (once again in both the thematic and structural sense) within the collection. Any single sonnet can be removed 164 from the collection, and neither it nor the collection will suffer a loss in significance. The distinction of the individual sonnets is further reinforced by two other aspects of Chassignet's poetics, namely his use of imagery and his tendency to maintain a rather strict logical development within the individual sonnets. Unlike Sponde who, as we saw in the last chapter, bases his poetics primarily on sound and rhythm, Chas­ signet concentrates more on images, specifically similes and metaphors. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the similes from the metaphors, and his use of the images varies among the sonnets. In general, though, one can say that the image or imagery of a single sonnet plays a functional role within the sonnet by being as coherent and self-contained as the sonnet form itself. A single image may serve as the basis for the entire sonnet, the images may merely complement each other or they may even both 7 present and resolve a problematic situation. This last functional use of imagery is an example of Chassignet's tendency to develop the thematics of a son­ net in a logical manner. Chassignet often begins a son­ net with similes or individual images in order to portray an antithetical situation. The antithetical nature of the situation is often subsequently resolved in metaphor, and an epigram in the last line neatly concludes the thought that had been developed throughout the sonnet. 165 Dora Rigo Bienaime points out Chassignet*s predilection

for a rational resolution to the antitheses he presents

and states that after the presentation of antitheses, there is rarely a surprise, or one might say an illogical 0 response, to the antitheses. Each sonnet then appears as an exercise in logic or as the framework for the de- g velopment of a single line of thought. This singleness of thought and resolution contributes to the autonomy of the individual sonnet. In view then of the lack of a single line of thematic development throughout the Mespris and in view also of Chassignet's use of a very self-contained sonnet form, our method of analysis in this chapter will differ con­ siderably from the one we used in Sponde's poetry. Rather than attempt to follow Chassignet*s development of his theme in the same sequence in which he has presented it in the Mespris, we shall extract the individual sub-themes and present them in an order which we see as clarifying Chassignet's use of them. It will be our goal in this study to determine what those sub-themes are, how they are presented, how they are interrelated and what they offer

together as a statement on death. The fundamental sub-theme of the Mespris is the vanity of all things terrestrial. Forming the basis of this sub-theme is a theme which appeared frequently in late sixteenth-century literature, i.e., the flux of terrestrial 166 life. This theme equates life with movement. Life is continual movement, and movement is equivalent to change. In this temporal realm, movement is also ultimately equi­ valent to destruction. Stability and permanence are qualities which are foreign to this world, as are they qualitites which are foreign to most of Chassignet's imagery when he writes about life in this world. Chassignet has a very noticeable predilection for water imagery, especially that which depicts water in motion.10 Water is the epitome of inconstancy {"Et l'eau devant nos yeux 1'inconstance propose" (CCCLXI)), and imagery based on its movement very effectively depicts the incessant although often barely perceptible movement of this life. Sonnet V is based entirely on the Hera- clitean image of the ever-running stream which constantly changes before man's eyes, but whose change seems to be imperceptible to man: ...l'eau change tous les jours, Tous les jourz elle passe et la nonunons tousjours Mesme fleuve et mesme eau, d'une mesme maniere. Other images such as wind and sand running through an hour glass (CCCVII) also serve to depict the perpetual motion which is life in the temporal realm.11 Movement, Chassignet tells us, repeating a commonplace, is the only permanent or constant thing of this life. His imagery depicts this movement, and his habit of rapidly moving along a string of such images adds 167 even more to the effect. By placing one image after another and forcing the reader to abandon an image almost as soon as he comes upon it, the poet produces what may be termed unstable or fleeting imagery. By means of such imagery, usually aided by an appropriately paced rhythm, the reader is reminded of "ces changements eternellement stable" (LXXXV) and that the world "N'a rien de plus con- 12 stant que sa propre inconstance" (CCCLXXXV). The movement which Chassignet depicts both metaphorically and rhythmically is not aimless or hap­ hazard. It is a very controlled and relentless movement towards a definite goal; it is a movement towards death. The images of life as a voyage on the sea (an image which itself is a combination of both water and wind imagery) or life as a pilgrimage on land show life to be on a definite course towards a predetermined goal. The fol­ lowing lines are an example of how the poet portrays man's life as inextricably caught up in the incessant movement which is life, a movement which is entirely beyond man's control and one which leads him most assuredly (and in the following image one can also say most rhythmically) to death:

Notre vie est semblable £ la mer vagabonde Ou le flot suit la flot, et l'onde pousse l’onde Surgissant & la fin au havre de la mort.(LIII)

As Bienaime says, "La vita mortalis e concepita come una 168 fluante mortalite..." Stressing even more the controlled aspect of this movement is the following image: Ainsi par le canal de tant de changement Coulent au dernier point les choses de ce monde; (LXXXVII) Chassignet does not always depict this movement as a horizontal one. Often this movement is portrayed as a dissipation having no particular direction at all but having a very definite and detectable progress. Such is the case for the very traditional vanitas images of a flower (CCLXIII), a cloud (CCLVI) or a lighted lamp (XL). Sonnet XCVIII is devoted to posing the question "Qu'est-ce de vostre vie" and answering it by various images showing the disintegration of both material and nonmaterial images. The movement is also not always shown as slow. As it is depicted in the image of a lighted lamp, the move­ ment of an individual life may reach its final destination either gradually or rather abruptly: Nostre vie est semblable a la lampe enfumee. Aus uns le vent fait couler soudainement, Aus autres il l'esteint d'un subit soufflement Quant elle est seulement a demi allumee.

Chassignet*s use of vanitas imagery and the sub-theme is very effective in making the reader aware of the constant movement, change and destruction of terrestrial life. A reader, especially a late sixteenth-century reader, may already be well aware of the inconstancy of life. 14 As Chassignet points out, one regularly witnesses and 169 personally suffers the loss of possessions, friends and family. Chassignet, however, is not interested in making his reader aware of the changing and perishable nature merely of temporal things or even just of other people. He is interested in his reader's recognition of his own personal mortality. Thus the need felt by the poet to use the memento mori sub-theme to remind his reader that he also is subject to the universal law of the temporal realm. His reader is constantly addressed as "Mortel," and he is told most explicitly that "Nous vivons pour mourir" {XXII), that "Ce mot d'homme et mortel est de mesme sustance" (CXL) and that we are "voyageurs du monde et non vrays habitans” (CIV). Chassignet uses the ubi sunt sub-theme to emphasize the fact of man's mortality. Sonnet XXI even uses the ubi sunt formula "Ou sont," but rather than use names of specific people, it refers to the dead metonymically (Ou sont des grands Seigneurs les robes Consulaires, Les Augurs et Tribuns. . ./. . ./Oil sont des Empereurs les pompes militaires...). Sonnets CXLII and CXLIII citing examples of unexpected and sometimes unusual deaths can also be considered ubi sunt poems in their citation of the deaths of famous people, i.e., Henri II and Aeschylus. The use of the ubi sunt sub-theme, which can be said to be based on empirical observation, is, however, in 170 very slight proportion to the use of more religious sub-themes. Man dies in the Mespris because of original sin. Human death is ”la vengeance/Du crime originel, cause de son mal-heur" (XCVI). It is a punishment which reflects the anger of an offended God (...la fureur de DIEU le /l'hoirane/ destruit et consomme/Pour le peche d'Adam... (CCCXLIII)). Man was not originally created to die. Human death, from the perspective of original sin, is an anomaly. 15 It was through man's own willfull act of disobedience that death was brought into the world. Chassignet describes the commission of the original sin and the consequential but simultaneous entry of death into the world:

La mort au mesrne instant saillit hors du silence De I'abysme ensouffre, desnouant le linceul Ou elle estoit cousue et, sortant du cercueil, Assujestit nos cors aus loys de sa puissance

Chassignet uses the sub-theme of original sin repeatedly throughout the Mespris and thus stresses death's special quality. From the perspective of sin, death does not appear as only a natural phenomenon. The aspects of anomaly and punishment in death are very important in a

Christian understanding of death. They are also impor­ tant sub-themes in our poet's dealing with the phenomenon in the Mespris. Human death is man's fault and, as we shall later see, man's responsibility. 171 The sub-theme of original sin also reinforces the memento mori, for God has inflicted the punishment of death upon every one of Adam's descendants; death is every man's "fin predestinee" (CXIV) and God forgets no one ("Mais jamais un des siens il ne laisse en arriere" (XXVIII)).

Death in the Mespris, as we can see in the passage quoted above on the entry of death into the world, is usually personified. It is often portrayed as a mytho­ logical character, i.e., "Cloton" or "la Parque inhumaine," the latter being the most frequently used mythological reference. There is also a borrowing of a biblical per­ sonification of death, i.e., death as a thief, from

Matthew 24.23 (CII).^ The use of both mythological and biblical references in what is generally considered to 17 be religious poetry is indicative of the middle ground achieved in late sixteenth-century poetry between two different poetic practices. Renaissance poetry (meaning primarily the poetry of the Pl6iade), consistent with its interest in classical anitquity, had tended to paganize its images and references. Calvinism, finding this practice objectionable, promoted a return to the use of more religious references. The initial clash between the two practices tended to resolve itself into a sort of synthesis of the two practices. As we can see in Chas­ signet 's poetry, the two types of references are used interchangeably. 172 The most frequently used characterization of death, however, is one which is taken directly from the traditional iconography of death as it was developed in literature and art during the late Middle Ages. Death with all her well-known attributes is vividly portrayed as the relent­ less warrior and greatest enemy of man. A simple refer­ ence in the use of a familiar name, i.e., "l'Aveugle Atropos" (CCCXLIX) or in the use of a familiar conception of death, i.e., "ce monstre farouche” (CL) can evoke the entire iconography of death and her court. 18 Chassignet usually, however, vivifies the familiar images by depict­ ing the figure of death in action:

... la palle mort invite Tout le monde a sa fin et n'est rien de si viste Qui par elle ne soit en la fosse arreste (XII)

...son dard depiteus Lancera contre toy sa point encrueillie (CCCXXXII)

Par tout ou nous courions la mort nous eschauguette Par tout oO nous allions sur nous elle se jette Et puis, quant elle vient redemander ses drois... (CX) Dez que la fiere mort la paupiere nous sille D'un long sommeil de fer et qu'elle nous assaut De son trait outrageus... (CXXXVIII) Chassignet*s tendency to personify, or at least concretize, death is quite noticeable, especially when one compares his poetry to Sponde's. Even in the death-in-life or life-as-continuous-dying sub-theme, death is viewed as something apart from man and something that will eventually confront him as an exterior force: 173 Plus nous allons en avant, tant plus nous decroissons, Me sine ce jour icy lequel nous franchissons, La mort avecque nous justement le partage; Et si ne savons pas quant elle nous attend, II faut done en tous lieus attendre son outrage, (IX) In a fully allegorical depiction of this sub-theme, both death and time are personified: Je vis un jcur le terns, la faucille en la main, L'horloge en la ceinture, et les ailes derriere Tremoussant sur le dos, avancer sa carriere, Precipitant des jours 1'irreparable train; A son coste marchoit le trespas inhumain Qui, lan^ant en nos cors la sagette meurdriere. Coniine nexge au Soleil dessous la froide biere En poussiere changez, nous consumoit soudain. (XCV) In these personifications of death, death acquires a tangible presence and confronts the living man in an antithetical opposition. Even though man may move slowly towards death, the actual confrontation with it is an abrupt meeting of two radically different states of being. The inconstant finally meets the only constant in the temporal realm, and this constant stands before man as an indomitable bulwark into which man has been helplessly pushed. As he meets this bulwark the movement which has led him to it continues, and the force of this movement prevents man from moving away from the confrontation he has been led to face. As the only possible outcome of this confrontation is a radical transformation of man, one sees the meeting of man and death as a meeting of 174 extreme opposites. In the Mespris this antithesis is most forcefully depicted in the material representation of a frightening and unyielding death figure which man must eventually encounter. 19 In the second quatrain of Sonnet XCV cited above ("A son coste... nous consumoit soudain"), the portrayal of death's violence indicates yet another sub-theme, namely death as a painful experience. Chassignet pursues the traditional death-as-a-warrior image and portrays in concrete fashion the pain of the death experience; ...le coup de la mort (XIII) ...le meurdre ou le carnage Que la mort fait sur nous... (XXX) ...souffrir de la mort les aiguillons funebres (CXXXII) ...de quelle rudesse La Parque contre tous exerce sa rigueur. (CXXXIX) Ressent de la mort I'homicide rudesse (CXLI) Pain is seen as an integral part of the death experience, a part which even the poet who is attempting to offer us a "consolation contre la mort" anticipates with anxiety: Je ne crains point la mort, mais le mal effroyable Que l'on souffre en mourant me fait transir de peur (CCXIV) Even though death has not yet approached him, he does not gain from that fact any joy or relief from his anxiety: Pourtant, cher Romanet, ne me repute heureus, Encore ay je d passer le saut plus dangereus (XXXI) 175 The fear of death for its pain is a sub—theme which appears throughout the Mespris, and it is a fear which the poet seems to accept as justifiable. That death is painful is an accepted fact, and Chassignet never really attempts to deny it.

Death is also ugly. Its destruction of the human body is appalling and frightening. The v.icicusness of death's destruction is vividly and actively portrayed by the following image: Quand d'avecque 1'esprit la Parqre desassemble Ce cors materiel, corruptible, et pesant Man's body ravaged by death is nothing less than horrifying. Even one's best friends will be repulsed by the sight of one's corpse: II n'y a rien, Bouquet, si mal-heureus que l'homme, Ny tant horrible a voir quant le ver rougissant, S(e)s gl(o)utons intestins de sa chair nourrissant, Jusqus aus os descharne le davore et consomme. Combien qu'il ait este extremement ayme Des amis et voisins grandement estim£ Si ne trouveroit on homme tant miserable Qui puisse supporter l'infame puanteur De son cors infecte de mauvaise sentaur, 20 Qui de soy mesme n'eust une horreur effroyable. (CCCXITI) In contrast to Sponde, Chassignet develops the macabre sub-theme and imagery to a much greater extent. He has even written an entire sonnet based nearly exclusively on this sub-theme and its imagery: Mortel, pense quel est dessous la couverture D'un charnier mortuaire un cors mangl de vers, Descharnfe, desnerve, ou les os descouvers, Depoulpez, desnouez delaissent leur jointure; Icy l'une des mains tombe en pourriture, Les yeux d'autre cost6 destournez d 1 1envers Se distillent en glaire, et les muscles divers Servent aux vers goulus d'ordinaire pasture. Le ventre deschire cornant de puanteur infecte l’air voisin de mauvaise senteur St le n£ my-rong§ difforme le visage: (CXXV) Chassignet uses a more developed imagery when he does use the macabre sub-theme, but one should not exager ate the extent to which he uses either the imagery or the sub-theme. In comparison to Sponde, Chassignet does appear to be more "macabre," but when one compares Chas- signet's poetry with either late medieval poets or later,

baroque poets such as Saint-Amant, who used and developed the macabre to a far greater extent, one sees how attenu­ ated Chassignet's use of the macabre really is. A rather surprising sub-theme to be found in the Mespris, a collection whose religious bent will become even clearer later in this chapter, is the statement that man's death is peculiarly a final one. In contrast to the rest of nature, whose continuous regeneration Chas­ signet sees as sustained life, man suffers a final death. He, as a natural creature, is uniquely annihilated. In

Sonnet CXX, Chassignet makes this statement in a very explicit and interesting way. 177 He begins the sonnet with the very traditional vanitas image of a flower. He states immediately/ however, that "Les fleurs ne meurent point," and thus defies the tra­ ditional use of the flower as a vanitas image. The tra­ dition of using a flower to depict the passing of life is, however, a much too deeply rooted one to be easily dismissed by one such statement. Nor does Chassicnet appear to have such totally destructive intentions. As the sonnet continues, the reader maintains the image of the fragile but ever-resurrecting flower, and when he comes to the first tercet which describes the death of man, the effect is unexpectedly strong: Des qu'une fois la mort nous a sille les yeus N'esperons de revoir la lumiere des cyeus, L'esprit fuit hors du cors et jamais ny retourne. (CXX) In comparison to the life of a flower, human life appears to be more perishable. Man's death is more final; his departure from this earth is a definitive one. 21 Death as a physical fact for Chassignet is thus a terrible and frightening phenomenon. In his use of many of the late medieval pessimistic death sub-themes and much of its traditional imagery, he depicts death as a cruel reaper of humanity. Death from this temporal point of view is nothing but cruel and apparently senseless destruction, and Chassignet, primarily through the use of very concrete imagery, portrays it in all its material and 178 emotional horror.

