Mellin de Saint-Gelais

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Mellin de Saint-Gelais (1490–1558), chalk drawing by François Clouet (1510–1572), Musée Condé in Chantilly Castle

Mellin de Saint-Gelais (also Melin de Saint-Gelays or Sainct Gelais , * approx. 1491 in Angoulême , † October 1558 in Paris ) was a French poet of the Renaissance and court poet of Francis I.

biography

Mellin de Saint-Gelais was probably born as the illegitimate son of the country nobleman Jean de Saint-Gelais, Count of Montlieu, in the historic West French province of Angoumois . The first name Mellin is a French- Norman corruption of the British magician Merlin . Rumors attributed paternity to his uncle Octavien de Saint-Gelais (1468–1502), poet, translator and bishop of Angoulême. Mellin probably grew up in the bishop's palace under the intellectual influence of his humanist- scholarly relative. Other sources claim that he was raised in cognac at the court of Luise of Savoy (1476–1531), mother of the future French king Franz I (1494–1547). From 1506 he studied law in Poitiers and in 1509 moved to the Sorbonne in Paris. To complete his knowledge he went to Bologna and Padua that same year , where he came into contact with the reception and processing of antiquity through the Italian High Renaissance . He got to know Petrarch's works and when he returned to France around 1518, he brought his preferred form of poetry, the sonnet , with him to the French court. The young King Francis I, who was enthusiastic about Italian culture, had ruled there for three years. Mellin de Saint-Gelais, who won the favor of the Valois ruler as a poet of witty verse , took over court offices, entered the clergy in 1523 and was court chaplain of the Dauphins François (1518–1536). He later headed the lucrative Abbeys of La Frenade in Charente and, from 1532, Reclus in Champagne . However, he never neglected courtly poetry and became an indispensable organizer of the lavish festivities at the court of the art-loving regent. From 1536 to 1544 he officiated with the title "garde de la Librairie royale de Blois" as a librarian in the splendid adjoining residence Blois .

His artistic decline began in 1549 as Joachim du Bellay (1522–1560) in his literary patriotic pamphlet “La deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse” with his criticism of the “Art poétique françoys” by Thomas Sébillet (1512–1583), published a year earlier. the whole generation of poets Mellin de Saint-Gelais attacked sharply. Du Bellay belonged to a group of young writers around Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585), who named themselves “ La Pléiade ” after the ancient model and who developed general classicism into an emphatically French national literature. Nevertheless, Mellin de Saint-Gelais remained in the favor of the court, which was ruled by Henry II (1519–1559) and his wife Catherine de Medici (1519–1589) from 1547 . In 1554 he translated the tragedy Sfonisba by the Italian playwright Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550). Saint-Gelais organized the festive entertainment for the departure of the King of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1557, a year before his death. According to tradition, since he was also a good singer and lute player , he composed his own farewell song (French: Chant d'Adieu ) before he died. His friends included such diverse personalities as the poets Clément Marot (1495–1544) and François Rabelais (1494–1553), the philosopher Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469–1536) and the Bible translator Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (approx. 1450– 1536).

Quotes

  • Mieux vaut faire, et se repentir, Que se repentir, et rien faire . In: Quatrains , LXXVIII (Eng. "It is better to act and then regret it than to regret not having acted.")
  • Il n'est oiseau qui sût voler - Si haut comme un coeur peut aller . In: Quatrains , LXXXIV (Eng. "No bird flies as skyward as an expensive heart can.")
  • Amitié qui se peut finir / Ne fut jamais bien commencée . In: Oeuvres poétiques (Eng. "A friendship that can end has never really started.")
  • Ainsi vous doit-il souvenir / Que le temps finit la beauté . In: Oeuvres poétiques (Eng. "So be always mindful / That time ends beauty.")
  • “'Well then, gentlemen,' asked the king, 'what do you think of this sermon?' 'Sire!' exclaimed Mellin of Saint-Gelais, who noticed that everyone was satisfied; I never heard a more excellent Pantagruels prophecy! ' All the courtiers applauded, and all praised Rabelais, who withdrew and was escorted out with flaming torches by the pages with great honors on special instructions from the king. "

literature

  • Philipp August Becker : Mellin de Saint-Gelais. A critical study . Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna 1924. Meeting reports of the Academy of Sciences Vienna, Philosophical-Historical Class, 200, 4
  • Guillaume Colletet : Vies d'Octovien de Sainct Gelais, Mellin de Sainct Gelais, Marguerite d'Angoulesme , Jean de La Peruse; poëtes angoumoisins . Publ. Pour la 1. fois par Ernest Gellibert des Seguins. Réimpr. de l'éd. de Paris, 1862. Slatkine, Geneva 1970
  • Henri Joseph Molinier: Essai biographique et littéraire sur Octovien de Saint-Gelays, évêque d'Angoulême (1468–1502) . Carrère, Rodez 1910. At the same time Diss. Phil. University of Toulouse
  • Henri Joseph Molinier: Mellin de Saint-Gelays: études sur sa vie et sur ses oeuvres . Carrère, Rodez 1910 Toulouse , Univ., Diss., 1910. Reprint: Slatkine, Geneva 1968
  • François Rouget: Presence de Mellin de Saint-Gelais in “L'album poétique” de Brantôme . In: Journal of French Language and Literature , 125, 3 (July). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2016, pp. 261-274 ISSN  0044-2747 (print)
  • Mellin de Saint-Gelais: Oeuvres poétiques françaises . Ed. Donald Stone. Société des textes français modern, Paris. 2 volumes:
  1. 1993 - series no. 198. ISBN 2-86503-230-2
  2. 1995 - row no. 204. ISBN 2-86503-238-8

Web links

Wikiquote: Mellin de Saint-Gelais  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Honoré de Balzac : The sermon of the merry pastor of Meudon in the Gutenberg-DE project ( archive version )
personal data
SURNAME Saint-Gelais, Mellin de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saint-Gelays, Melin de; Sainct Gelais, Melin de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Renaissance poet
DATE OF BIRTH around 1490
PLACE OF BIRTH Angoulême
DATE OF DEATH October 1558
Place of death Paris