More Du Bellay Thoughts

What?

Les Regrets (1558) : 191 sonnets, all bemoaning the poet’s “exile” in Rome and expressing his longing for home (See Sonnets 31 88, and 130, where the poet compares his situation to that of Ulysses.) I like Melanie’s suggestion that some of the sonnets (specifically 87-88) “extend the theme of forced exile and the problem of being forcibly assimilated into..a...society...that grabs onto the outsider and makes him or her change.” This can be seen, for example, in Sonnets 10,18 and 22, when he is dialoguing with Ronsard about his change of language.

Who?

Joachim Du Bellay (1522? -1560). Du Bellay was one of the key members of the Pléiade, a group of poets active from about 1549-1572. The core members (known as the “cinq astres”) were: Pierre Ronsard (the “rock star,” as Holly says), Joachim Du Bellay, Jean-Antoine de Baïf, Etienne Jodelle, and Pontus de Tyard. Other poets that were included in their number at various times were: La Péruse, Des Autels, Pelletier, Belleau, and Dorat.

Where and When?

The poet composed them while in Rome from 1553-57. Maybe the location was his problem. The Romans do like to complain (consider the long, elegaic tradition...), and when in Rome...

Certainly, “ DuBellay has.. a very ambivalent relationship with Rome signified as a body of learned texts and as a modern city,” as Melanie suggested. A good example of this is Sonnet 32. He is, at once, thrilled with the glory of his surroundings and yet so filled with regret and homesickness that it is still to him a “malheureux voyage” (see also, of course, Les Antiquités de Rome). Also, Sonnet 82-83 describes Rome as a city.
His only comfort seems to be the knowledge that he does not merit this twist of fate, as he explains in Sonnet 43. Although, what do you all think of Sonnet 94, in which he concludes “Heureux...qui a pu sans peler vivre trois ans à Rome!” Is this completely sarcastic, or do you think he is seeing a silver lining in the clouds above?

How and Why?

How can one poet write 191 sonnets on what appears to be basically the same subject? There seems to be, as Holly suggests, “significant repetition...not only in the themes but in the structure.” I would be curious to know more about what you mean by this, Holly. I mean, they’re obviously all sonnets, but what else are you seeing structurally?
I searched for my undergrad notes on Du Bellay, and didn’t find as much as I had hoped (that “throw it in a box” filing technique isn’t really doin’ it for me.) However, here is a layout of the themes of the first ten sonnets that might be helpful:

1. Je ne veulx point fouiller au seing de la nature

-A refusal of larger questions

2. Un plus scavant que moy (Paschal) ira songer

-A refusal of great fame, fortune, and labour

3. N’estant, comme je suis, encor exercité

-A refusal to put in the labor that the “fureur” demands

(in comparison with Ronsard)

4. Je ne veulx fueilleter les exemplaires grecs,

-A refusal to imitate (while, all the time, he is imitating)

-A refusal of grand arguments

5. Ceulx qui sont amoureux, leurs amours chanteront

-Whatever people do, they act according to their character

6. Las où est maintenant ce mespris de Fortune?

-Fortune is mistress over poet now (Cf. Sonnet 25, 51, 96)

– the Muses/inspiration have run away

7. Ce pendant que la court mes ouvrages lisoit

-The success of the poet in the context of the Court

-Lack of inspiration, “fureur”

8. Ne t’esbahis Ronsard, la moitié de mon ame

-No success in the Court

-Ronsard’s enviable position back in France (Cf. Sonnet 20)

9. France mère des arts, des armes, & des lois

-France as Mother and Protector has abandoned him

10. Ce n’est le fleuve Thusque au superbe rivage

-The language change from French to Latin

You are more than welcome to disagree with me, but to my way of thinking, Du Bellay is quite varied in the subjects that he treats. In just these first ten sonnets alone, he examines: the arts and sciences (also, see Sonnet 32), the history of language (which is, of course, is elaborated on in his Défense written a few years before), patriotism, fate, and also issues that he and his contemporaries faced as poets (patronage, the question of invention/originality, faithfulness to the classical tradition that they were just re-discovering as humanists, lack of inspiration). With a consistent backdrop of “regrets” and “ennuis,” it would seem that Du Bellay has constructed a work in line with the Pléiade’s project of classification of all learned disciplines and traditions into a universal picture. For this reason, his “Je ne veux point chercher l’esprit de l’univers” (Sonnet 1) is highly ironic. The whole set of poems actually hangs on irony; especially his claims that he lacks inspiration. (Seeing that he somehow bangs out 191 perfectly good sonnets.)
To further examine the reasons and methods of Du Bellay in constructing this body of work, I suggest that we continue to discuss a few poems in detail, after Melanie’s excellent example.

Sonnet 4

Melanie: “Specifically, I am interested in the possible meanings of the last two lines "Ceux qui par leurs ecrits se vantent de revivre/Et se tirer tout vifs dehors des monuments" (13-14).”

That is, at the end of the 4^th sonnet, he introduces this group of people (writers, evidently), who have the audacity to think that they can survive without the support of the ancients. Again, this is incredibly ironic to me, since it would seem from the first two lines of the sonnet that Du Bellay is distancing himself from (among other things), the classical authors.

In my mind, the “ceux qui” could also refer to the anaphoric “ceux qui”s in the next sonnet as well. What do you all think of that?

Sonnet 169

I find it curious that Du Bellay juxtaposes “fortune” with “vertu,” as if they are opposites. At the very least, he proposes “vertu” as an antidote to “fortune.” What does he mean by “vertu?

I will probably add more later, but there’s plenty of questions to get us started, I think!