The title of the work, though, promises the reader consolation "against” this terrible phenomenon. Without ever really completely denying the horrible and basically unacceptable fact of death (for the above sub-themes are found throughout the Mespris and, as we shall later see, even in conjunction with the supposedly more consoling sub-themes), Chassignet attempts to console his reader by focusing around the phenomenon rather than always directly on it. In other words, Chassignet attempts to console his reader in the face of the reader's impending and fright­ ening death, of which the poet spared no effort to make him aware, by shifting his attention to what precedes and what follows it, i.e., his terrestrial life and the pos­ sibility of an afterlife.

Chassignet's attitude towards consolation and towards man’s need for it are clearly indicated if not by explicit statements, certainly by the imagery he uses to describe or connote it. In reference to the succession of genera­ tions, he sees the birth of children as "Un seul medicament /qui/ sert a tous de remede" (XII). Birth, in other words, is seen as a remedy to death, as though death were a 22 disease to be treated. Also, in his "Sonnet Premier” and appearing as a statement of purpose, Chassignet invites his readers to draw from his work "contre la mort un asseure secours." Death is thus also something dangerous 179 and something for which man needs help in confronting. The terminology Chassignet uses to refer to a consolation for death and his other death sub-themes are indicative of the perspective Chassignet takes in this work in re­ gard both to consolation and to the phenomenon of death itself. Chassignet uses the Christian "remedy" for death in his use of the sub-theme of afterlife. Man's death need not be final, need not be equated with annihilation, be­ cause of the sacrificial death of Christ. Maintaining the traditional imagery of death the warrior and the image of death as a battle, Chassignet shows Christ entering into battle with and defeating man’s implacable enemy. As a result of Christ’s intervention, death lost her destructive power over man ("La mort n'est plus sinon une nouvelle entree/Une porte et un port...(LXXXI)). Son­ net CCLXXXII even boasts of the death of death itself ("O Mort, c'est fait de toy, il n'en est plus memoire,/ Ton aiguillon est mort...). Christ's death and conse­ quential expiation of man’s sin made afterlife, for which man had been originally predestined, a possibility again: La mort a de la mort emousse la pointure Et du ciel reserre le passage r'ouvert Si bien que par la mort l'homme autrefois desert Recouvre par la mort sa premiere droiture (C) In this quatrain Chassignet once again reminds man of the anomaly that human death is and that it is man's fault that it exists. It is interesting to note the centrality of the chief protagonist of the Mespris, i.e., death, in this quatrain as well as the chameleon-like role the poet has it play. Death here is shown in both its destructive and redemptive aspects. Death is both sin and expiation. The use of the definite article with death and the conspicuous absence of personal pronouns which would distinguish Christ's death from man's neu­ tralize the two deaths, making them indistinguishable and in the end interchangeable. In the last two lines of this quatrain the two deaths have become one. The historical death of Christ is one and the same as the death of an individual man, and the transformation which took place in Christ's death is to take place in the death of an individual. Man's death, then, although originally a punishment for sin is transformed, both religiously and poetically, into a means by which man may attain eternal life. Chassignet insists repeatedly on man's debt to Christ for the possibility of this transformation. The following tercet is more explicit about the primacy of Christ's death and the debt man has to Christ and his sacrifice: Que, si DIEU par la mort de son nouvel Adam Ne nous resguscitoit, nouveau bourgeois d'Edem, D'ame et de cors seroit nostre cheute mortelle. (CXXXV) Because of Christ's sacrifice and re-opening of the realm 181 of eternal life, death can be seen as "la clef de la vie eternelle" (CXXX), and the promise of an afterlife is ca­ pable of "Nous faisant voir la vie au milieu de la mort" (CLXXV). Belief in an afterlife can even relieve some of the sorrow of reading an ubi sunt listing: "Plaignez les come absens et non point comme mors" (CCCXI). The promise of an afterlife can be a great comfort to man in the face of death, especially when that after­ life is promised to be an individual one. In a Christian context, individual afterlife is most forcefully asserted in the doctrine of resurrection, and resurrection is a very frequently used sub-theme in the Mespris. Chassignet reminds his reader that Christ's victory over death provided an afterlife not only for man's soul, but also for his body. One's soul will not go alone to the realm of eternal life; it will go with its customary companion, the body. It is interesting to see the sense of incompleteness, if not also a touch of loneliness, felt by the soul separated from its body which Chassignet re­ lates in the following lines: Et, jouissant l£ haut d'une paix eternelle, Le cors ne sera plus d son ante rebelle, Ny 1 'esprit de son cors si longuement prive. (LXXIX) The above quotation also mentions a newly found harmony between the soul and the body, a sub-thome which although very important in the Christian concept of afterlife is not overly stressed in the Mespris. 182

In Chassignet1s use of this sub-theme, one can see a significant difference between his poetry and that of Sponde's. Sponde made this harmony between his soul and body a primary goal to be attained in afterlife. He also made it a primary factor in his effort to make death more appealing and acceptable. Chassignet, in his giving this sub-theme a much more minor role and by rarely por­ traying the inner conflict a man suffers because of an antagonism between his body and his soul, appears to see death from a perspective which is different from that of Sponde's. On the surface, it may appear as though Chas­ signet treats death from a more exterior, less personal perspective, seeing death a3 a problem to be resolved from without. The emphasis in Chassignet'n use of the

3ub-theme of resurrection is on the reunion of a separated body and soul, the reconstitution of man as a unit that resembles his terrestrial existence. In Sonnet CXCV Chassignet relates the whole miracle of Christ's sacri­ fice's making the Resurrection possible with special emphasis on the transformation of the body, which for its terrestrial existence was "Fait en cors animal" but which for eternal life will be glorified and along with the spirit will participate in the beatific vision. There is another and much more striking difference in the use of the sub-theme of resurrection in the Mespris as compared to its use in Sponde's "Stances" and "Sonnets." 183

While both poets greatly anticipate the reunion of the

separated body and soul, they see this reunion occurring within different contexts. Whereas Sponde sees, or des­ perately hopes to see, his body and soul being reunited sometime in an indefinite future, Chassignet usually refers, and most often very explicitly, to the general

Resurrection which is to take place at the time of the Last Judgement. He paints his scenes of the Resurrection very vividly; tombs opening at the sound of a trumpet and the earth being destroyed by apocalyptical fire:

Nos cors aggravantez sous le poids des tombeaus, Quant du clairon bruyant la clameur resonnante Eslancera le feu sur la terre flambante, Purifiant du ciel les estonnez flambeaus, Du cercueil oublieus ressortiront plus beaus,,. (LXXXIX)

The poet even gives us a traditional representation of the Final Judgement:

Alors le Souverain en jugement siera,

-• • •

L*oeuvre bon ou mauvais aura sa recompense, Et quiconque aura mis en DIEU son esperance Se tiendra a sa dextre au ranc des bien-heureus.

* • • DIEU ^ gajche mettra les honunes vicieus, (CXXVII)

Chassignet, then, with his predilection for more vivid illustration has mads resurrection more than a personal affair. Sponde anticipates only his own resurrection and

sees it as a more private matter. Chassignet, by includ­

ing individual resurrection within a scene of the general 184

Resurrection to take place at the end of time, expands the

scene and, in a sense, the significance. The promise of afterlife is a consolation for man's death when that afterlife is a good one, but as we can see from the quotation from Sonnet CXXVII, a good afterlife

is not assured everyone. Christ's death made heaven acces­ sible, but the threat of hell is still a serious one.

Chassignet uses the sub-theme of hell remarkably often, and he usually uses it along with the sub-theme of the Last Judgement. Resurrection, then, which comes at the

time of the Last Judgement, can result in the damnation of both body and soul to eternal punishment: Mortel, le cors ne meurt, seulement il sommeille Attendant que le filz du Eouverain l'esveille, Sujet de comparoistre au dernier jugement Oil, comme il a bien fait ou forfait, avec l'ame, II cuira avec elle en 1'eternelle flame Ou vivra avec elle heureus au firroament. (CLXXVII)

The implication of the entire man, rather than just a man's soul, in the sufferings of hell increases the horror of the threat as well as the vividness of the image.

Damnation also nullifies, in a sense, the sacrifice and victory of Christ, for eternal life is not offered the damned; their fate is just the opposite: Car l'homme juste et droit vit encore qu'il meure Et l'inique et malin, encore qu'il demeure Fort longuement vivant, meurt eternellement. (CCLII) 185 Death thus remains a punishment for them: Les forfais et delis que l'homme criminel Dissimule en vivant, le grand Juge eternel D'un juste Jugeraent en la mort les chastie. (CCCXCI) and as if to underline the finality of damnation to hell, Chassignet shows the sentence to this punishment as ir­ revocable: La descente aus enfers est plaisante et facile, Ouverte a tout venant, mais d'un agile saut S 'en retourner en vie et revoler en haut, C'est de la vertu sainte un exploit difficile. (CXXXVIII) In the above quotation, the poet makes entry into hell seem easy. One might even detect a slight suggestion that being damned to hell is a very possible fate for man after death, in contrast to a more difficult entry into eternal life. What Chassignet is suggesting here and in the re­ mainder cf this sonnet is that without the slightest effort, man can enter hell (or suffer a final death), but in order to gain entrance into the realm of eternal life, he must work for it. Chassignet frequently uses the word "Esleus" (i.e., LXXXIII) and very explicitly tells his reader that eternal life is not for everyone: Nous recherchons du ciel le sejour arreste Ou quiconque est receu peut dire en verite Que la mort est la clef de la vie eternelle. (CXXX) Being admitted to eternal life is very dependent upon one's living a virtuous or righteous life on earth 186 {"La mort est morte aus bans" (CCCIX)). Life after death is thus very dependent upon an individual’s ability to combat the forces in this world which would lead him to damnation. Such combat is not easy, for the world is replete with the forces which can lead man to final death. Chassignet often personifies these forces in traditional imagery, very much as he does with the figure of death. Evil in the world is represented by the medieval figure of Satan, "ce monstre testu," **ce loup d'enfer” (CDIV) , and Satan, who is referred to often in the Mespris, is seen as a very active agent in this world: Mais la condition de ceste pauvre vie De beaucoup plus de maus sans cesse est poursuivie, Parant aus traistres cous du Diable et de la chair. (CCLXIV) ...de combien de cautelle Le mal-heureus Sathan nous appate et seduit, Comme, sans y penser, il nous presse et conduit, Infidelle oiseleur aus neus de sa cordelle. (CCLXXXJ Ore, pour mon peche, je retombe au lien Ou me tenoit captif le pernicieus diable. (CD) So active is Satan and so pervasive is his influence that Chassignet identifies his terrestrial domain, i.e., the whole world, with this prince of evil. The world thus

becomes evil incarnate and is portrayed as actively work­ ing against man's efforts to achieve an eternal life. Chassignet addresses the world as an exterior, almost personified, evil and accuses it of deliberate deception 187 (CCCLVI) and of doing harm to man (CCCLIX). Man is therefore urged to avoid contact with evil and to turn one's back to the world. The poet realizes, however, that this is a very difficult task, as the world is not really just an exterior force. Man as a mortal is part of this world and conversely the world is part of him.

As long as man is in this world, he is subject to its evils.

In an attempt to flee these evils, as one would try to flee a place of infectious disease (LXI), 23 one often tries to avoid contact with the most conspicuous concen­ trations of them, i.e., human society and especially the life of the court. Man runs to the most deserted places in the world, but Chassignet reminds his reader that any­ where in the world is still the world and that there is nowhere one can go and successfully escape it:

Par tout le monde est monde, et I'immunde mondain Le treuve autant immunde au pays plus lointain Que le monde est immunde au lieu de sa naissance. (LXII) Not only is every place in the world full of evil and dangerous to man's soul, but the very fact that man is what he is, a mortal creature of material body and an imprisoned, corruptible soul, makes the world impos­ sible to escape: En vain je veus passer de l'une d l'autre porte; Tousjours mesme par tout moy mesme je me porte, Et changeant d*autre lieu, autre je ne suis pas. (LX) 188 Even an attempt at a more spiritual withdrawal from the world will be unsuccessful, for "Bref, le monde est en nous, comme au monde nous sommes" (LVI). Mario Richter cites passages from DuPlessis-Mornay's Discours as the specific source of the sonnets we have just cited (LX1, LXII, LX and LVI) as wsll as of two others which are also devoted to the same sub-theme (LVII and LIX). The inability of man to escape the world and con­ sequently his own corrupt or fallen nature while on earth is thu3 seen as a sub-theme inspired by Calvinist thought. Calvinism insisted, as we saw in Chapter IV of Part I, on the inherently corrupt and unredeemable nature of man on earth. DuPlessis-Mornay, we may recall, was a staunch Calvinist and was writing for the Calvinist cause. Chas- signet's sonnets follow very closely DuPlessis-Mornay*s use of the sub-theme of man's inescapably fallen nature. He even uses DuPlessis-Mornay's imagery to depict it, i.e., plague, desert and unsuccessful wandering. There is no doubt when one reads the sections of the Discours that Richter cites that they are the immediate inspiration for the sonnets cited above.

