Third quarter of the 16th century. in France, literary scholars often name not the names of the then reigning kings (Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX), but the Pleiades era or Ronsard's time.

In those years, all the most talented in literature was grouped around the Pleiades, led by Pierre de Ronsard and Joachin Du Bellay. The group also included E. Model, J. A. le Baif, R. Belli and others.

The name Pleiades was first given to a group of poets in 1556. in one of Ronsard’s poems, as if in memory of the “pleiad” of seven Hellenistic poets of the 3rd century. BC.

The Pleiades in ancient Greek mythology are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione; after death they were placed by Zeus in the sky in the form of a constellation.

The word galaxy has also acquired a broader meaning - a group of persons outstanding in some respect, connected in their activities by common tasks, common views, etc.

The theoretical provisions of the Pleiades were set out in the treatise “Defense and Glorification of the French Language” by Du Bellay. The treatise set the task of creating a national poetic school.

Achievements of the Pleiades.

1. The Pleiad is self-defined as a single national poetic
school. She contrasted herself with the remnants of the Middle Ages, numerous provincial groups and circles with their adherence to old lyrical forms, narrowness of themes, and inability to rely on ancient experience and the traditions of the Italian Renaissance.

2. The activities of the Pleiades are distinguished by their concern for all French
literature. This is manifested, first of all, in the defense of the French language as a full-blooded language of literature.

In their efforts to improve the French language, the Pleiades poets no longer relied on the peculiarities of their native speech, not on the national vocabulary fund, but on Greek and Latin lexicons.

Pushkin wrote about this: “People gifted with talent, being struck by the insignificance and, it must be said, the meanness of French poetry, decided that the poverty of the language was to blame, and began to try to recreate it according to the model of ancient Greek. A new school has formed, whose opinions, goals and efforts resemble the school of our Slavic Russians, among whom there were also people with talents. But the labors of Ronsard, Jodel and Du Bellay remained in vain. Language abandoned the alien direction and went its own way again.”

The leaders of the Pleiades failed to improve the French language, but they drew the attention of their contemporaries to the need to create a literary language.

Language was understood as art. Du Bellay argued that languages ​​are created by people, and therefore they must also be improved by people.

Poetry was recognized as the highest form of existence of language, therefore, the main burden of improving the language fell on the lot of poets.

Ronsard's poem "Barely Stone..." 2.

As soon as Kamena opened her source to me

And inspired with sweet zeal for heroic deeds,

Proud fun warmed my blood

And noble love kindled in me.

Captivated at the age of twenty by a carefree beauty,

I decided to pour out my heartfelt in poetry,

But the French language agrees with feelings,

I saw how rude, unclear, and ugly he was.

Then for France, for the native language,

I began to work bravely and sternly:

I multiplied, resurrected, invented words.

And what was created was glorified by rumor.

Having studied the ancients, I discovered my path,

He gave order to phrases, variety to syllables,

I found the structure of poetry - and by the will of the muses,

Like the Roman and the Greek, the Frenchman became great.

(Translated by V.V. Levik).

Kameny 2 - i.e. muses

3. As a result of the creative activity of the Pleiades poets, a new genre system was created in lyrics. Concepts such as sonnet, elegy, and ode appeared. No one had written in these genres before.

4. The theory of poetic inspiration was created. The poet was required
constant work. However, neither hard work nor learning will bear fruit,
unless the poet is “visited by the muses.”

This theory was directed against official poets who were ready to write poetry on demand - in the right spirit and in the right style.

Thus, the idea of ​​the high purpose of the poet-creator was affirmed.

5. With the arrival of the Pleiades appears a new type of writer. Writers become less dependent not only on the life and tastes of small courts, but also on the royal court, with which they were forced to associate their idea of ​​national unity.

Having achieved the fusion of national traditions with the humanistic culture of Italy, the poets of the Pleiades turned to the “poetry of reality,” creating wonderful examples of Renaissance lyricism.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585) was born into the family of a poor nobleman, whose ancestors were considered to have come from Hungary. In his youth, the future poet traveled a lot, visiting England, Scotland, Flanders, and Germany. Ronsard, after the appearance of his first books, immediately becomes the head of a new direction and the “prince of poets.” During these years, the main lyric themes Ronsard and their specific solution.

Worldview poet in the 40-50s. whole, cheerful, humanistic. The perception of the nature of human relationships and love is revealed in Ronsard Renaissance man a heyday when the realization of humanistic ideals was seen to be close.

