BELLEAU, REMY (c. 1527-1577)

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 696 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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BELLEAU, REMY (c. 1527-1577) , French poet, and member of the Pleiade (see DAURAT), was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou about 1527. He studied with Ronsard and others under Jean Daurat at the College de Coqueret. He was attached to Rene de Lorraine, marquis d'Elbceuf, in the expedition against Naples in 1557, where he did good military service. On his return he was made tutor to the

young

Charles, marquis d'Elbceuf, who, under Belleau's training became a

great

GREAT

patron of the muses. Belleau was an enthusiast for the new learning and joined the group of

young

poets with ardour. In 1556 he published the first translation of Anacreon which had appeared in French. In the next year he published his first collection of poems, the Petites inventions, in which he describes stones, insects and

flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

. The Amours et nouveaux echanges des pierres precieuses . . (1576) contains perhaps his most characteristic

work

WORK

. Its title is quoted in the lines of Ronsard's epitaph on his tomb:
" Luy mesme a basti son tombeau
Dedans ses Pierres Precieuses."
He wrote commentaries to Ronsard's Amours in z56o, notes which evinced delicate taste and prodigious learning. Like Ronsard and

Joachim

JOACHIM, JOSEPH (1831—1907)

Du Bellay, he was extremely deaf. His days passed peacefully in the midst of his books and friends, and he died on the 6th of March 1577. He was buried in the

nave

NAVE

of the Grands Augustins at Paris, and was borne to the tomb on
the pious shoulders of four poets, Ronsard, J. A. de Ball, Philippe Desportes and Amadis Jamyn. His most considerable

work

WORK

is La Bergerie (1565-1572), a

pastoral

PASTORAL (from Lat. pastor, a shepherd)

prose

PROSE

and verse, written in imitation of

Sannazaro

SANNAZARO, JACOPO (1458-1530)

. The lines on April in the Bergerie are well known to all readers of French poetry. Belleau was the French Herrick, full of picturesqueness, warmth and colour. His skies drop

flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

and all his air is perfumed, and this voluptuous sweetness degenerates sometimes into licence. Extremely popular in his own age, he shared the fate of his friends, and was undeservedly forgotten in the next. Regnier said: "Belleau ne parle pas comme on parle a la ville "; and his lyrical beauty was lost on the trim 17th century. His complete works were collected in 1578, and contain, besides the works already mentioned, a comedy entitled La Reconnue, in short rhymed lines, which is not without humour and life, and a comic masterpiece, a macaronic poem on the religious wars, Dictamen metrificunt de belle huguenotico et reistroruml piglamine ad sod ales (Paris, no date).
The Euvres completes (3 vols., 1867) of Remy Belleau were edited by A. Gouverneur; and his Euvres poetiques (2 vols., 1879) by M. Ch. Marty-Laveaux in his Pleiade frangaise; see also C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Tableau historique et critique de la poesie frangaise au X VIe siecle (ed. 1876), i. pp. 155-16o, and ii. pp. 296 seq.

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