As Richter indicates in his notes, however, the original source for the sub-theme and even for some of the imagery is not DuPlessis-Mornay or even Calvin, but 24 Seneca. We see in Chassignet's use of this sub-theme, then, that he was influenced, directly or indirectly, by 189 a current of thought which had a very important effect on man's attitude towards death in the sixteenth century, namely neo-stoicism. Aspects of the neo-stoic attitude towards death appear throughout the Mespris. In some of the sub-themes we shall discuss in the remainder of this chapter, the influence of neo-stoicism on Chassignet's attitude towards death will be even more apparent. The pervasiveness of evil in this world and the inherently corrupt nature of man as a terrestrial being is what makes the world worthy of disdain, according to Chassignet, and to create a disdain for this world and for man's life in it is a major objective of the Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort. Much of the verse in this work is thus dedicated to creating that disdain. One way to make the world less appealing is to insist upon the pervasive and intense nature of evil in it. There is no more impressive symbol of this evil than the phenomenon of death. As we are reminded in the sub-theme of original sin, death exists in the world because of sin. The thorough diffusion of the phenomenon of death in the terrestrial realm is indicative of how saturated the world is with evil. Chassignet's use of the vanitas and macabre imagery and sub-themes can thus be seen as serving a twofold purpose. On first impression they may appear as no more than a human lament in face of the 190 temporal nature of the world. Once the reader has progressed in the reading of the Mespris and has encoun­ tered some of the other sub-themes, he begins to realize that the vanitas and macabre sub-themes are also a warn­ ing that such instability and ugliness are signs of evil. In Sonnet XCVII, where Chassignet repeatedly asks the question "Qu'est-ce de vostre vie?" and concludes that man's life is "...un point qui n'est rien/Qu'une confle, un mensonge, un songe, une fumiere," the reader can see the permeation of evil to be so thorough that there is nothing else, no substance, left. Man's life is so dissipated by evil that there is really nothing of true value to which man can attach himself. The resultant effect is much the same as that achieved by the late medieval sub-theme of contemptus mundi, i.e., contempt for the world. The use of the vanitas sub-theme as a means to depreciate the world in order to make separation from it less painful is also an obvious borrowing from neo-stoicism. The ultimate goal to be achieved in the neo-stoic effort to discredit the world was to reduce man's fear in the face of death, even though death may be final and may not lead to an afterlife. There efforts were not in contra­ diction with the Christian effort to separate man from the world, and as a result neo-stoic vanitas imagery and use of the sub-theme were often incorporated into 191 predominantly religious poetry such as the Mespris. It is often difficult, except for very explicit cases of direct borrowings, to determine the precise source of influence for a particular vanitas image or sub-theme. For our purposes, the precise sources are not important. We are merely interested here in pointing out that Chas­ signet was influenced b> neo-stoic thought and that this influence is apparent in the Mespris. Whatever the source, it can be seen that Chassignet often used the vanitas sub-theme to discourage "...le louager si mal fait de cervelle/Qui dedans un logis ruineus et casse/ D'une prochaine cheute cl tout coup menac§" (CC) from giving too much value to his terrestrial life. Chassignet also insists upon the torments, both physical and spiritual, of life. Man who yearns for peace and stability is plagued throughout his life by the very opposite (CCCXCV). Chassignet's depiction of the lack of enthusiasm generated by an old man at the prospect of living his long life again is very effective in showing how man himself, without the help of a dis- enchanter like the poet, finds the world a disappointing if not unhappy experience (CLXXXI). It is in his use of the macabre, however, that Chassignet makes his most violent attacks on the world. The reader's senses are affronted with traditionally appalling sights and sickening smells, all of which 192 are made even more offensive than they essentially are by being used in imagery referring to the living as well as to the dead human body. Chassignet describes man's entire existence# from beginning to end, as physically disgusting: Si nous considerions de quelle ordre immondice Nous sommes engendrez, de quelle infection Nous sommes sustentez, quelle corruption S ’exhale de nos cors eslevez en delice... (CCCLIII)

Such use of the macabre sub-theme is not entirely original with Chassignet. Innocent III in his De Miseria humanae conditionis (1195) had gone into considerable detail in 25 demonstrating the macabre aspect of man's life. It is not just the body itself which is found to be so contempti­ ble; such imagery is also used to describe the world: "II jette contre nous tant d'orde puanteur" (CCCLVIII). The world is a foul place; it is a ...chemin parmi la puanteur Des lieus plus infectez de bourbeuse senteur Ou souvent les courriers tombent en deffalliance. (CCCLXXXVIII) Such use of the macabre sub-theme is indicative of a final, one may even say desperate, effort to make the world unappealing. By making the world appear contemptible, the poet is attempting to make separation from it easier to bear. Even though Chassignet has provided his reader with the Christian "remedy" for death by promising an afterlife, he realizes that the passage from this life to another one is difficult, and his use of the macabre in 193 this way is an extreme measure taken to make the passage as pleasant as possible. It is interesting to note, as Bienaime points out, that the disdain for life is the most dominant sub-theme in the Mespris. 2 6 Chassignet is thus very intent on making his reader see himself as a "Miserable mondain" (CCCXCIII). His reader's appreciation of himself in this respect will help him avoid the temptations which are meant to involve him more with this world and which will prevent him from leading the kind of life on earth which will merit him a life after death. By the means which we have described above, Chassignet attempts to convince his reader that man's terrestrial existence is just not worth the value that man sets upon it and even less the toil it requires of the man who insists upon being completely involved 27 in it. It may even be harmful in its ability to thwart man's efforts to achieve a life after death. Chassignet does not use an entirely negative approach in his efforts to prepare man to face death. Creating a disdain for life is only one aspect of his consolation. He also insists repeatedly on two other very important

facets of man's preparation, and as we shall see in the following discussion, in his presentation of these facets, he continues to stress the responsible role man must assume in his effort to survive the destruction of death. 194 The first and perhaps more fundamental facet is a recognition of one's impending death and of one's need to prepare for it. As we stated above, Chassignet uses vanitas imagery and the sub-theme of the macabre in an attempt to force upon his reader an awareness of his own personal mortality. This imagery and sub-theme are not to lead his reader to despair, but rather to move him to act to save himself from the destruction and the despair of death. Although death will certainly come whether man is prepared or not, man will not be able to defeat this enemy, will not be able to survive death, unless he is prepared to meet it. The mere recognition of one's mor­ tality will relieve some of the horror of death when it comes: Celuy meurt tousjours bien qui vit conune mortel, Mais du sot eshontl qui ne s'estime tel La fin est vergougneuse et la mort insensee. (LXXXVIII)

When man acknowledges his existence on earth as temporary and accepts death as an inherent characteristic of his human condition, death will not appear to be so horrible and senseless. Death, from this point of view, becomes less of an evil and more of a natural and necessary stage in man's life. Not to recognize it as such is essentially foolish: ...ce n'est point estre sage De regretter l'estat auquel tout homme est n&. (XXX) 195 By recognizing man's susceptibility and inclusion in

the universal law of the terrestrial realm, the reader is

asked to accept his death on an intellectual level. This is an obvious borrowing from the neo-stoic attitude towards death. Death is viewed as an unavoidable aspect of life which man must acknowledge in order to be prepared for

it. Preparation for death is essentially the attenuation of one's fear of it. As Roy Leake points out, Chassignet

goes as far in a neo-stoic acceptance of death as to adapt what is generally considered to be Montaigne's final

statement on it. Adapting the proverbial cabbage patch to his own situation as a docteur en droit, Chassignet states:

Je veus que l'on agisse et travaille tousjours, Et que la mort me treuve en feuilletant mon cours, Mais ne me souciant ny de mes loys ni d'elle. (CXLVI) Such freedom from the fear of death is to have as

significant an effect on man's life as on his death. In Sonnet II Chassignet very explicitly voices the neo-stoic attitude that preparation for death frees man of the fear of it and thus allows him to live a life that is not over­ shadowed by such an unproductive fear:

Celuy quiconque apprend a mourir constamment Des-aprent aL servir et n'y a violence, Torture, ny prison, dont l'extreme souffrance Rompe de ses desseins le stable fondement. Mediter d la mort, c'est le commencement De vivre en libert£; douteusement balance Sans resolution, jouet de 1 *inconstance12q Celuy qui du trespas redoute le torment. 196 Meditation on death as the natural and expected end point of man's life frees man from some of life's inconstancy. Man knowing where the movement of time is taking him is no longer the "jouet de 1 *inconstance," but a man with a sense of direction and one who can concentrate on the quality of his life rather than on its uncertainty. This aspect of neo-stoicism was compatible with the Christian religion. From its beginnings Christianity had found the Stoic insistence on a moral philosophy to be very much in line with its own goal of motivating man to lead an ethical life so that he may attain the ultimate good. Their respective definitions of the ultimate good were what separated the two philosophies, but the practical aspects of the moral conduct called for by each of them were quite similar. Christianity thus incorporated much of the Stoic ethic into its own and used it to serve a religious rather than purely secular purpose.^ Chassignet at times (i.e., Sonnet II cited above) appears to espouse the more secular neo-stoic attitude towards moral philosophy and towards his reader's prepara­ tion for death. It seems, however, that often when he does this he is merely submitting what he found in Mon­ taigne or some other source to poetic exercise. Francois Ruchon finds Chassignet*s use of neo-stoic sub-themes and their incorporation into a collection of religious poetry to be an example of 11 ce neo-stoicisme teinte de 197 christianisme qui fut fort a la mode dans les milieux huiaanistes de la fin du XVIe siecle."^1 We tend to agree here, though, with Roy Leake's reversal of this appraisal and find in the Mespris "a strong measure of Christian thinking in relation to death, with a tinge of Stoic philosophy. *'32 Chassignet realizes that intellectual effort is often effective only to a limited extent in man's attempt to accept death. Human mortality essentially defies human reason, and Chassignet anticipates the difficulty his reader will have in rationalizing his own death. He thus offers an eschatological perspective cf man's death which goes beyond neo-stoic reasoning and which is firmly based on faith in the Christian religion: Plaindre le trespacl que la terre consomne, C'est se plaindre et douloir que DIEU l’avoit fait homme, Sujet ik fa ire un saut qu'on ne peut eviter. (XIII)

Man's death thus becomes divine will, something far beyond human comprehension. The reader need not then accept his death on rational grounds; he can suspend his reason and accept it on faith in God's plan for man. The poet thus provides his reader with more than one means to acknowledge his mortality and to accept it in something less than a negative way.

The second facet of one1s preparation for death is an even more effective remedy against it than the reader's 198 acknowledgement of his personal mortality. This facet will actually help him overcome death and survive it. Working fully within the context of the Christian religion, Chas­ signet suggests that his reader acquire and maintain a constant faith in Christ. By means of faith in Him and in the imitation of His Passion, man will be saved from final death. Chassignet makes it very clear that an individual’s victory over death is completely dependent upon this faith. Without it, no amount of human effort will be effective: En vain nous travaillons en pleur et desconfort De vaincre le tombeau pour gaigner la victoire Sur le trait de la mort. II faut fermement croire Au Sauveur JESUS-CHRIST nostre unicque renfort. (CLXIX) Paith in Christ is absolutely necessary for one's personal victory over death, "Car hors de JESUS-CHRIST personne n'est sauve" (CXCVI). It is not at all surprising within such a Christian context that Chassignet should remind his readers of the misfortune of the pagans, who although often reputed as models of virtuous living and constancy, were nevertheless doomed to final death because of the impossibility of their having been Christians with strong faith in Christ: Tant d'aveugles Payens qui n'ont heu esperance D ’une seconde vie ont souffert en Constance L'attainte du trespas... (CDXXVIII) 199 We can see in this attitude the limited role that neo-stoicism plays in Chassignet*s consolation for death. The poet presents the philosophy as a good moral guide for the reader's life and a3 a good preparation for death, but finds it insufficient, as the above quotation shows us, as an effective consolation. This is an example of what Zanta sees as the superficiality of the sixteenth- 33 century effort to revive Stoicism. The humanists usually concentrated on the practical aspects of the Stoic moral philosophy rather than adopt the Stoic system of thought in its more essential aspects. In a consolation for death, the problem stems from the fact that Stoicism accepted man’s mortality in the literal sense of the word. It viewed man's life on earth as a self-contained and self- fulfilling life. It did not look beyond the life man left on earth for another or continued life and certainly did not look beyond this life for any rewards or punishment for man's actions in the world. Stoicism accepted the fact that man's life on earth was full of imperfections and injustice which might never be rectified and accepted the possibility that at the end of one's life one was annihila­ ted. Stoicism did not have as a goal either to compensate man for the trials of life or to console him for his death. Christianity on the other hand did. It in fact existed 34 for these very reasons. Our poet, then, although es­ pousing much of the Stoic moral philosophy, had in order to find and offer his reader consolation for his mortality

to move beyond a philosophy which was so strictly concen­ trated on the temporal realm. He moved on to the most readily available and acceptable ideology of his time, i.e., the Christian religion. He tells his reader that during his lifetime a firm faith in Christ will arm man against the enemy of death by arming him against those evil forces which originally brought death into the world and which are still capable of causing the death of an individual man:

L'homme par vive foy fermement attache Au cors de JESUS-CHRIST n'en sera arrache Par le diable et la chair, ennemis de nature (CXCVI) In the face of death itself, a strong and constant faith in Christ will transform death for man from something feared and final into something much more palatable. Be­ lieving that Christ really did defeat man's enemy death, man need only imitate Christ in His Passion by totally surrendering himself to his creator and by accepting death willingly. Dying willingly is very important in the Christian schi»me of death, for it is the ultimate test of one's faith in the mercy of God and the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. The rewards for doing this, though, are infinite in number, for as Chassignet states, "...rien ne mancgue at ceus qui meurent volontiers" (CXLVIII). Man's death will in fact, as we saw in Sonnet C (p. 174) be 201 transformed and will become one and the same as the miraculous death of Christ. Man also will pass through death onto another life. To quiet the fear of self-annihilation in death is to remove a major anxiety, and this relief is far-reaching in its effect. The transformation of man's death from an end into a beginning transforms not only the death of an individual man but also the phenomenon itself. This transformation is reflected in the transformation of Chas- signet's image of death from the most persistent evil of the temporal realm to the unique and positive constant in a world subject to destructive and frightening inconstancy. Death becomes "la seurte du port" (LXVI) at the end of a voyage through life, and the connotation of evil is trans­ ferred from the images of death to those of life. Life rather than death becomes the "funebre lieu" (XX), an in­ teresting reversal of the antithetical opposition of life and death, and is explicitly cited as the true source of the evil in man's existence ("La vie et non la mort et de nos maus est la clause" (L)). Death is even hailed as "O salutaire mort" (C) and is thus relieved of all nega­ tive connotations as well as being given a positive one which life cannot match. Death is salutary not only because it relieves man of the turmoil of life and leads him to a better life with his creator but because it provides an afterlife which 202 compensates him for the sacrifices and injustice suffered during his terrestrial existence. Very rare are the oc­ casions in which the poet anticipates the joy of a beatific vision, and as we can see in Sonnet CCCXCVIII, even then Chassignet relates it tc a relief from the trials of life and the justification of those who have suffered in life: Toy seule, heureuse mort, en son affliction Tu prens le miserable en ta protection Et luy donnes la haut un repos perdurable. Seule tu nous coronne et de gloire et d'honneur Et, nous establissant vis a vis du Seigneur, Nous fais voir sans manteau sa grandeur admirable. As Leake states, the idea of eternal rewards and punishment is essential to Chassignet's message in the Mespris. 35 One should note that Chassignet almost always refers to the attainment of salvation in conjunction with the Last Judge­ ment. Salvation then is equivalent to a settling of ac­ counts, and from the man-centered perspective that Chassignet maintains throughout the Mespris, the settling of accounts appears to be more for man's sake than for God's. Hell is promised those who do not have faith in God, but for those who do have faith is promised an afterlife in which all of man's needs and desires are satisfied to the fullest possible extent. Man will thus be compensated for all of life's insufficiencies and negative aspects. The greatest of these insufficiencies or negative aspects is, of course, physical death. When the poet has offered his reader com­ pensation for his personal mortality, the epitome of all 203 the frustrations of life, he has virtually imitated Christ in annihilating death, and having reached this point, he has essentially accomplished his mission to create a dis­ dain for life and a consolation for death. This is not, however, the full extent of Chassignet*s consolation for death. He has created too much of a hor­ rific image of death to have it all nullified by a hope in a personal afterlife even though that afterlife promises to counterbalance the sufferings of his reader's life on earth. Chassignet stresses throughout the Mespris the painful and dangerous experience of death and cannot leave the reader’s fears for that out of his consolation. He thus attempts to play the iconoclast of his own imagery. Claiming the image of death one has (and the one he himself favors throughout his poetry) to be a mere invention of artistic imagination and not at all a true representation of the phenomenon, he claims that we, the poet and his reader, "craignons beaucoup plus le masque que la chose” (CXLIX). He asks his reader to look at this poetic in­ vention for what it is, a superificial fabrication, and suggests that he join in the iconoclastic effort and at­ tempt to dissipate the distorting illusion created by the frightening image. Together we, once again the poet and the reader, should: ...ostons le masque feint, Lors nous la treuverons autre qu'on ne la peint, Gracieuse cl toucher et plaisante de face. (XLIX) 204 The reader is thus engaged in the poetic effort to console man for his personal mortality. 36 As for the pain of the actual separation of body and soul, Chassignet appears to be reluctant to appease man's fearful anticipation of the experience. In an effort, how­ ever, to attenuate the negative reaction that his reader has to death, he de-emphasizes the transitional quality of the death experience and presents it as a final life- experience rather than as a passage between the two. The negative connotation of death because of man's fear of dying is thus displaced and attached to man's life. Imagery which promotes a negative view of life is thus pursued to what can be seen as a logical extreme. In Sonnet XLIII, for example, all of life is shown to be painful. It is only natural, then, in the literal sense of the word, that the conclusion to life maintain the painful quality that it has held since its beginning: Ne t 'esmerveille done puisque nostre souffranee, Vivant avecque nous, avecque nous commence, Si le soir de nos jours ressemble a son matin. (XLIII) In a similar transformation of imagery, Chassignet uses medical images to describe death as a medicine for the disease of life. This image is a complete reversal of the one he uses to describe his own efforts to console man for his death. (See page 178) Portraying life as a disease, he states that "Un mal se veut tousjours par 205 un autre guarir" (XLII). In other words, remedies for diseases are often as painful and unpleasant as the di­ seases themselves. Sonnet CVII extends this metaphor even further and concludes that ’’Pour attaindre, Mortel, a 1'immortalite/Il faut un peu souffrir...," indicating that the disease in question this time is basically man's mortality. The greatest effort Chassignet makes really to appease his reader's fear of the death experience is to tell the reader that it is not really the death experience itself that he fears. Borrowing this attitude directly from Montaigne and indirectly from neo-stoicism, as he also borrowed other "consolations" not based on hope for an afterlife, he tells his reader that man usually fears the unknown rather than the known, and that nothing is more known, in the sense of certain, than death. What man fears, Chassignet tells his reader in Sonnet XLVI, is the unknown which he defines as the moment of death. Even this unknown should not be a cause of fear, for man would live in even greater terror of his death if he knew its hour. Chassignet even tries to console his reader in the face of the cruelty of an early death, and he usually does this from a human perspective. Should one die young, one has not really missed anything in life for HNul plaisir est nouveau sous le ciel revoute" (XXXVIII). Man's 206 experiences are limited, and he can experience them all in a very short period of time. A longer period of life does not bring new experiences; it only allows a person to repeat past ones. Borrowing once again very obviously from the neo-stoic attitude towards life, he states that it is ultimately not the length but the quality of man's life which is important. It is noteworthy that Chassignet does not see an early death as an advanced opportunity to enjoy the beatific vision. Chassignet does, however, attempt and even approaches the unbridled enthusiasm for death that we saw in Sponde's poetry. He also, but very rarely, sings a "hymn" to 37 death. He does not, however, end his hymns in quite the same manner as Sponde. Sponde, as we may remember in the "Stances," submits to the necessity of living out of dutiful obedience to his creator, a creator who would be outraged at human usurpation of the power to determine the moment of death. This appears to be the only reason at the end of the "Stances" for Sponde to continue living. Chassignet also subscribes to this point of view, making very explicit statements against suicide, and essentially summarizes this Christian position with "Tu nes pas a toy mesme” (CLXV).

This, however, is not the only reason Chassignet gives for an objection to suicide. With all the over­ whelming (and in view of the proportion of the amount of 207 verse, it is overwhelming) vanitas imagery and other

sub-themes which connote a negative attitude towards life, Chassignet still admits to a value to life, and a value which is not religious. Terrestrial life is worth living, and it is worth living well and for its own sake. Life is short and not always pleasant but man can take joy in the simple fact of being alive: Tout ce gue ceste vie a de plus convenable, Embrasse le et le gouste, il n'est affliction Qui n'ait au mesme instant sa consolation, Ainsi des ronces sort la rose delectable. (XXIII) In this attitude Chassignet approaches the Epicurean attitude towards life which was the frequent result of an attempt to adopt the neo-stoic moral philosophy in France. 3 8 He even adapts Ronsard1s "Cueillez, cueillez vostre jeu- nesse" (Ode XVII of Le Premier livre des Odes) in a sonnet addressed to a reader who may be waiting for retirement to enjoy life (LXXVIII). He does add, though, the cus­ tomary condamnation of Epicurus and his philosophy for his view of the finality of death. It would be a bit in­ consistent for a poet who is trying to persuade his reader that he will not be annihilated in death to espouse more fully a philosophy that promoted this very idea. Chassignet also finds life to be a privilege and one which entails responsibility. The reader, although mortal and uncertain of the length of his life, is nevertheless 208 told to accept the responsibility of the privilege of life in this world even though he may not feel that his life is a particularly good one ..vivre miserable/Et ne vouloir mourir, c'est magnanimite" (CLXVII)). He makes an even stronger and more negative statement on this matter in Sonnet CLXVI, "C'est laschete de craindre ou de hair sa vie." The poet who has taken it upon himself to offer a consolation to his readers for the fact of his mortality admits that in losing his life in the world, the reader is in fact losing a great deal.

Chassignet, then, is as attached to life as he presupposes his reader to be. LopS finds the Mespris "l'hommage le plus passionne a la vie desesp€rement aimee 3 9 ^ mais fuyant sans retour," and Bienaime states: Pero, se ad una prima lettura dei sonetti si ha la sensazione che venga tradotto, attraverso la strut- tura rigorosa del sonetto, un ragionamento in cui 10 spirit© appare conciliato, et che ci venga pro- posta una verita irrefragabile di ordine morale, pure 11 poeta— cosi almeno ci sembra— lascia trasparire qua e la qualche accento che tradisce il dubbio. Even in some of Chassignet*s very rigorously ordered sonnets in which he attempts to convince his reader of the necessity and superiority of a moral philosophy which will ultimately help him separate himself from the world one can detect "questa ardente passionalita" which "tra­ disce molto frequentemente una angoscia non ancora perfet- 41 tamente placata.M 209

Chassignet is fundamentally as attached to life and reluctant to leave it as is Sponde. The form of the Mespris may at first deflect this similarity between the two poets, but in reading the poetry more closely, one sees that it is in fact there.

Chassignet has posed the problem of death in a more sporadic or haphazard manner, but his dealing with the problem is still very thorough and intense. His manner of approaching the matter of death is very similar to the one used by another late sixteenth-century writer whose influence is apparent in the Mespris, i.e., Montaigne. Death is nearly as obsessive a theme in the Essais as in the Mespris. 42 In the Essais, however, the theme does not appear so omnipresent because of the presence of other dominant themes and because of the somewhat sporadic ap­ pearance of death as the central theme under discussion. It is this sporadic appearance, though, along with the ever-changing aspects of death which come under considera­ tion that allows for a comparison between the Mespris and the Essais. By constructing individual sonnets which have a very closed form, each developing a single line of thought and by placing these sonnets in no apparently significant thematic order, Chassignet has in fact written "poem-es- says." He, like Montaigne, can then work with the problem of death as the separate aspects (or sub-themes) come to 210 him. Both writers examine death one aspect at a time as if to experience their reactions to those aspects and the adaptability of those aspects to their love and respect for life.43

The difference between the Mespris and the Essais is what separates Chassignet from Montaigne and aligns him more with Sponde. In the Essais, Montaigne never

really finds a resolution to the problem of death. His final statement on the matter seems to be a calm acceptance

of the unavoidable fact. He in essence resigns himself to

death, but he does so without great emotion or lament. Chassignet also resigns himself to the inevitable,

but not as calmly as Montaigne. In what may appear as a

last measure, our poet turns to the Christian faith for help. As Bienaime says, Chassignet*s faith in the 44 Christian religion never weakens. This faith cannot weaken, for it is the basis of Chassignet*s consolation

for death. Chassignet embraces the Christian faith in the Mespris for the sole purpose of finding a hope for

continued life after death. Like Sponde he desperately hopes to see that personal resurrection is a fact.

It is not at all insignificant that Chassignet entitled the Mespris as he did, promising a consolation

"against" the frightening and terribly disappointing fact of death. "Against" connotes resistance to an attack, and an attack describes very well Chassignet*s conception 211 of the phenomenon of death. Death attacks man and destroys him as a defenseless victim. Chassignet takes up the arm of the Christian faith, the most readily available aid of his time which promised any hope at all against what he

feared and lamented most. Turning to the Christian reli­ gion, he concludes his Mespris with the epigram "L*ESPRIT AU CIEL ET LE CORS EN LA TERRE,” but this statement appears to be as perfunctory as Sponde's final sonnet. In view of the entire Mespris, it appears that Chassignet fears nothing more than such a separation and consequential dissolution and that he looks to his religion far less for a resolution of inner tension than for something that will succeed in "Nous eslevant en gloire hors de la pourriture" (CCCXCVIII). NOTES

For this study we will use Hans-Joachim Lope's 1967 edition of the Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort (Gen&ve: Drcz), the only reprint of the entire Mespris (the abbreviated name we will use throughout our study to refer to the entire work) since the original edition of 1594. Lope's edition is based on the 1594 edition as no manuscripts have been found for the Mespris. His editing is minimal; he concentrates mostly on points of confusion involving spelling, i.e., "la" vs "1&," and replacing "i"'s with "j"'s. We will add to Lope’s editing the few changes suggested by Raymond Ortali in the annotated bibliography of his Un poete de la mort; Jean-Baptiste Chassignet (Geneve: Droz, 1968), p\ 167, a bibliography which also provides a very good publication history of works on Chassignet. Individual sonnets of the Mespris will be referred to according to their number. The Mespris consists of 476 poems interspersed rather infrequently with very short prose passages. The main body of the work is preceded by the longest section of continuous prose (18 pages in the Lope edition): an epistre and a "Preface au Lecteur." The poems are mostly sonnets (4 34 of the total 476); the rest of the poetry consists of odes and versified syndereses, prayers and oraisons of varying forms and lengths. Most of the sonnets are numbered (only twelve exceptions in the main body of the work) and are clustered in groups of from seventeen to one hundred. There are nine of these groups. Most of these groups of sonnets are immediately followed by a poem (not a consistent form or length) dedicated to a particu­ lar person. After groups III and IX, the pattern changes slightly with the poem being dedicated to God after group III and to the leader after group IX. With the exception of the poetry following sonnet group I, the second poem (after the dedicated poem) is a versified meditation on a particular religious subject, i.e., "Le desir q u ’a l'Ame de parvenir en la Supreme Cite de Hierusalem" and "Le dernier Jugement." The rest of the poetry follows in no apparent pattern. In this study, we will concentrate primarily on the sonnets, for not only do they constitute the vast majority of the poems in the Mespris, but as the sonnet is the most 212 213 restrictive poetical form in the Mespris, it tends to concentrate and refine Chassignet*s poetical techniques. As Armand Mdller says, in the introduction to his abridged edition of the Mespris, in which he has included only sonnets:

Nous avons laisse deliberement de c&t£ toutes les autres pieces lyriques qui, d'une manilre gen^rale, ne meritent pas qu'on s'y arrete, car elles sont remplies de longueurs, ne s'£levent que rarement au dessus du banal et sont parfois lamentablement prosaiques. (Le Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort: Cholx de sonnets publife par Armand Mliller ~ Genfeve: Droz, 1953 , pi 10) Frangois Ruchon makes a similar evaluation:

Il /le Mespris7 est compose de 434 sonnets auxquels se melent a*autres pieces lyriques et de grands poemes en alexandrins, gen£ralement mauvais: lourdes rhapsodies, prolixes et souvent banales. C'est dans les sonnets que Chassignet a donn*& toute sa mesure. ("Jean-Baptiste Chassignet: 'Le Mespris de la Vie et Consolation contre la Mort'," BHR, 15 (1953), p. 58)

