Coq-à-l'âne

The Coq-à-l'âne (from the French proverb saillir du coq en l'asne "to jump from the rooster to the donkey", in the figurative sense of the word "to speak without context") is a satirical form of French poetry , which is used in the Renaissance arose. Like the earlier Fatras , it consists of disjointed , associative verses . These have eight, rarely ten syllables and are rhymed in pairs .

A Coq-à-l'âne rebukes the vices and mistakes of his time in more or less hidden allusions or names current political, social, religious and military events that he criticizes. The genre was founded around 1530 by Clément Marot , who in four verse epistles ( L'épistre du Coq en l'Asne à Lyon Jamet de Sansay en Poictou ) moralized the papacy , the corrupt clergy of his epoch and the immoral women. Other contemporary representatives of the genre were Eustorg de Beaulieu , Scévole de Sainte-Marthe and Mathurin Régnier. The Coq-à-l'âne were only occasionally cultivated in the 17th century and eventually fell out of fashion because the Pléiade rejected them.

literature

• Jean Francois Sarasin: Coq-A-L'Asne, Ou Lettre Burlesque Du Sieur Voiture Ressuscite, Au Preux Chevalier Guischeus alias Le Mareschal De Grammont, Sur Les Affaires & Nouvelles Du Temps , La Veuve & Heritiers De l'Autheur, Paris 1649

swell

• David Claivaz: Ce que j'ay oublié d'y mettre. Essai sur l'invention poétique dans les coq-à-l'âne de Clément Marot . Freiburg im Üechtland 1998. ISBN 2827108852