Latently Gallic: Locus amœnus and the Prurient Verse of the Mature Pontus de Tyard

Pontus de Tyard (c. 1521–1605), who consistently figures among the core of Pierre de Ronsard’s oft-changing list of Pléiade poets, is nonetheless one of the less frequently studied.¹ This comparative lack of critical attention has led to reductive and distorted classifications drawn mainly from Tyard’s earliest publications and biographical details. Given the proximity of the young Mâconnais lyricist to the école lyonnaise of Maurice Scève and his friendship with publisher Jean de Tournes (whose Lyon-based press produced both Il Petrarca in 1545 and Tyard’s Erreurs amoureuses in 1549), Tyard is often seen as a strict, orthodox adherent of Petrarchan giovenile errore and innamoramento. Bearing resonant echoes of Petrarch and Scève, the bulk of the first two editions of Tyard’s Erreurs amoureuses (1549, 1551) follow a Neoplatonic thematics, favor the sonnet and carry a certain lyrical gravitas. As his most celebrated and commented work, the critical emphasis on the Petrarchist dimension of the Erreurs has had the effect of distorting both our understanding of Tyard and his poetic influences. As François Rouget laments, “Pour beaucoup de critiques, Pontus de Tyard restera le poète des Erreurs amoureuses, œuvre de jeunesse correspondant le plus fidèlement au Canzoniere de Pétrarque.”²

Others, citing his cosmological treatises and philosophical engagement with the Neoplatonism of Ficino, Pico and Hebreo, classify Tyard “[s]elon les catégories de la Renaissance [. . .] à la fois un poète et un philosophe,”³ with the latter often coloring critical perception of the former. Additionally, as recently illustrated in the title of Pontus de Tyard: poète, philosophe, théologien,⁴ critics also focus on Tyard’s ecclesiastical calling, as he was named évêque de Chalon-sur-Saône in 1578, an appointment he would hold for two decades.⁵ When contrasted with the Epicureanism of Ronsard or the nationalistic chauvinism of Du Bellay, Tyard has traditionally been considered the most serious, Italianate, Neoplatonic and morally austere of the Pléiade poets. Eclipsed from view is the earthy nature of Tyard’s mature (post-1555) verse poetry. Two Tyard poems in particular, the “Mâconnais Baphire”⁶ sonnet (XXIII from the third book of the Erreurs amoureuses) and the ode to “Les Roses de son Isle” (from his Vers liriques), illustrate an essential undercurrent that can best be described as Gallic. In the sonnet, Tyard grafts the quintessentially Petrarchan form into his native Bissy—not necessarily to glorify the French language, as did Du Bellay, but to consecrate his own regional Mâconnais as a poetic locus amœnus. Set on an island rose garden, the ode marries classical mythology to Gallic tendencies, as we perceive a pronounced element of eroticism that many have largely overlooked.⁷ Not only does a re-evaluation of Tyard’s mature verse push back against labels of Petrarchan sobriety and chastity, it also nuances the question of emergent notions of local and national identity and the nature of Gallicism.

I. Renaissance Gallicism, Terroir, and Tyardian Wanderings between Lyon and Paris

My use of the modifier “Gallic” carries with it familiar medieval notions of a light-hearted, ribald joie-de-vivre, infused with “that pungent blend of naïveté and cunning, of heavenly aspirations and earthly appetites,”⁸ which are staples of French literature from Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes to Jean de Meun, Rutebeuf, Villon, and Rabelais. However, central to Gallicism, I would argue, is also a pronounced attachment to and fierce sense of preservation of terroir. A modern term generally reserved for agriculture or gastronomy, the idea of terroir is also befitting a Gallicism founded on identification with ancestral holdings and a belief that individuality derives from an existential relationship with one’s geographical location.⁹ In the Renaissance, this proves especially true when we consider the widely spread practice among poets of signing verse production with a mark of locale.¹⁰ That Tyard readily adopted the label of “seigneur de Bissy” (or “Bissiani”) for his works is indicative of a profound sense of...