2 According to Armand Muller, "II serait vain de chercher un plan methodique dans ce recueil suffisamment compact..." Muller, Un Po6te religieux du XVIe siecle: Jean-Baptiste Chassignet, 1578 (?) - 1635 (?) (Paris: Foulon, 1951), p.10. Francois Ruchon states that^"Malgre plu- sieurs lectures attentives, je n'ai pas decele de plan, d'architecture dans cette masse de vers. L'ouvrage est bien separe en parties et les sonnets se groupent par series de cinquante ou environ, mais chassignet y revisnt constamment sur des themes et des sujets d6ja trait^s. (p. 58) Dora Rigo Bienaime also calls the Mespris a "Raccolta priva di architettura per cio che riguarda l'e- voluzione del pensiero e lo sviluppo dei temi..." Bien­ aime, "Chassignet sulle orme della morte" in Gr^vin poeta satirico (Pisa: Giardini, 1967), p. 189. q "Es sei allerdings hinzugefugt, dass das Fehlen eines architektonischen Aufbauprinzips keineswegs eine chaotische Verwirrung im Gefolge hat: Die 476 Gedichte des Werkes werden durch die thematische Klammer des Titels 'Le Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort' zu einer zwar differenzierten, aber im grossen und ganzen doch gesicherten Einheit zusammengeschlossen." Heinz Wagner, Die Thematik und der Stil im 'Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort' von Jean-Baptiste Chassignet 214 (Bern: Herbert Lang, 1972), p. 37. Wagner is the only critic I have found who claims to discern even the loosest pattern of organization in the Mespris. 4 "Innerhalb dieser grossen, nur durch ein erhebliches Mass von Abstraktion garantierten Einheit kommt es zu Themen— und Motivba11ungen." Wagner, Chassignet, p. 37. 5 "Innerhalb dieser thematischen Ballungen finden sich von anderen Ballungszonen abgesprengte Gedichte: Die einzelnen Ballungszonen sind durch die auf andere Zonen weisenden Gedichte ineinander verstrebt und verhakt. Es bleibt festzuhalten, dass eine Untersuchung des 'Mespris1 kein architektonisches Aufbauprinzip, das durch sie zerstort oder verzerrt werden konnte, zu be- achten braucht. Sie muss lediglich darauf bedacht sein, die einzelnen Ballungszonen gemass ihrem Umfang und ihrer Bedeutung fur den Gesamtgehalt des 'Mespris' zu beruck- sichtigen." Wagner, Chassignet, p. 37. g Richter is the first critic to view Sponde's sonnets in this way. See his 1968 article in BHR. 7 For the most extensive study of Chassignet*s use of simile in the Mespris see DuBruck's chapter, "The Function of the Simile In Jean-Baptiste Chassignet," pp. 132-141 and her Appendix C, "Some Observations on the Structure of Chassignet's Sonnets," pp. 173-174. 0 Bienaim€ contrasts the thematic structure of the individual sonnets with that of the Mespris as a whole and finds that "I sonetti, invece, presi singolarmente, sono costruiti con rigore e in essi si rivela una precisa e solida architettura.N (p. 189) This structure is based on the strict rational development of the sonnet's the- matics: "Nell*opera nel suo insieme, l'assoluta certezza delle verit^ sostenute, dk al sonetto una struttura com- patta e omogenea che deriva dal rigore del ragionamento e dalla perfetta concatenazione, eccetto la massima finale che si stacca, come a s£, col suo contenuto sentenzioso espresso in forma lapidaria. Chassignet eccelle dove stabilisce, sempre sul tenia dell'antitesi, rapporti e corrispondenze libere, imprevedibili e nuove, ma il mo- mento pit) alto del sonetto s'identifica quasi sempre col primo termine di paragone (si realizza cioe, nella prima quartina), con l'invenzione costantement variata dell'immagine antitetica. La seconds quartina (quando pero anch'essa non £ investita dal gioco delle antitesi), 215 e la prima terzina, sappiamo gia a priori che cosa possono offrirci: raramente la sorpresa, perche ivi 1 1immagine, liberamente prodotta nella prima quartina, si condensa quasi sempre nel ragionaroento, trova la sua rispondenza nel secondo termine di paragone che riflette sempre la precaria condizione umana. Bienaime, "Chassignet," pp. 203-204. q Chassignet’s penchant for logic and rational "exercises" cannot be stressed enough. As Bienaim^ says, "in lui la tendenza al ragionamento piu forte" (p. 194); "questo rigore logico ci sembra essere una caratteristica interessante del suo poetare" {p. 187) . She even speaks of his "essessione del ragionamento." Bienaime, "Chas­ signet, " p. 190.

10"L'eau en mouvement nous porte au coeur du Baroque." Jean Rousset, L a Litterature frangaise de l'cige baroque (Paris: Corti^ 1954), p. I?5 as quoted by Lope, Mespris, p. 34n.

■^Bienaime states that Chassignet's preference for images of water and wind is characteristic of the poetry of his time. Speaking of the image of a running stream, as it is found in Sonnet V, Bienaime qualifies it as "l'im- magine-tipo del movimento e dell'eterna fluire dell'acqua, che, insieme al vento, ^ una immagine sfruttata da tutti i poeti di quel periodo..." Bienaime, "Chassignet," p. 197. i 2 ^ Lope cites Chassignet's habitual use of multiple images, particularly metaphors, and qualifies this poetic device as typical of the poetic practice of his day. Rousset comments on the use of multiple, successive images as significant: "...la metaphore ne va jamais seule; elle est multiple; ce sont des chaines, des entassements, des pyramides, ou des avalanches de metaphores, ob&issanc d une volontS de profusion, de gonflement, de dynamisme expressif... les images s'engendrent en chaine, se sub­ stituent les unes aux autres, de fa^on il donner au poeme 1 ’aspect d'une metamorphose continue, 6manant d'une imagination incapable d'epuiser d'un seul regard un objet toujours fuyant." Rousset, Anthologie de la pogsie baroque francaise, vol. I (Paris; Colin, 1961) , p"I , partially cited by Lope, Mespris, p. LIX. 13 Bienaime, "Chassignet," p. 196. 216 14 Critics traditionally view the political instability of late sixteenth-century France as an important factor in the popularity of the themes of flux and inconstancy. Roy Leake, writing about Chassignet and Montaigne, mentions "the horrors of the religious wars in France, which doubt­ less were in part responsible for their preoccupation with death." Leake, "J.-B. Chassignet and Montaigne," BHR, 23 (1961), p. 290. 15 See Hugo Friedrich, Montaigne, trans. Robert Rovini (Paris: GAllimard, I&6&), p^ 302. X 6 Sponde uses this same biblical characterization in Sonnet X: Laisse dormir ce corps, mon Ame, et quant it toy Veille, veille, et te tien alerte d tout effroy Garde que ce Larron ne te trouve endormie: 17 Terence Cave and Michel Jeanneret are the critics most responsible for the classification of Chassignet, as well as Sponde, as religious poets. See Cave's Devotional Poetry, Jeanneretrs Poesie et tradition biblique au XVIe sidcle (Paris: Corti^ US69) and their jointly ectited Mfetamorphoses spirituelles: anthologie de la poesie reli- qieuse frangaise 1570-1630 (Paris: Corti, 1972), whicfi has a substantial introduction.

18 "The thought of death was in the background of everybody's mind at the end of rhe sixteenth century; it was at the core of orthodox religion, and unless he were a Montaigne, the moment a man began to question the values expressed in the newer convention of fame and the contem­ porary love of worldly splendor, he fell back on the mo­ rality the old teaching implied... The love of worldly splendor itself put a new emphasis on death, for death, it seemed, brought to an end more wealth of life than before, and the greatness of its depredations made it more formidable than ever." Spencer, Death, pp. 64-65.

19 "La morte appare d Chassignet non solo come termine ultimo, estremo passaggio, ultimo porto, strumento di redenzione, ma diventa una presenza tangibile che si in- sinua in ogni pensiero formulato, in ogni immagine di vita." Bienaime, "Chassignet," p. 186.

20Chassignet*s statement that one's friends will abandon one at death in pure horror of one's decomposing 217 body appears as an answer to Ronsard's hopeful intention of maintaining strong ties of friendship beyond the grave. As there are several stylistic affinities between some of Chassignet's poems and Ronsard’s sonnet "Je n'ai plus que les os..." sonnet in particular, it is conjected that Chassignet was quite familiar with some of Ronsard's statements on death. For a comparison of these two poets, see Wolfgang Leiner, "Das Schauspiel des Todes," ZFSL, 84 (1974), pp. 210-235. This article, with some modifications, has been translated into French and appears as "Ronsard et Chassignet devant le spectacle de la mort: etude com­ parative de deux sonnets," KRQ, 21 (1975), pp. 491-515.

21 Chassignet uses another vanitas image, that of man as a pilgrim in life, to make another statement on man's death being final: Si quelque chose manque au soigneus pellerin II 1 1emprunte d ’autruy ou, si par oubliance Il laisse en son logis un pacquet d 1 importance, II le va requerir et rebrosse chemin. Mais depuis que la mort a nos jours a mis fin Nous ne retournons plus, comme la conscience Est a nostre depart, telle ensuit la sentence Que DIEU jette sur l'homme ou syncere ou malin. (CDVI)

22 This is an obvious contradiction to the death-as- final sub-theme. Contradictions in sub-themes in the Mespris are often the result of Chassignet*s submitting a variety of material from different sources to poetic exercise without worrying about such contradictions. Chas­ signet 's major sources are the Bible, Montaigne, DuPlessis- Mornay and some Stoic writers. Most Chassignet criticism has been primarily concerned with the study of these sources. Chassignet often uses medical imagery in the Mespris. It is interesting to note that his father was a doctor.

23This is another example of Chassignet’s medical imagery aligning disease, sin and death. 24 See Mario Richter, "Una fonta calvinista di J.B. Chassignet," BHR, 26 (1964), pp. 341-362. For even more explicit references to Seneca, sea J.C. Arens, "J.-B. Chassignet of Seneca?" Neophil (1963), pp. 73-76. 218 25 See Martineau-Genieys' discussion of this in her Thfeme de la mort, pp. 112-119.

26Bienaim4, "Chassignet," p. 184.

27Chassignet even includes an anti-gloire sub-theme in the Mespris: Ce gui sembloit naguere indissoluble et fort# Tombe soudainement d'une cheute mal-seure, Et la gloire reside ii grand peine un quart d'heure Sans experimenter les changemens du sort. (CCXVII) In the following lines, Chassignet shows the movement of time maintaining a gentle, but ever so destructive rhythm and completing in this way the violent destruction of death: Tu ne seras si tost arrache de leurs yeus Que tu t'escouleras de leur foible memoire. (CCXXXII) 28 ,, Leake has pursued Armand Muller's study of Montaigne as a source of inspiration for the Mespris (See Muller, Choix de sonnets) and cites a number of additional parallel passages between the Essais and the Mespris, showing Montaigne's influence on the Mespris"to be considerable. For his comment on Chassignet's adaptation of Montaigne's calm, stoic attitude towards death, see Leake, "Chassignet," p. 287. 29 Both Leake and Lope cite Montaigne as the direct source for these lines. See Leake, "Chassignet," p. 286 and Lop£, Mespris, p. 32.

^°See Zanta, Renaissance du stoicisme, pp. 112-127. 31 Ruchon, "Chassignet," p. 65.

^2Leake, "Chassignet," p. 289. 33 Zanta, Renaissance du stoicisme, p. 10. 34 See Morin's chapter "Le salut," in his L*Homme et lamort, pp. 190-214. 219 35 Leake, "Chassignet," p. 286. 3 6 Miller and Leake cite Montaigne as the most immediate source for the image of de-masking death. See Muller, Choix de sonnets, p. 37 and Leake, "Chassignet," p. 287. 37 "Si pensi alio splendido sonetto di Sponde ("Tout s’enfle contre moi, tout m'assaut, tout me tente"), in cui il crescendo possente della sensazione di smarrimento tocca momenti di altissima poesia. Chassignet ci ha lasciato rari esempi di simile angoscia e di tale ardente speranza; in lui la tendenza al ragionamento £ pit! forte e il grido, 1 1invocazione disperata, sono quasi sempre esempi isolati. Bienaime,"Chassignet," p. 194. When we refer to Sponde’s "hymn to death," we are referring to Stanza 19, not to the final sonnet. 3 8 "...le stoicisme qui viendra s^duire en France les homraes de la Renaissance est tout proche de l'6pi- curisme. '* Zanta, Renaissance du stoicisme, p. 24.

39 Lope, Mespris, p. LXV.

^Bienaime, "Chassignet,” p. 180.

41Ibid., pp. 182-183. 42 Friedrich calls the Essais "un des grands textes sur la mort de 1*Occident postantique,” and states that Montaigne "n'a pas besoin de faire expressement de la mort son sujet. Elle est partout, lui vient sous les doigts quoi qu'il touche." Friedrich, Montaigne, trans. Rovini, pp. 272-273. 43 "There is the same note of examination of the self and of the human condition;... the same feeling that the authors were not speaking with authority but were rather making a ’coup d*essay* (a term which both used in des­ cribing their writing)." Leake, "Chassignet," p. 291. Chassignet*s obsession with death and the human condition is seen by Bienaime as "Questa ossessione della morte induce colui che ne 6 posseduto a perseguirla, a calcarne le orme." Bienaime, "Chassignet," p. 186.

44Bienaim£, "Chassignet,” p. 191. CONCLUSION CONCLUSION

We have examined Jean de Sponde's "Stances et Sonnets de la Mort" and Jean-Baptiste Chassignet's Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort with the purpose of ascertaining what their individual statements on the prob­ lem of death are and how these statements stand within the tradition of early French poetry on death. Sponde and Chassignet wrote their poetry on death during a time of great political and religious turmoil, and death was not an unlikely topic for the literature of the time. The popularity of DuPlessis-Mornay's Discours de la vie et de la mort and the pervasive presence of the theme through­ out Montaigne's Essais attest to that. By this time also a distinctive tradition of death poetry had evolved, and Sponde and Chassignet were very consciously working within it. Their individual statements on death reflect an awareness and a response to this tradition. We have concentrated in our study on the sub-themes which developed in French poetry on death and the appear­ ance and use of these sub-themes in the poetry of Sponde and Chassignet. Both poets draw directly from the trad- ditional stock of sub-themes and invent nothing new. It 221 222 is their particular selection of sub-themes and their poetic treatment of them that is significant. Both poets use the sub-theme which serves as the basis of most literature on death, i.e., the vanitas sub-theme. Everything in the temporal realm is finite, a fact which both poets illustrate in imagery which em­ phasizes the temporal realm's movement towards death. The memento mori is an equally fundamental sub-theme in their poetry, as the object of each poet's effort is to grapple with the problem of human death, facing it as directly as possible and then responding to it.

Both poets present death as a human problem within the framework of the Christian religion. The tradition of death literature which inspired Sponde and Chassignet was rich in imagery and sub-themes for the working with death within such a context. The late Middle Ages provided a wealth of material relating man's death to original sin, personal judgement and an afterlife which depended on the outcome of that judgement. In its emphasis on the macabre and hell, late medieval literature favored the more nega­ tive aspects of death within the Christian context. Death was evil, a result of sin and a constant reminder of man's inherently sinful nature. Death was also punishment, and it was a pun hment whose severity was equal to the offense man had committed in his original transgression against his creator. The late medieval concept of death, as it 223 was manifested in poetry, was a thoroughly negative one, and the use of the sub-themes developed in poetry at that time immediately connoted this very negative and pessimis­ tic attitude towards human death. Sponde and Chassignet both use late medieval sub-themes to present death in its most negative aspects.

During the sixteenth century one sees in poetry an effort to confront the negative and pessimistic attitude towards death. Rather than allow themselves to be so helplessly dominated by death and by man's natural fear of it, sixteenth-century poets responded to the phenome­ non and attempted to minimize its negative aspects. The Evangelical response was to emphasize the Christian pro­ mise of continued life after death in a realm where all human desires and needs would be overwhelmed by the presence of the divine creator. Death then could be seen as a positive aspect of the human condition for it led man to a life so superior to the one he knew that he could not even imagine it.