Extensive sonnet cycle “Love for Cassandra”"(1552 - 1553) written under the influence Petrarch's poetry and his followers. But in the French poet’s interpretation of the love theme, the sensual side of experiences comes to the fore. Ronsard embraced mainly the literary side Petrarchism- increased interest in a sophisticated artistic form designed to convey the vicissitudes of a love experience.

From the series “Love for Cassandra.”

When you, having risen from sleep as a benevolent goddess,

Dressed only in a golden tunic,

Either you curl them magnificently, or, having whipped up a thick chignon,

You will spread it down to the knees with an unconstrained wave -

Oh, how similar you are to another, foam-born.

What, curls, curled or braided, oblique

And blooming again, admiring their beauty,

A crowd of naiads floated through the moisture, defeated!

Which mortal I could outshine you

Posture, step, or beauty chela,

Or languid shine eye, or for nothing tender speeches?

Which one of nymphs forest or river dryads

Given the sweetness of the lips, and this wet sight,

And gold hair, wrapped around your shoulders?

(Translated by V.V. Levik).

The best of what the young Ronsard created was the Odes (the first edition of which was published in 1550). They, to a greater extent than the sonnet cycle “Love for Cassandra,” reflect the cheerful and enthusiastic attitude characteristic of the era towards all manifestations of human existence, as well as towards nature, which became unusually close and understandable to the people of the Renaissance.

For Ronsard nature has aesthetic and philosophical significance, it is not only a source of inspiration, but also a mentor in life, a measure of beauty. It is from the work of the Pleiades poets that the real landscape lyrics. In Ronsard's odes, nature is inseparable from man; the lyrical hero is revealed only against the background and in interaction with nature, and it is given only in his perception.

To my stream.

Tired of the midday heat,

How I love, oh my stream.

Fall to your icy wave,

Breathe your coolness.

As long as August is thrifty

Hurries to collect gifts land,

And under the sickles they groan cornfields.

And someone's song floats in the distance.

Inexhaustibly fresh and young.

You will always be a deity

To the one who drinks your brisk cold.

Who tends the flocks near you?

And at midnight to your glades,

Having disturbed their peace with joy,

All the same nymphs and sylvans

They will come running in a playful crowd.

(Translated by V.V. Levik).

The transition to the “poetry of reality”, outlined in the early collections, was consolidated in two cycles dedicated to Mary. New tasks required a new style from the poet. Ronsard finds a style not of “sublime poetry”, but of “a beautiful low style, accessible and pleasant...”; finds simpler and more diverse forms of expression of his lyricism.

The image of a beloved, a simple girl, is made up of individual strokes, arising from an all-encompassing feeling of spring purity and freshness; it is built without separation from pictures of joyful nature. Simplicity and naturalness are what attracts the poet to his beloved. The poet paints her without embellishment or tricks, just as he saw her one May morning.

Marie is a sloth!

It's time to get out of bed!

The lark sang his merry tune to you,

And over the rose hips sprinkled with dew,

The nightingale in love comes out in a gentle trill.

Live! The jasmine blossomed and the poppies sparkled -

You can’t get enough of the fragrant mignonette!

So that’s why you sprinkled the flowers with water.

Quicker give him something to drink they wanted them in the evening!

As you conjured yesterday eyes their

Wake up before I come for you,

And yet you rest in careless oblivion, -

Dream loves girls, he is not in harmony with for hours!

I will kiss your eyes and chest a hundred times,

So that you learn to get up in time,

(Translated by V.V. Levik).

Ronsard depicts Mary during her daily activities, with her family, in the forest, at work. Now the beloved does not live among the nymphs in a wonderful forest, but walks among the beds of lettuce or cabbage, among the flowers planted by her hand.

Her image is given in movement, whereas previously only the poet’s love was dynamic, its movements were the center of attention. The concept of love, as the culmination of life, as the spring of a person, is organically included in the poet’s life philosophy.

The subject matter of the book is becoming more diverse. Understanding of nature deepens. Ronsard brings nature closer to man, “domesticating” it.

The onset of a new period of Ronsard's work coincides with the beginning of the religious wars. Ronsard can be considered one of the founders of the tradition of political poetry, imbued with the spirit of patriotism (the collection “Discourses”).

The most important work of the last period of Ronsard’s work was the poetic work created in the late 70s cycle “Sonnets to Helen”. The poet still sings of the joys of life, but now his Horatian call to hurry to enjoy life sometimes sounds not only elegiac, but also with hidden tragedy.

The cycle “Sonnets to Helen” is accompanied by several poems created by the poet in the last year of his life. The acuteness of the experience reaches them with extraordinary strength. Ronsard sternly, truthfully and firmly recreates his horror of nothingness:

I'm dry to the bone. To the threshold of darkness and cold

I am approaching, deaf, gnawed, black, weak,

And death will not let me out of its clutches.

