Ballade
François de Montcorbier dit Villon (né en 1431 à Paris, disparu en 1463) est un poète français de la fin du Moyen Âge. Il est probablement l’auteur français le plus connu de cette période. Les romantiques en firent le précurseur des poètes maudits. Les seules roots contemporaines do not nous disposons concernant Villon sont, outre ses propres écrits littéraires, six documents administratifs relatifs à ses procès. Ainsi, il faut soigneusement séparer les faits établis avec une quasi-certitude de la « légende Villon » à laquelle il a lui-même largement contribué en se mettant en scène dans ses œuvres.
François Villon (c. 1431 – after 5 January 1463) was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison. The question “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”, taken from the Ballade des dames du temps jadis and translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti as “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”, is one of the most famous lines of translated secular poetry in the English-speaking world. Villon was a great innovator in terms of the themes of poetry and, through these themes, a outstanding renovator of the forms. He understood utterly the medieval courtly ideal, but he many times chose to write versus the grain, reversing the values and celebrating the lowlifes destined for the gallows, falling happily into parody or lewd jokes, and constantly innovating in his diction and vocabulary; a few minor poems make extensive use of Parisian thieves’ slang. Still Villon’s verse is for the most part in regards to his own life, a record of poverty, trouble, and trial which was surely shared by his poems’ intended audience. Villon, almost unknown in his own time, was rediscovered in the 16th century when his works were published by Clément Marot. The most ordinarily featured motifs that may be found in Villon’s poetry are “carpe diem”, “ubi sunt”, “memento mori” and “danse macabre”. – Wikipedia
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 Difficult to read
By William A. Baity
I have read Francois Villon in the original and it is admittedly a hard slog, being very early French. Heck, I even spent several years in French-speaking schools, but these are harder than I remember. Decoding a number of these “ballades en jargon” might be a good college masters-level thesis project. If you do this, please alternate pages with a modern French version – that will be very educational and much appreciated.
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