The Renaissance response to death was similar to the

Evangelical one in its displacement of concentration from the phenomenon of death itself to a more positive aspect of the human condition. Renaissance poets, however, did not concentrate on what followed death but on what pre­ ceded it. In their emphasis on the positive aspects of man's life on earth, they removed many of the negative 224 aspects from human death. Death was no longer a reflection of the evil which was inherent in the world and the human condition; it was considered much more as merely the end of man's temporal existence. This existence was consid­ ered as good and valuable for its own sake. The Renais­ sance concentration on man's temporal life resulted in a reversal of the traditional roles alloted to man's death and his life within the Christian context. Rather than allow the phenomenon of death to dominate and determine man's life, the Renaissance promoted a view of life which extended itself to include death and give death a secular meaning. Man's temporal and secular life was now in the fore, and death was made to assume the secondary position that life had held in the more thoroughly Christian con­ text of the Middle Ages.

Calvinism was yet one more response to the late medieval negative attitude towards death. Pursuing the Evangelical effort to promote the Christian promise of an overwhelmingly satisfying afterlife with the Creator, it also responded to the Renaissance effort to promote a positive view of man's temporal existence. It was pre­ cisely man's love and respect of this life which made death such a difficult fact to accept. Calvin therefore maintained much of the late medieval devaluation of earthly life which was founded on the equation of death and sin. The frailty and impermanence of the world 225 signified its evil and should serve as a warning to man that this realm was not to be considered as good and as

an end in itself. Death was seen as the welcome release from an evil and inferior existence which was man's in the world. After death man would participate in the true and eternal life for which he had been originally predestined.

The Renaissance promotion of a positive view of man

and his earthly life, as well as its efforts to subordinate death to man's life on earth rather than the contrary which had been the tradition since the Middle Ages was, however, not easily dominated by Calvinism, The relief

that the Renaissance attitude towards life and death pro­ vided from the oppressive obsession with death which was inherent in the late medieval worldview was very welcome. Calvinism, in its insistence on the inherently evil nature of man's life on earth and on its necessary subordination

to a life after death, was in a sense a more death-centered philosophy than was the late medieval one, and because of this had only limited success in its attempt to counter­ act the attitudes promoted by the Renaissance. The late medieval concentration on death was essentially a statement of man's love for life on earth and a painful lament of the inevitable loss of this life.

The Renaissance encouraged man's love of this world and 226 of himself as a natural being and also encouraged a more positive expression of this love. Calvinism worked di­ rectly against this attitude and in this way worked di­ rectly against a strong current of thought that seemed to be acquiring even more rather than less support. The

persistence of the Renaissance attitude towards life and death can be seen in the poetry on death written by Sponde and Chassignet at the end of the sixteenth century. Both poets wrote within a religious framework and used many Evangelical and Calvinist sub-themes, but both also mani­

fested considerable difficulty in their attempt to embrace fully the ideology behind these sub-themes. In Sponde's poetry the reader is the intimate witness of Sponde*s attempt to accept the fact that he is merely the subordinate creation of an almighty Creator who wishes his death. Even though that death is to lead to a better life and a life with his benevolent Creator, the poet manifests fear at the thought of the passageway to it. Although his use of the sub-theme of the macabre is a very attenuated one, he exhibits the same distress in the face of human mortality that is inherent in this sub-theme. This distress is juxtaposed to the Christian relief for it is the fundamental antithesis of life and death which serves as the basis of Sponde*s poetry. The "Stances et Sonnets de la Mort" are a presentation of this antithesis and an attempt to resolve it. Sponde takes his reader 227 through the ups and downs of favoring one aspect and then the other of this antithesis and at the end presents what he can offer as a resolution. Much the same can be said of Chassignet. Like Sponde he is attempting to overcome his fear and dismay over death by adopting the Christian response to it. He finds, how­ ever, and also like Sponde, that the Christian response is limited in its ability to console man for death because of its subordination of man's earthly life in favor of a promise of a better life after death. Also, and most im­ portantly, the Christian consolation for death is based only on an unshakeable faith and not on proven fact, and it does not remove what man sees as fact, i.e., the disin­ tegration of the being which has defined him on earth. Un­ like Sponde, Chassignet does not take his reader through an apparently ordered alternation of the antithesis of a love of life and an attitude of cupio dissolvi. Chassignet offers his reader a series of separate attempts to reckon with the phenomenon of death, a series which is a veritable encyclopedic listing of death sub-themes found in French poetry throughout the period we have discussed here. Re­ naissance attitudes towards death are even more evident in his poetry than in Sponde's because of his use of sub­ themes which are obviously based on sixteenth-century neo-stoicism. 228 Sponde and Chassignet both offer the Christian response as a proposed resolution to the antithesis of life and death which they have presented in their individual ways. The Christian response is offered tentatively, though, for this response depends entirely on the actual realization of the promise of resurrection. Without the assurance of a personal resurrection which would guarantee the continued existence of the individual as he was de­ fined within the temporal realm, Sponde is reluctant to enter the passageway to death even though that passageway leads directly to eternal life with his Creator, and Chassignet is reluctant to leave the life he tries so hard and even desperately to disdain. Sponde1s and Chassignet’s apparently religious poetry on death thus manifests considerable doubt in the efficacy of a religious solution to death and consequently a lack of full satisfaction with it. The secular interest in man as a natural being which was evident in late medieval poetry is maintained in the "Stances et Sonnets de la Mort" and the Mespris, and is even fortified by the Renaissance encouragement of this tendency. Even with a more positive religious attitude towards death and even with this atti­ tude as the framework for the individual meditations on death, it is a secular concern for one’s individual being which comes to the fore. 229 It appears then that Sponde1s and Chassignet's poetry on death represents the continuation of the debate as to the primacy of man as a natural being and man as the de­ pendent subordinate of his divine Creator. Late medieval poets voiced discontent with the religious view of man and his death, but in the end they resigned themselves to it hopelessly. Sponde and Chassignet working within a comparable religious environment (in view of the perva­ siveness of Christianity) do not resign themselves. They express doubt and dissatisfaction with this view. Their meditations on death result in reaffirmations of life on earth. Although they may desperately wish it were other­ wise/ the traditional response to death offered by the Christian religion is no longer a good one; it no longer resolves the antithesis of life and death, an attitude which the reader can feel in the unresolved antitheses in their poetry. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY

General Works

Ari^s, Philippe. Essais sur 11histoire de la mort en Occident du moyen age d nos jours. Paris: Seuil, 1975.

Beaty, Nancy Lee. The Craft Of Dying. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1970. Bensimon, Marc. "Ronsard et la mort,” MLR, 57 (1962), pp. 183-194. Boase, Alan. ''Then Malherbe Came,” Criterion, 10 (1931), pp. 287-306. Boase, T .S.R . Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgment and Remembrance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972. Bohatec, Josef. Bude und Calvin: Studien zur Gedankenwelt des franzdsischen Fruhhunanismus. Wien: Spies"! 1950. Bremond, Henri. Histoire du sentiment religieux en France, vol. 1. Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1924. Burkhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. 2 volsl Trans. S.G.C. Middlemore. 1929; rpt. New York: Harper and Row, 1958.

Calvin, Jean. Institution de la religion chrestienne. 3 vols. Ed. Jacques Pannier! Paris: Belles Lettres, 1956-1938. Cassirer, Ernst, Paul Kristeller and John Randall, Jr., ed. The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. 194 8; rpt. Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 19 69.

Castor, Graham. Pleiade Poetics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964. Cave, Terence. Devotional Poetry in France c. 1570-1613. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.Press, 1969.

231 232 Cave, Terence. "The Protestant Devotional Tradition: Simon Goulart's Trente tableaux de la mort," FS, 21 (1967), pp. 1-15. Cave, Terence and Michel Jeanneret. Metamorphoses spiri- tuelles: anthologie de la poesie religieuse frangaise 1570-1630. Paris: Corti, 1972. Chastel, Andre. "Le baroque et la mort," Congresso inter- nazionale di studi umanistici, 3rd Venice (Retorica e Baroccoi 15-18 giugno 1954. Roma: Bocca, 1955, pp. 33-46.

Chastel, Andre and Robert Klein. L'Ape de l'humanisme. Bruxelles: Editions de la Connaissance, 1954.

Choron, Jacques. Death and Western Thought. New York: Collier, 1963.

Clark, James M. The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Glasgow: Jackson, I <150 . Clements, Robert. Critical Theory and Practice of the Flgjade. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard Univ. Press, 1942. Clive, H.P. "The Calvinist Attitude to Music and Its Liter­ ary Aspects and Sources," BHR, 19 (1957), pp. 80-102. Cohen, Gustave. "Le 'Jour du Jugement' dans le theatre du M .A .," Convivium, 25 (1957), pp. 268-275. Croce, Benedetto. History: Its Theory and Practice. Trans. Douglas Ainslle. New York: Russell & Russell, 1960. Cullmann, Oscar. Christ et le temps. Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle, 1947T Curtius, Ernst. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Trans. Willard R . Trask. 194$; rpt. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. DuBruck, Edelgard. The Theme of Death in French Poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Hague: Mouton, 1964. ______. "Three Religious Sonneteers of the Waning Renais­ sance: Sponde, Chassignet and La Ceppede,” Neophil, 54 (1970), pp. 235-243. 233 The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran church. 3 vols. Ed. Julias Bodensleck. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1965. Erasmus, Desiderio. Preparation to deathe, A boke as devout as eloquent. TraniT anonymously. London: THomas Berthe- Tet, 1543.

Febvre, Lucien. Le Probleme de 11incroyance au XVIe siecle. Paris: Michel, 1947.

Ferguson, Wallace K. "The Interpretation of the Renaissance, Suggestions for a Synthesis,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 12 (1951), pp. 483-495. ______. The Renaissance in Historical Thought. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1948. Frappier, Jean. "Montaigne et la mort," RPh, 30 (1976), pp . 9-24.

Friedrich, Hugo. Montaigne. Bern: Francke, 1949. . Montaigne. Trans. Robert Rovini. Paris: Gallimard, T9F 8 .------Gatch, Milton. Death: Meaning and Mortality in Christian Thought and Contemporary Culture. New York: Seabury, 1969. Gelder, H.A. En.no Van. The Two Reformations in the 16th Century. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961.

Glixelli, Stanislaw. Les Cinq poemes des Trois morts et des trois vlfs. 1914; rpt. Paris: Champion, 1963. Heller, Agnes. Renaissance Man. Trans. Richard E. Allen. Boston: Routledge-Kegan Paul, 1978. Heller, Henry. "Marguerite of Navarre and the Reformers of Meaux," BHR, 33 (1971), pp. 271-310. Holwerda, David. "Eschatology and History: A Look at Calvin's Eschatological Vision,” in his Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976, pp. 110-122. ______,ed. Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976.

Huizinga, J. The Waning of the Middle Ages. Trans. F. Hopman. 1924; rpt"! Garden City: Anchor-Doubleday, 1954. 234 Hyma, Albert- The Christian Renaissance: A History of the "Devotio Moderna". 2nd ed. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon. 1965.

Ignatius Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Trans. Anthony Mottola,. Introd. Robert Gleason. Garden City: Doubleday, 1964. Jacob, Henriette. Idealism and Realism: A Study of Sepul­ chral Symbolism. Leiden: Brill, 1954.

Jeanneret, Michel. Poesie et tradition biblique au XVIs si^cie. Paris: Corti, 1969. Joukovsky, Frangoise. La Gloire dans la poesie francaise et n6olatine du XVI sidcle. Genfeve: Droz, 1969. Kristeller, Paul. The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. Trans. Virginia Conant. Glouchester, Massachussetts: Peter Smith, 1964. ______. Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Kurtz, Leonard. The Dance of Death and the Macabre Spirit in European-Literature. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1934. LeBlanc, Paulette. La Poesie religieuse de Clement Marot. Paris: Nizet, 1955. Lecerf, Auguste. Etudes calvinistes. Introd. Andre Schlemmer. Meuchatel: DeTachaux and Niestle, 1949. Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation. The Library of cfiristian Classics, vol. TT~. Erasmus: De Libero Arbi- trio, Trans, and ed. E. Gordon Rupp; Luther: De Servo Arbitrio, Trans, and ed. Philip S. Watson. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969. Macchia, Giovanni. Storia della letteratura francese. vol. 1. Torino: RAI, 19 61. M^le, Emile. L'Art religieux apr^s le Concile de Trente. Paris: Colin, 1932.

L'Art religieux de la fin du moyen £ige en France. 2nd edT Paris: Colin, I$T9. 235

A ______. L'Art religieux de la fin du XVI si£cle, du XVII sidcle et du XVIII si5cle. 2nd ed. 1$51; rpt. Paris: Colin, 1972. Marichal, Robert, ed. and introd. Marguerite de Navarre: La Navire ou Consolation du Rox Francois ler a sa soeur Marguerite. Paris: Champion, 1956.

Martineau-G^nieys, Christine. Le Theme de la mort dans la poesie frangaise de 1450 & 1550. Paris: Champion, tstt .------^ " Martz, Louis. The Poetry of Meditationi A Study in English Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1962.

Mayer, Claude. La Religion de Marot. Geneve: Droz, 1960.

Merrill, Robert and Robert Clements. Platonism in French Renaissance Poetry. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1957. Mommsen, Theodor. "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark ges'," Speculum, 17 (1942), pp. 226-242. Morin, Edgar. L*Homme et la mort dans 1*histoire. Paris: Corria, 1951. Mourgues, Odette de. Metaphysical, Baroque and Precieux Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon, 19 53.

Muller, Armand. La Poesie religieuse catholique de Marot a Malherbe. Paris: Foulon, 1950.

Murchland, Bernard, trans. and introd. Two V iews of Man: Pope Innocent III On the Misery of Man/Giannozzo Manetti On the Dignity of Man. New York: Ungar, 1966. Napoli, Giovanni di. L'Immortalita dell'anima nel Rinasci- mento. Torino: Soc. Eclitrice Internazionale, 1963. New Catholic Encyclopedia. 16 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. O'Connor, Sister Mary Catherine. The Art of Dying Well: The Development of the Ars Moriendi. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, I§42. Painter, Sidney. French Chivalry: Chivalric Ideas and Prac­ tices in Mediaeval France. 1^40; rpt. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951. 236 Panofsky, Erwin. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art. 1960; rpt. New York: Harper & Row, 1072.

______. Tomb Sculpture: Four Lectures on Its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini. Ed. H.W. Janson. New York: Abrams, ”1964.

Philippson, Martin. La Contre-revolution religieuse. Bruxelles: Muquardt, 1884. Pourrat, Pierre. Christian Spirituality. Trans. W.H. Mitchell and S.P. Jacques. London: Burns, Oates 6 Washbourne, 1922-1927. Renaudet, Augustin. Prereforme et humanisme a Paris. 2nd ed. Paris: D'Argences, 19 53.

Richter, Mario. "Aspetti e orientamenti della poetica pro- testante francese nel secolo XVI," in Jean de Sponde e la lingua poetica protestante nel Cinquecento. Milano: Cisalpino-Goliardica, 1973. ______, ed. II "Discours de la vie et de la mort" di Philippe Du Plessis-Mornay. Milano: Soc. e 3! Vita e Pensiero^ 1964. ______. "L'Evangelismo di Clement Marot: Lettura della Defloration de Floriment Robertet," BHR, 35 (1973), pp. 247-258.