I am terrible to myself, like someone from hell.

Poetry lied! The soul would be glad to believe.

But neither Phoebus nor Aesculapius will save me.

Farewell, shining light of the day! Slave to the aching flesh,

I'm going into a terrible world of general decay.

(Translated by V.V. Levik).

Historical merit of the Pleiades as a whole:

Renewal of French poetry, a deep disclosure of the thoughts, feelings, experiences of his contemporary, a man of a complex, contradictory era, the final stage of the French Renaissance. Ronsard's personal merit:

In the multifaceted, unrestrained Renaissance style, exposure of the existence of the human spirit;

In the ecstatic glorification of everything beautiful in life, its big and small accomplishments;

In an optimistic and at the same time deep and complex vision of the world;

The fact is that all this was embodied in a remarkable lyrical penetration, richness and colorfulness of the figurative system;

In the enrichment of French poetry with a number of new forms and sizes (Ronsard stanza) in 6 verses: AABSSV, defense of Alexandrian verse, etc.

According to its semantic meaning, the word “pleiad” implies a certain community of people of the same era and one direction of activity. The word originates in ancient Greek mythology. The Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, whom Zeus took to heaven and turned into a constellation. Six of them shine with bright light, and only one hides bashfully - after all, unlike her obedient sisters, she preferred a mortal lover to the gods. According to the same mythology, it was the

It is not surprising that this has become a favorite symbol for servants of the muses for many centuries and millennia. The constellation has found a particularly vivid reflection in belles-lettres. Back in antiquity, in the 3rd century BC, the Alexandrian school of poetry was born. Seven poets who belonged to it - Homer the Younger, Apollonius, Nicander, Theocritus, Aramur, Lykotron and Filik - organized themselves into a separate circle and called themselves “Pleiades”. This movement has remained in history as an example of high poetry.

Millennia passed, history repeated itself. During the Renaissance, in 1540, new poets of the Pleiades declared themselves in France. This was the time of French romanticism, and also a craze for ancient poetics. A group of young poets led by unveiled a truly revolutionary program for the development of national literature. It is noteworthy that there were also seven of them, they called their community nothing more than “Pleiades”. It was an attempt to revive and give new breath to native literature, and at the same time there was a certain disdain for the centuries-old traditions of French poetry.

What was the program of the Pleiades poets based on? It was set out in a treatise by Joachin du Bellay and was a kind of manifesto not for revival, but rather for the creation of new literature. poets advocated for introducing the traditions of ancient Alexandrian verse into French literature. They explained such a wish by the fact that it was Hellenic, Alexandrian poetry that was close to perfection - both in syllable and in poetics in general. The frankly weak and controversial treatise made a subtle nod towards the native language: yes, the French language is wonderful, it has great potential, but it is not as developed as Greek or Latin, and therefore it needs to be developed. What development path did Pleiades advise you to take? This was nothing more than an imitation of the ancients.

The poetic community included five more - Etienne Jodel, Jean Antoine de Baif, Remy Bellot, Jean Dora, Pontus de Tiard. The legacy of the Pleiades, which has reached the present day, is better known for the poetry of Pierre de Ronsard, which became an example of true French romanticism and lyricism, than for the failed experiments of the Young Hellenists of the Renaissance. Already in the 70s, in his declining years, he wrote real masterpieces, in particular, “Sonnets to Helen”, which remain in the history of French literature - a dedication to his last hopeless love. And there is not a trace of imitation in them, there is no Alexandrian verse dear to his heart, but there is only the living, suffering soul of the poet.

In later periods in the history of literature, the word “Pleiades” was heard more than once in relation to poetry. This was, however, a purely defining designation of poets of one movement or one era. Thus, in modern literary criticism the term “poets of the Pushkin galaxy”, “galaxy of poets of the Silver Age” is often used.” But this is, as Goethe wrote, “a new age - different birds.”

For Juan II:
If what is written is a “verse,” then the author of what is written is a “poet.” But poetry is not only the properties of versification, and being a poet is not only the ability to rhyme. Just like a good writer is not one who simply writes a lot of letters. There are words for this: “amateur”, “graphomaniac”, “scribbler”.
amateur writer, no? Because So we came to the conclusion that a poet and a writer is not only a systematically completed hierarchy of concepts and a corresponding real chain of skills and abilities of versification, it is something more, sensual and not amenable to any classification. So where did you get the idea that a poem written by a person cannot be considered that way? Everyone has their own inner world, their own interpretation of vision, their own empirical sensations. Therefore, no one dares to say whether a person is a poet in one way or another or not, because his creations do not coincide with someone’s ideal—I repeat the problem of taste and aesthetics. I don’t argue that each of us is capable of much and always has something to strive for, but everyone’s ceiling is different, some may have reached it, others have not. Instead of criticism, you would offer help, since you understand everything well))
They were born and declared. They created entire poetry circles.
Believe me, the fact that whoever created the circle does not mean anything, in particular, except as a collective association of like-minded people. talk nonsense.

