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“The Glove” and the Poets
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
Anyone familiar with the poetry of Pierre de Ronsard must, upon reading Browning's “The Glove,” be struck by the inappropriateness of the French poet as “loquitor.” Indeed, one is forced to the conclusion that Browning must have known very little about this prince des poètes of the French Renaissance, nor could he have been acquainted with much of Ronsard's verse, which amounts to a huge corpus. In “The Glove,” Ronsard is depicted as a wry and amused observer of, and commentator on, court life under Francis I; in reality, however, he was totally unknown as a poet during Francis's reign (1515–47). He published virtually nothing until 1550, which date begins, when Ronsard was twenty-six, the period of his great renown. Further, during that period he enjoyed a place at court far more lofty than that suggested by Browning:
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References
1. All quotations are from Browning, Robert, The Poems, ed. Pettigrew, John, supplemented and completed by Thomas J. Collins (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 455–60.Google Scholar
2. Sainte-Beuve's role in the renewal of interest in French Renaissance poetry, after long neglect, is debatable and complex. He is often given sole credit, which is invalid. See my Ronsard's French Critics: 1585–1828 (Geneva: Droz, 1967).Google Scholar
3. And it is here that Leigh Hunt's poem, on the same subject, does end. Hunt has no first-person narrator; Ronsard does not appear.