_____ . "Philippe Du Plessis-Mornay: un aspetto del rmanierisnio* poetico protestante" in Contributi dell*istituto di filologia moderna (serie francese) dellk Universitk Cattolica di Milano, vol. 3"! Milano: Cisalpino, 1964, pp. 1-20.

______. La Poesia lirica in Francia nel secolo XVI. Milano! cisalpino, 1971. Rosenfeld, Hellmut. Per mittelalterliche Totentanz. Monster: B&hlau-Verlag, 19 54.

Rousset, Jean. Anthologie de la poesie baroque francaise. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Paris: Colin, l9(>8.

______. "Les images de la nuit et de la lumi^re chez quelques poetes religieux," CAIEF, 10 (1958), pp. 58-68.

______. L 1Interieur et l'exterieur. Paris: Corti, 1968. ______. La Litterature francaise de I'&ge baroque. Paris: Corti, 1954. Saulnier, Verdun-L. "L"Oraison funebre au XVIe siecle," BHR, 10 (1948), pp. 122-157. Schmidt., Albert-Marie. Etudes sur le XVIe siecle. Paris: Albin Michel, 1967.

______. Jean Calvin et la tradition calvinienne. Paris: Seuil^ 1957.

______. "Quelques aspects de la poesie baroque protes­ tante," Revue des Sciences Humaines (1954), pp. 383- 392.

Screech, Michael. Marot evangelique. Geneve: Droz, 1967. Siciliano, Italo. Francois Villon et les themes poetigues du moyen &ge. Paris: Colin, T5T4^ Spencer, Theodore. Death and Elizabethan Tragedy. 19 36; rpt. Hew York: Pageant, 1960. Stone, Donald, Jr. France in the Sixteenth Century. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Tenenti, Alberto. "II Macabro nel simbolismo dell *umanesimo in Convegno internazionale di Studi umanistici. 4th Venice. Padova: Cedam, 1958. ______. II Senso della morte e l'amore della vita nel Rinascimento. Torino: Einaudi, 1957. ______. La Vie et la mort a travers l 1art du XVe siecle. Paris: Colin, 1952. Thils, Gustave. Theologie des realites terrestres. 2 vols. Bruges: Brouwer et cie, 37949. Toffanin, Giuseppe. Storia dell1umanesimo. 4 vols. Bologna: Zanichelli, 196TI Vianey, Joseph. Le Petrarquisme en France au XVle siecle. Paris: Masson, l9~09. Vos, Louis. "Calvin and the Christian Self Image: God's Noble Workmanship, A Wretched Worm, or a New Creature? in David E. Holwerda, ed. Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976, pp. 76-109. 238 Weber, Henri. La Creation poetique au XVIe siecle en France, vol. 2. Paris: Nizet, 1956. Wencelius, Leon. L'Esthetique de Calvin. Paris: Soci6t£ d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1537.

2anta, Leontine. La Renaissance du stoicisme au XVIe siecle. Paris: Champion, 1914. Ziegler, Philip. The Black Death. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Works by and about Sponde

Balmeas, Enea. "Per una lettura di Jean de Sponde," Cenobio, 8 (1959), pp. 542-564, Boase, Alan. "Du nouveau sur Jean de Sponde," Hercure, 312 (1951), pp. 641-647. . "Jean de Sponde, un po£te inconnu," Mesures, 5 (T539) , pp. 127-151. _ . "La Revolte de Sponde," Actes du Collogue l'Amiral de Coligny et son temps. Paris octobre 1972. Paris: Soc. de l'Hist. du Protestantisme fran^ais, 1974. _ . Vie de Sponde. Geneve: Droz, 1977. Brosilow, Rosalie. "Structure and Theme in Jean de Sponde's 'Stances de la mort'," RomN, 13 (1971), pp. 326-330. Brunelli, Giuseppe. Jean de Sponde. Catania: Squeglia, 1965. . "Jean de Sponde: Elevazione (II 'Sonnet VI')," SGym, 16 (1963), pp. 183-188. . "Jean de Sponde, 'Enoch et Elie' e il 'Sonnet XJr t " SFr, 6 (1958), pp. 429-431. ______. "La Response d'un catholigue" par Jean de Sponde. Catania: Castorina, 1967. Carron, Jean-Claude. "Jean de Sponde: 'Et quel bien de la Mort?'," FS, 31 (1977), pp. 129-138. Coombs, Ilona. "Baroque Elements in Jean de Sponde*s 'Stances de la Mort'," ECr, 1 (1961), pp. 86-90. 239 Cottrell, Robert. "Le Style anticic^ronien dans 1'oeuvre de Montaigne et de Sponde,” RR, 59 (1968), pp. 16-29. Droz, E. "Jean de Sponde et Pascal de l’Estocart," BHR, 13 (1951), pp. 312-326.

Dubois, Claude-Gilbert. "Autour d'un sonnet de Sponde: Recherche de l'element baroque," IX, 19 (1967), pp. 8 6-92.

Durand, Laura. "The Poetry of Jean de Sponde: A Critical Evaluation," Diss. Univ. of Michigan, 1963. . "Sponde and Donne: Lens and Prism," CL, 21 (1969), pp. 319-336.

Griffin, Robert. "Jean de Sponde's 'Sonnet de la Mort XII: The World, the Flesh and the Devil," RomN, 9 (1967), pp. 102-106.

______. "The Presence of Saint Paul in the Religious Itforks of Jean de Sponde," BHR, 27 (1965), pp. 644-652. Higman, Francis. "The Meditations of Jean de Sponde: A Book for the Times,” BHR, 25 (1966), pp. 564-582.

Jannot, Jean. "Les images dans les Meditations de Jean de Sponde," DAI 33:5126A-27A.

Koerber, Cecile. "Role de la constarce dans les 'Sonnets d'Amour' de Jean de Sponde," MLN, 60 (1965), pp. 575- 583.

Lechanteur, Jean. "Un sonnet de Jean de Sponde: 'Mais si faut-il mourirI ...,” Cahiers d ’analyse textuelle, 15 (L(&#), pp. 71-83. Loos, Erich. "Zur Rezeption eines 'vergessenen' Dichters: Die 'Sonnets de la mort' von Jean de Sponde," in Eberhard Leube and Ludwig Schrader, eds. Interpre­ tation und Vergleich: Festschrift fur Walter Pabst. Berlin: Schmidt7 1976, pp. 207-2277 Macchia, Giovanni. "II Dranuna di Sponde," in II Mito di Parigi. Torino: Einaudi, 1965.

_____ . "J. de Sponde e il problems della poesia barocca in Francia," in La Letteratura francese, I (1953), pp. 13-14. 240 Moddel, Paula. "Poetique et musique: Variations critiques autour d'un sonnet de Sponde,” DAI 36:6070A. Natoli, Glauco. "La Poesia amorosa e religiosa di Jean de Sponde," in Figure e problemi della cultura francese. Firenze: D'Anna, 1956.

Pizzorusso, Arnaldo. "Le 'Stances de la Mort' di Jean de Sponde,” in Studi in onore di Carlo Pellegrini. Torino: Soc. Ed. Intern, di Torino, 1963, pp. 193-201. Richter, Mario. "L'Ironia di Sponde," BHR, 32 (1970), pp. 423-424.

______. Jean de Sponde e la lingua poetica protestanti nel Cinguecento. Milano: Cisalpino-Goliardica, 1973. . "Lettura dei 'Sonnets de la mort' de Jean de Sponde,” BHR, 30 (1968), pp. 327-345.

______. "Il Processo spirituale e stilistico nella poesia di Jean de Sponde." Aevum, 36 (1962), pp. 284-318. . "Les Sonnets de la mort de Sponde," Aevum, 48 (1974), pp. 405-418. . "Sponde: 'Sonnets de la Mort X'," BHR, 38 (1976), pp. 73-76. Ruchon, Frangois. "Jean de Sponde et ses Meditations," BHR, 13 (1951), pp. 299-300.

Ruchon, Francois and Alan Boase. La Vie et 1'oeuvre de Jean de Sponde. Geneve: Cailler, 1949. Sponde, Jean de. Meditations avec un Essai de poemes Chre­ tiens. Introd. Alan Boase. Paris: Corti, 195T. ______. Oeuvre poetique. Introd. M. Arland. Paris: Dela- main et Boutelleau, 1945. ______. Poems of Love and Death: The French Text with English Translations^ Trans. Gilbert F. Cunningham. Introd. Alan J. Steele. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1964. ______. Poesies precedees d 1"Etudes sur les poesies de Jean de Sponde1*. Gen&ve: Cailler, 1949. 241

______. ’Sonnets on Love and Death1 by Jean de Sponde. Trans” and Ed. Robert Nugent. Painesvllle: Lake Erie College Press, 1962. Tetel, Marcel. "Mannerism in the Imagery of Sponde*s •Sonnets de la Mort'," RLMC, 21 (1968), pp. 5-12. Thiher, Roberta. "The Irreducible Tension in 'Stances de la Mort*," RomN, 11 (1969), pp. 375-380. Weidle, Wvladimir. "Jean de Sponde," Cahiers du Sud, 307 (1951), pp. 447-457. Weinburg, Kurt. "Verbal Labyrinths in Sponde*s 'Stances' and 'Sonnets de la mort'," ECr, 16 (1976), pp. 134- 152.

Wilson, David S. "The Language of the French Baroque: Levels of Structure in the Poetry of Jean de Sponde, Jean de la Ceppede, and Theophile de Viau," DAI, 31: 6571A.

Works by and about Chassignet

Arens, J.C. "J.-B. Chassignet of Seneca?" Neophil, 47 (1963), pp. 73-76.

Balmas, Eneas. "Chassignet, poeta della 'mollesse'," II Verri, 36 (1959), pp. 46-58. Bienaime, Dora Rigo. "Chassignet sulle orme della morte," in Gr£vin poeta satirico. Pisa: Giardini, 1967, pp. 173-225.

Blanchard, Andre. "J.-B. Chassignet," Arts et Lettres, 4 (1946), pp. 35-47.

Chassignet, Jean-Baptiste. Le Mespris de la vie et consola­ tion contre la mort. Choix de sonnets publie par Armand Muller. Gen$ve: Droz. 1953.

______. Le Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort. Ed. Hans-Joachim Lop£. GenSve: Droz, 1967. Doohen, John. "A Comparative Study of the Mespris of Chassignet and the Theoremes of La Ceppfede. *' DAI 31:4709A. 242 Grise, Catherine. "Jean-Baptiste Chassignet and Justus Lipsius," Vivarium, 13 (1975), pp. 153-164. ______. "Jean-Baptiste Chassignet's Debt to Seneca," BHR, 38 (1976), pp. 357-364. Hobert, Erhard. "Interpretstionen franzosischer Barock- poesie: Chassignet-DesBarreaux-Dehenault," GRM, 27 (1977), pp. 376-390. Leake, Roy E., Jr. "Jean-3aptiste Chassignet et Montaigne," BHR, 23 (1961), pp. 282-295. Leiner, Wolfgang.^"Ronsard et Chassignet devant le spectacle de la mort: etude comparative de deux sonnets," KRQ, 22 (1975), pp. 491-515. . "Das Schauspiel des Todes," ZFSL, 84 (1974), pp. 210-235. McGowan, Margaret. "Prose Inspiration for Poetry: J.B. Chassignet," in The French Renaissance and its Heri­ tage: Essays Presented to Alan M. Boasei London: Methuen, 1968, pp. 139-165. Muller, Armand. "Chassignet et la Contre-reforme," CAIEF, 10 (1958), pp. 25-29. . Un Poete religieux du XVIe s.: Jean-Baptiste Cfiassignet, 15?8 (?) - 1635(7). Paris: Foulon, T951. Ortali, Raymond. Un Poete de la mort: Jean-Baptiste Chas­ signet. Gendve: Droz, 1968. Richter, Mario. "Due temi di Ph. DuPlessis-Mornay e due sonetti di J.-B. Chassignet," SFr, 6 (1962), pp. 276- 279. . "Una fonta calvinis^a di J.B. Chassignet," BHR, T^~ (1964), pp. 341-362.

Ruchon, Francois. "Jean-Baptiste Chassignet: 'Le Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort'," BHR, 15 (1953), pp. 57-67. Wagner, Heinz. Die Thematik und der Stil im 'Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort' von Jean-Baptis~te Chassignet. Bern: Herbert Lang, 1972. APPENDIX APPENDIX

The "Stances de la Morfc" and "Sonnets sur le Mesme Subject" of Jean de Sponde

"Stances de la Mort" 51 Mes yeux, ne lancez plus vostre pointe esblouye Sur les brillans rayons de la flammeuse vie, Sillez-vous, couvrez-vous de tenebres, mes yeux: Non pas pour estouffer vos vigueurs coustumi&res. 5 Car je vous feray voir de plus vives lumieres, Mais sortant de la nuict vous n'en verrez que mieux. 52 Je m'ennuye de vivre, et mes tendres annees, Gemissant sous le faix de bien peu de journees, Me trouvent au milieu de ma course casse: 10 Si n'est-ce pas du tout par d^faut de courage, Mais je prends, comme un port, a la fin de l'orage, Desdain de l'advenir pour 1'horreur du passe. 53 J'ay veu comme le Monde embrasse ses delices, Et je n ’embrasse rien au Monde que supplices, 15 Ses gays Printemps me sont de funestes Hyvers, Le gracieux Zephir de son repos me semble Un Aquilon de peine, il s'asseure et je tremble; O que nous avons done de desseins bien divers I 54 Ce Monde qui croupist ainsi dedans soy-mesme, 7TT N ’esloigne point jamais son coeur de ce qu'il ayme, Et ne peut rien aymer que sa deformite. Mon esprit, au contraire, hors du Monde emporte, Et me faict approcher des Cieux en telle sorte Que j 'en fay desormais 1'amour a leur Beaute. 55 Mais je sens dedans moy quelque chose qui gronde, Qui faict contre le Ciel le partisan du Monde, Qui noircist ses clartez d'un ombrage touffu. L'Esprit qui n'est que feu de ses desirs m'enflamme, Et la chair qui n*est qu'Eau pleut des Eaux sur ma /flamme, 3 0 Mais ces eaux-la pourtant n ’esteignent point ce feu.