You can't know whether you'll like it or not unless you read it.
I didn’t express myself correctly, I agree.. it’s enough to read a couple of lines to understand whether the game is worth the candle) no one ever bothered me to leave further reading aside..

In the morning, having gotten ready, I walked along the alley:
The sea sighs, the cicadas chatter.
And looking forward to a Sunday walk
At the intersection I slowed down.

A Subaru roared past,
The hot air washed over me.
I remember the number: seven, three... Lady?!
It's a pity that fate didn't deal me the ace.

Why, Countess, did you deceive me again?
I would sit at the card table, but, alas...
I smoothed my hair with my fingers,
He pulled on his jacket and adjusted his glasses.

Suddenly, unexpectedly before my eyes
An image appeared - six twinkling stars...
The thought suggested itself: why a crossover?
Did Kenji Kita carry this sign?

Gathered together in the azure field
Mitsuraboshi merged to form FHI.
Not finding worthy options,
He named the car himself...

Before the advent of the human race
A series of ten-year battles,
Titanomachy that Hesiod
It was sung to us in theogony,

Completed. Zeus overthrew the Titans
To Tartarus, under the supervision of Hecatoncheires,
Their leader, the hardy Atlas
Doomed to hold the heavenly sphere.

Seven daughters: Keleno, Asterope,
Maya, Taygeta, Electra, Merope,
And Alcyone - the love of Poseidon -
The way for sailors will be illuminated from the sky.

Heavenly nymphs, Artemis' train,
Eternally running, driven by Orion,
Looking for peace. Turned into stars
(Zeus the Thunderer fulfilled their request)

The night is decorated with a timid radiance,
Only Merope in a distant constellation,
As if embarrassed by a mortal husband,
It shines weaker than the sisters... In the winter cold

Raising your eyes, will you pay attention?
An inconspicuous flicker:
Stozhary is visible to a clear eye,
People are promised the return of spring...

So, looking at the strange pattern,
I made a brief review of the myths.
Life is not that simple, believe me...
It’s even simpler – just be able to understand it.

=====
Founder and first president of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (FHI), Kenji Kita, was personally involved in the creation of the first prototype of the P-1 passenger car in 1954.
When the P-1 was created, Kita, who believed that a Japanese car should have a Japanese name, announced a competition for the best name for the P-1. However, none of the competition names suited Kenji, and he eventually came up with it himself - “Subaru”.
The word "Subaru" is the Japanese name for the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation Taurus. About a dozen of its stars can be seen in the night sky with the naked eye, and about 250 more can be seen with a telescope. The original Japanese name for cluster comes from the verb subaru (to be gathered together). The brand and its logo also reference another ancient Japanese name for the Pleiades, Mitsuraboshi, alluding to the six companies that merged to form FHI.

A.S. Pushkin argued that the plot of his story “The Queen of Spades” is based on a real story from the life of Princess Golitsyna, who revealed to her lost grandson the secret of three true cards (“Three, seven and ace will win you in a row...”).

Titanomachy - in ancient Greek mythology, the battle of the Olympian Gods with the Titans, a series of battles over ten years long before the existence of the human race. The Titanomachy is also known as the Clash of the Titans or the Battle of the Gods.
Several poems about this war are known from Greek literature of the classical period. The dominant and only one that has survived to this day is the Theogony written by Hesiod.
Having defeated the Titans, Zeus threw them to Tartarus. On Atlas (Atlas), who was the leader of the Titans, he placed the vault of heaven and ordered him to forever support the sky on his shoulders. Atlas is a symbol of endurance and patience.
Hecatoncheires - in ancient Greek mythology, hundred-armed, fifty-headed giants, the personification of the elements. During the Titanomachy, they responded to the call of the Olympian Gods and opposed the Titans. Later they guard them in Tartarus.

