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  • Villon entre mythe et poésie: actes du colloque organisé les 15, 16 et 17 décembre 2006 à la Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris par Michael Freeman, Jean Dérens et Jean Dufournet
  • David A. Fein
Villon entre mythe et poésie: actes du colloque organisé les 15, 16 et 17 décembre 2006 à la Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris par Michael Freeman, Jean Dérens et Jean Dufournet. Textes édités par Jean Dufournet et Marcel Faure. (Colloques, congrès et conférences sur le Moyen Âge, 9). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011. 386 pp.

The proceedings in this volume are taken from the third, and most recent, in a series of conferences dedicated to the work of François Villon, inaugurated in 1989 to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the first printing of the poet's Testament. Regrettably, Michael Freeman, one of the trio of scholars responsible for staging the conferences, died shortly before the publication of the latest volume. This collection of twenty-three essays, all written in French, represents a wide range of topics and perspectives from some of the leading scholars in Villon studies. Michael Edwards, in 'Villon et la cloche de Sorbonne', explores philosophical dimensions of the Lais, with particular attention to the role of absence, interruption, and entroubli in the poem. In his provocative paper 'Mais pourquoi le tiers Calixte?', Michael Freeman focuses on the 'Ballade des seigneurs du temps jadis', and in particular on the implications of the initial reference to Pope Calixte III, who died in 1458 shortly before the composition of Villon's Testament, a reference that until now has attracted very little critical attention. Philippe Ménard, in 'Réflexions sur la "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" de Villon', offers a synthesis of the work of Spitzer, Frappier, Siciliano, Taylor, Baumgartner, and other critics who have studied the ballade. His extended commentary on the refrain is the most interesting and important portion of the article. Admitting a fascination with 'La Ballade pour Robert d'Estouteville', spanning a period of more than forty years since the first article he published on Villon in 1964, Jean Dufournet explores some of the subtleties and subtexts of the ballade, and argues for its importance as a tribute to conjugal love, set in sharp contrast to the sexual vulgarity prevalent throughout the Testament. In 'Marot, éditeur de Villon', Claude Thiry focuses on Marot's use of textual sources, and also on various instances of editorial intervention. In one of the most fascinating of all the contributions, Jean-Marie Privat studies the iconographic implications of the first artistic representation of Villon in Pierre Levet's 1489 edition. (Despite the importance of this woodcut, it has never been systematically studied.) In 'Les Villonneries d'Algernon Charles Swinburne: Villon traduit par un Pre-Raphaélite', Jane H. M. Taylor explains Swinburne's attraction to Villon, and certain important aspects of [End Page 387] Villon's poetry to which he introduced his Victorian audience. This volume, including work by distinguished as well as emerging scholars, and covering a remarkable range of topics, represents another important contribution to Villon studies, under the guidance of Freeman, Dérens, and Dufournet.

David A. Fein
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
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