244 245 56 La chair, des vanitez de ce Monde pipge, Veut estre dans sa vie encor enveloppee, Et 1'Esprit pour mieux vivre en souhaite la mort. Ces partis m'ont reduict en un peril extreme: 35 Mais, mon Dieu, pren parti dans ces partis toy-mesme, Et je me rengeray du parti le plus fort. 57 Sans ton ayde, mon Dieu, ceste chair orgueilleuse Rendra de ce combat I 1issue perilleuse, Car elle est en son r^gne, et 1 ’autre est estranger: 40 La chair sent le doux fruit des voluptez presentes, L'Esprit ne semble avoir qu'un espoir des absentes. Et le fruict pour 1*espoir ne se doit point changer. 58 Et puis si c'est ta main qui fagonna le Monde, Dont la riche BeautS a ta Beaute responde, 4 5 La chair croit que le Tout pour elle fust parfaict: Tout fust parfaict pour elle, et elle d'avantage Se vante d*estre, 6 Dieu, de tes mains un ouvrage, He! deffairois-tu done ce que tes mains ont faict? 59 Voyla comme 1'effort de la charnelle ruse *T?> De son bien pour son mal ouvertement abuse, En danger que 1 'Esprit ne ploye en fin soubz luy. Vien done, et mets la main, mon Dieu, dedans ce /trouble, Et la force a 1*Esprit par ta force redouble, Un bon droit a souvent besoin d'un bon appuy. 510 Ne crain point, mon Esprit, d'entrer en ceste Lice, Car la chair ne combat ta puissante justice Que d'un bouclier de verre et d'un bras de roseau: Dieu t ’armera de fer pour piler ce beau verre. Pour casser ce roseau; et la fin de la guerre 60 Sera pour toy la vie, et pour elle un Tombeau. 511 C'est assez endure que de ceste vermine La superbe insolence S ta grandeur domine, Tu luy dois commander, cependant tu luy sers: Tu dois purger la chair, et ceste chair te souille; 65 Voire, de te garder un desir te chatouille, Mais cuidant te garder, mon Esprit, tu te perds. 512 Je te sens bien esmeu de quelque inquietude, Quand tu viens a songer a ceste servitude, Mais ce songe s'estouffe au sommeil de ce corps: 70 Que si la voix de Dieu te frappe les oreilles, De ce profond sommeil soudain tu te resveilles: Mais quand elle a passe soudain tu te rendors. 246 513 Tu surmontes tantost, mais tantost tu succombes, Tu vas tantost au Ciel mais tantost tu retombes, 75 Et le Monde t'enlasse encore de ses destours: C'est bien plus, car tu crains ce que plus tu d£sires, Ton Esp€rance me sine a pour toy des raartyres, Et bref tu vois ton Bien, mais tu suis le rebours. 514 Encor ce peu de temps que tu mets k resoudre &T Ton depart de la Terre, un nuage de poudre, Que tu pousses en l'air, enveloppe tes pas: J'ay bien veu sauteler les bouillons de ton zele, J'ay veu fendre le vent aux cerceaux de ton aisle, Mais tu t'es refroidi pour revoler en bas. 515 Helas! que cerches-tu dans ces relants abysmes Que tu noircis sans fin des horreurs de tes crimes? He! que tastonnes-tu dans cette obscurite, Ou ta clarte, du vent de Dieu mesme allumee, Ne pousse que les flots d'une espaisse fumee, 90 Et contrainct a la mort son immortalite? 516 Quelle plaine en l'Enfer de ces pointus encombres? Quel beau jour en la nuict de ces affreuses ombres? Quel doux largue au aestroict de tant de vents battu? Repren coeur, mon Esprit, repren nouvelle force. 95 Toy, mouelle d'un festu, perce a travers 1'ecorce, Et, vivant, fay mourir l'escorce, et le festu. 517 Appren mesme du Temps, que tu cerches d'estendre, Qui coule, qui se perd, et ne te peut attendre. Tout se haste, se perd, et coule avec ce Temps: 100 Ou trouveras-tu done quelque longue duree? Ailleurs: mais tu rie peux sans la fin mesuree De ton Mai, commencer le Bien que tu pretens.

518 Ton Mai, c'est ta prison, et ta prison encore Ce corps dont le soucy jour et nuict te devore: 105 II faut rompre, il faut rompre en fin ceste prison. Tu seras lors au Calme, au beau jour, a la plaine! Au lieu de tant de vents, tant de nuict, tant de geine, Qui battent, qui noircist, qui presse ta raison. 519 O la plaisante Mort qui nous pousse a la vie, rnr Vie qui ne craint plus d*estre encore ravie! O le vivre cruel qui craint encor la Mort! Ce vivre est une Mer ou le bruyant orage Nous menace a tous coups d'un asseure naufrage: Faisons, faisons naufrage, et jettons-nous au Port. 247 520 Je scay bien, mon Esprit, que cest air, et ceste onde, Ceste Terre, et ce Feu, ce Ciel qui ceint le Monde, Enfle, abysme, retient, brusle, estreint tes desirs: Tu vois je ne s^ay quoy de plaisant et aymable, Mais le dessus du Ciel est bien plus estimable, 120 En de plaisans amours, et d'aymables plaisirs. 521 Ces Amours, ces Plaisirs, dont les troupes des Anges Caressent du grand Dieu les merveilles estranges Aux accords rapportez de leurs diverses voix, Sont bien d'autres plaisirs, amours d*autre Nature. 125 Ce que tu vois ici n ’en est pas la peinture, Ne fust-ce rien sinon pour ce que tu le vois. 522 Invisibles beautez, Delices invisibles! Ravissez-moi du creux de ces manoirs horribles, Fondez-moy ceste chair et rompez-moy ces os: 130 II faut passer vers vous a travers mon martire, Mon martyre en mourant: car helas! je desire Commencer au travail et finir au repos. 523 Mais dispose, Mon Dieu, ma tremblante impuissance A ces pesans fardeaux de ton obeyssance: 135 Si tu veux que je vive encore, je le veux. Et quoy? m'envies-tu ton bien que je souhaite? Car ce ne m'est que mal que la vie imparfaite, Qui languit sur la terre, et qui vivroit aux Cieux. 524 Non, ce ne m'est que mal, mais mal plein d'esperance 140 Qu'apres les durs ennuis de ma longue souffranee, Tu m'estendras ta main, mon Dieu, pour me guerir. Mais tandis que je couve une si belle envie Puis qu'un Bien est le bout, et le but de ma vie, Appren-moy de bien vivre, afin de bien mourir. "Sonnets sur le Mesme Subject"

I

Mortels, qui des mortels avez prins vostre vie. Vie qui meurt encor dans le tombeau du Corps: Vous qui rannmoncelez vos thresors des thrSsors De ceux dont par la mort la vie fust ravie:

5 Vous qui voyant de morts leur mort entresuyvie, N'avez point de maisons que les maisons des morts, Et ne sentez pourtant de la mort un remors, D 'ou vient qu'au souvenir son souvenir s'oublie? Est-ce que vostre vie adorant ses douceurs 10 Deteste des pensers de la mort les horreurs, Et ne puisse envier une contraire envie? Mortels, chacun accuse, et j'excuse le tort Qu'on forge en vostre oubly. Un oubly d'une mort Vous montre un souvenir d'une eternelle vie.

II Mais si faut-il mourir, et la vie orgueilleuse, Qui brave de la mort, sentira ses fureurs, Les Soleils h&ljteront ces journalieres fleurs, Et le temps crevera ceste ampoulle venteuse.

5 Ce beau flambeau qui lance une flamme fumeuse, Sur le verd de la cire esteindra ses ardeurs, L'huyle de ce Tableau ternira ses couleurs, Et ces flots se rompront 5 la rive escumeuse. J'ay veu ces clairs esclairs passer devant mes yeux 10 Et le tonnerre encor qui gronde dans les Cieux, oil d'une ou d'autre part esclattera l'orage.

J'ay veu fondre la neige et ses torrents tarir, Ces lyons rugissans je les ay veus sans rage, Vivez, homines, vivez, mais si faut-il mourir. 249

III

Hal que j'en voy bien peu songer a ceste mort, Et si chacun la cerche aux dangers de la guerre, Tantost dessus la Mer, tantost dessus la Terre, Mais las! dans son oubly tout le monde s'endort. 5 De la Mer on s'attend ^ ressurgir au Port, Sur la Terre aux effrois dont l'ennemy s'atterre: Bref, chacun pense a vivre, et ce vaisseau de verre S'estime estre un rocher bien solide et bien fort. Je voy ces vermisseaux bastir dedans leurs plaines 10 Les monts de leurs desseins, dont les cimes liautaines Semblent presque esgaler leurs coeurs ambitieux.

Grants, ou poussez-vous ces beaux anas de poudre? Vous les amoncelez? Vous les verrez dissouldre: IIs montent de la Terre? Ils tomberont des Cieux.

IV Pour qui tant de travaux? Pour vous? de qui l'haleine Pantelle en la poictrine et traine sa langueur? Vos desseings sont bien loin du bout de leur vigueur Et vous estes bien pr£s du bout de votre peine. 5 Je vous accorde encore une emprise certaine, Qui de soy court du Temps l'incertaine rigueur. Si perdrez-vous enfin ce fruit et ce labeur, Le Mont est foudroye plus souvent que la plaine.

Ces Sceptres enviez, ces Throsnes debattus, 10 Champ superbe du camp de vos fieres vertus, Sont de l'avare mort le debat et l'envie. Mais pourquoy ce souci? mais pourquoy cest effort? Sgavez-vous bien que c'est le train de cest vie? La fuite de la Vie, et la course a la Mort. 250

V

Helas! contez vos jours; les jours qui sont passez Sont desja morts pour vous, ceux qui viennent encore Mourront tous sur le point de leur naissante Aurore, Et moytie de la vie est moytie du decez. 5 Ces d€sirs orgueilleux pesle-mesle entassez, Ce coeur outrecuide que vostre bras implore, Cest indomptable bras que vostre coeur adore, La Mort les met en geine, et leux* fait le procez. Mille flots, milie escueils, font teste a vostre route, 10 Vous rompez a travers, mais a la fin sans doubte Vous serez le butin des escueils, et des flots. Une heure vous attend, un moment vous espie, Bourreaux desnaturez de vostre propre vie, Qui vit avec la peine, et meurt sans le repos.

VI Tout le monde se plainct de la cruelle envie Que la Nature porte aux longueurs de nos jours; Hommes, vous vous trompez, ils ne sont pas trop cours, Si vous vous mesurez au pied de vostre vie. 5 Mais quoy? je n'entens point quelqu'un de vous qui die: Je me veux despestrer de ces facheux destours II faut que je revole a ces plus beaux sejours, Ou sejourne des Temps 1 1entresuitte infinie. Beaux sejours, loin de i'oeil, prez de 11entendement, 10 Au prix de qui ce Temps ne monte qu'un moment, Au prix de qui le jour est un ombrage sombre, Vous estes mon desir; et ce jour, et ce Temps, Ou le monde s'aveugle et prend son passetemps, Ne me seront jamais qu'un moment, et gu1une Ombre. 251

VII Tandis que dedans l'air un autre air je respire, Et qu'il l'envy du feu j'allume mon desir, Que j'enfle contre lfeau les eaux de mon plaisir, Et que me colle a Terre un importun martyre, 5 Cest air tousjours m'anime, et le desir m'attire, Je recerche a monceaux les plaisirs a choisir, Mon martyre esleve me vient encor saisir. Et de tous mes travaux le dernier est le pire. A la fin je me trouve en un estrange esmoy, 10 Car ces divers effets ne sont que contre moy; C'est mourir que de vivre en ceste peine extreme. Voila comme la vie a 1*abandon s'espard, Chaque part de ce Monde en emporte sa part, Et la moindre a la fin est celle de nous mesme.

VIII Voulez-vous voir ce traict qui si roide s'eslance Dedans l'air qu'il poursuit au partir de la main? II monte, il monte, il pend, mais helas* tout soudain II retombe, il retombe, et perd sa violence. 5 C'est le train de noz jours, c'est ceste outrecuidance Que ces monstres de Terre allaittent de leur sein, Qui baise ores des monts le sommet plus haultain, Ores sur les rochers de ces vallons s'offence. Voire, ce sont nos jours: quand tu seras monte 10 A ce point de hauteur, a ce point arreste Qui ne se peut forcer, il te faudra descendre. Le traict est empenne, l'air qu'il va poursuyvant, C'est le champ de 1*orage: h6! commence d'apprendre Que ta vie est de Plume, et le monde de Vent. 252

IX Qui sont, qui sont ceux-l&, dont le coeur idolatre, Se jette aux pieds du Monde, et flatte ses honneurs? Et qui sont ces valets, et qui sont ces Seigneurs? Et ces Ames d'Ebene, et ces Faces d'Albastre? 5 Ces masques desguisez, dont la troupe folastre, S'amuse a caresser je ne s^ay quels donneurs De fumees de Court, et ces entrepreneurs De vaincre encor le Ciel qu'ils ne peuvent combattre? Qui sont ces lovayeurs qui s'esloignent du Port? 10 Hommagers S la Vie, et felons a la Mort, Dont l'estoille est leur Bien, le vent leur Fantasie? Je vogue en mesme mer, et craindroy de perir, Si ce n'est que je sjay que ceste mesme vie N'est rien que le fanal qui me guide au mourir.

X Mais si mon foible corps, qui comme l'eau s'escoule (Et s'affermit encor plus long temps qu'un plus fortj S 1avance a tous moments vers le sueil de la mort, Et que mal dessus mal dans le tombeau me roule, 5 Pourquoy tiendray-je roide a ce vent qui saboule Le Sablon de mes jours d'un invincible effort? Faut-il pas resveiller cette Ame qui s'endort, De peur qu'avec le corps la Tempeste la foule? Laisse dormir ce corps, mon Ame, et quant Ik toy 10 Veille, veille, et te tien alerte a tout effroy, Garde que ce Larron ne te trouve endormie: Le point de sa venue est pour nous incertain, Mais, mon Ame, il suffist que cest Autheur de Vie Nous cache bien son temps, mais non pas son dessein. 253

XI

Et quel bien de la Mort? ou la vermine ronge Tous ces nerfs, tous ces os? ou l 1 Ame se depart De ceste orde charogne, et se tient a l'escart, Et laisse un souvenir de nous comme d'un songe? 5 Ce Corps, qui dans la vie en ses grandeurs se plonge. Si soudain dans la mort estouffera sa part, Et sera ce beau Nom qui tant partout s'espard. Borne de Vanite, couronue de Mensonge. A quoy ceste Ame, helasJ et ce corps d§sunis, 10 Du commerce du monde hors du monde bannis? A quoy ces noeuds si beaux que le Trespas deslie? Pour vivre au Ciel il faut mourir plustost ici: Ce n'en est pas pourtant le sentier raccourcy, Mais quoy? nous n'avons plus ny d*Henoch, ni d'Elie.

XII Tout s'enfle contre moy, tout m'assaut, tout me tente, Et le Monde et la Chair, et l'Ange revolts, Dont l'onde, dont 1*effort, dont le charme invente Et m'abysme, Seigneur, et m'esbranle, et m'enchante. 5 Quelle nef, quel appuy, quelle oreille dormante. Sans peril, sans tomber, et sans estre enchante, Me donras-tu? Ton Temple ou vit ta Sainctete, Ton invincible main et ta voix si constante. Et quoy? mon Dieu, je sens combattre maintefois 10 Encore avec ton Temple, et ta main, et ta voix, Cest Ange revolt^, ceste Chair, et ce Monde. Mais ton Temple pourtant, ta main, ta voix sera La nef, 1*appuy, 1'oreille, ou ce charme perdra, Ou mourra cest effort, oii se rompra ceste Onde.