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  • Clément Marot et les métamorphoses de l'auteur à l'aube de la Renaissance
  • Bernd Renner
Florian Preisig . Clément Marot et les métamorphoses de l'auteur à l'aube de la Renaissance. Cahiers d' Humanisme et Renaissance 71. Geneva: Librairie Droz S. A., 2004. 186 pp. index. append. bibl. €48. ISBN: 2-600-00919-1.

Interest in Clément Marot, arguably the greatest French pre-Pléiade poet, has been rekindled thanks to two colloquia to commemorate the five-hundredth anniversary of his birth in 1996. Florian Preisig's study, based on the author's 2001 doctoral dissertation, is a fine example of this new vitality of Marot studies and contributes to the long overdue rectification of the traditional, oversimplistic assessment of a poet and his disciples, whose work had long been overshadowed by the imposing stature of the Pléiade and, consequently, had been considered as consisting essentially of elegant but artistically inferior court poetry ("badinage marotique"). As the author states correctly, Marot's inferior status in French letters is largely due to intense lobbying by contemporary religious conservatives as well as by the Pléiade, groups whose privileged positions would have suffered from a full recognition of Marot's significance.

The three chapters of the study (1. "Entre je et nous"; 2. "L'Image de l'auteur"; 3. "De l'Artisan au poète inspiré") make a strong case in favor of the poet's outstanding importance in the literary landscape, particularly with regard to the development of the concept of auctoritas, a pivotal notion in the emancipation [End Page 950] of the modern author. Marot was deeply involved in the publication process of his writings, inscribed a highly personal voice in his text, created a network of literary alliances, and did not shrink from asserting an intellectual independence that was due to his elevated status of an inspired poet, even if that attitude involved criticizing the powerful. This brief overview of Marot's agenda, which Preisig develops in a very convincing fashion, shows the potential dangers for the aforementioned adversaries that would emanate from a full recognition of the poet's impact. Not only did Marot develop many of the notions that the group led by Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim Du Bellay would later use as the foundation of their "revolution" of French letters — the creative imitation of Greco-Latin models or the elevated position of the inspired poet are but two striking examples — he also never denied his indebtedness to his vernacular predecessors — François Villon being the foremost example, especially when it comes to the liberation of the personal poetic voice. He thus provides an essential link between medieval poetic traditions, including the Grande Rhétorique, and the Renaissance that would prove detrimental to the Pléiade's political and literary agenda, a link, in fact, that many nineteenth and twentieth century critics have just as stubbornly denied. Marot's innovations in the field of auctoritas, essentially the strengthening of the position of the author (Preisig uses keywords such as "corporatism" and "commercial strategies"), thus arise organically from seeds that were planted by his French predecessors. One well-suited example of Marot's role is the inscription of the poet's name in his text. As opposed to Villon, Preisig states that in Marot's case, "le jeu prend plus d'ampleur, devient plus systématique" (88).

Another fascinating topic that permeates the study are the underlying tensions in his poetry that, on the one hand, make Marot's persona so hard to grasp (and his poetry so sublime) while, on the other, they put him in the company of authors such as François Rabelais and Marguerite de Navarre, company that further underlines the true significance of the "Prince des poëtes françois." In Marot's case, some of these tensions could be summed up as the conflicts between autobiography and fictitious personae, craftsmanship and inspiration, comfortable servitude of a court poet and the dangerous intellectual independence of an engaged writer, Christian humanist and Greco-Latin traditions, or, finally, the sacred and the profane.

Unfortunately there is not enough room to adequately discuss all the precious insights into...

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