The Pleiades - in ancient Greek mythology, a group of seven nymphs, daughters of Atlas: Alcyone, Keleno, Maia, Merope, Asterope, Taygeta and Electra.
The Pleiades are the companions of Artemis, her escort. Subsequently, they were turned by Zeus into stars - the constellation Pleiades and began to be considered as celestial nymphs.
According to the myth, the hunter Orion began to pursue the Pleiades sisters, who, fleeing his persecution, turned to the gods for protection. Zeus turned the Pleiades into stars and placed them in the sky in the form of an asterism of the same name in the constellation Taurus, and Orion, as punishment for his insolence, was also turned into a group of stars and placed in the sky in the form of a constellation, not far from the Pleiades. It turned out that Orion was now doomed to unsuccessfully pursue the Pleiades across the sky until the end of time.
All the Pleiades are connected by family ties with the gods, and only Merope was the only one who married a mortal, therefore in the constellation, ashamed of her act, she shines weaker than the others.

The Pleiades (astronomical designation M45; sometimes the proper name Seven Sisters is also used, the old Russian name is Stozhary or Volosozhary) - an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus; one of the closest star clusters to Earth and one of the most visible to the naked eye.
There are several different versions of the origin of the name "Pleiades". According to one of them, it comes from the Greek “to sail,” because the Pleiades asterism is observed at night in the Mediterranean region from mid-May to early November, that is, during the period of active trade travel in antiquity.
“Joyfully, Odysseus strained the sail and, with a fair wind,
Trusting, he swam. Sitting on the stern and with a mighty hand
Turning the steering wheel, he was awake; sleep did not descend on him
He never took his eyes off the Pleiades...”
Homer, "Odyssey".

For the ancient Greeks and Romans, the rising of the Pleiades in the morning before sunrise meant the return of spring.

Poetry of the Pleiades

The material was “taken away” from the site http://site/

The famous manifesto “Defense and Glorification of the French Language” (hereinafter “Defense”) of 1549 was both an addition and a refutation of Sebile’s treatise. This book, inspired by the work of Sperone Speroni " Dialogue delle lingue"(On the Excessive Preference for Latin) of 1542, was an expression of the literary principles of the Pleiades as a whole. Although he was chosen as leader, the editorship of the manifesto was entrusted to du Bellay. To better understand the essence of the reforms that the Pleiades sought, the “Defense” should be further considered in conjunction with Ronsard’s work “A Brief Exposition of the Poetic Art” and his preface to the “Franciade”.

Poetry of the Pleiades

Views of du Bellay

He was of the opinion that the French language, in the form in which it was presented at that time, was too poor to serve as a means for expressing the highest forms of poetry. However, he insisted that with suitable cultivation, it could be raised to the same level as the classical languages. He condemned those who gave up on their native language and used Latin for more serious and ambitious works. In translations by ancient authors, he advised avoiding imitation, although he did not specify in the Defense exactly how to achieve this. It was necessary to adhere not only to the forms of classical poetry, but also to a separate poetic language and style, different from that used in prose. should have been enriched by developing its internal resources, resorting only in rare cases to borrowings from Italian, Latin and Greek. Both du Bellay and Ronsard emphasized the need for extreme caution in such borrowings, and both rejected the tendency to Latinize their mother tongue. Their manifesto was a rousing defense of poetry and the possibilities of the French language. It also came as a kind of declaration of war against those writers who held less advanced views.

Du Bellay's violent attacks on Marot and his followers, as well as on him, did not go unnoticed. Sebile responded in the preface to his translation of Euripides' Iphigenia. Guillaume Desautels, a Lyon poet, reproached du Bellay for being ungrateful to his predecessors and pointed out the weakness of his argument about imitation in contrast to the off-topic translation in his Commentary on the Fierce Defense of Louis Maigret (Lyon, 1550). A number of other notable authors of that time subjected him to their fierce criticism.

Du Bellay rebuffed his many opponents in the preface to his second publication (1550) of the collection of sonnets "Olive", with which he also published two polemical poems - " Musagnaeomachie"and an ode addressed to Ronsard "Against envious faces" ( Contre les envieux fioles). The collection of poems "Oliva" was a collection of sonnets imitating the poetry of Petrarch, Ariosto and modern Italian authors. It first saw the light of day in 1549 and was printed by the Italian publisher Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari. Along with it, 13 odes were published under the general title “Lyrical Poems” ( Vers lyriques).

In France, Italian and ancient influence in the first half XVI V. opposed by the still living tradition of national poetry, dating back to medieval genres. Poetic rhetoric is gradually being shaken, shifting the emphasis to small forms that correspond to the increasingly secular, light spirit of court life, thirsty - in the Italian way - for entertainment, prone to wit. A new style was cultivated by poets at the court of Francis I - Clément Marot (1496–1544) And Mellen de Saint-Gelais (1491–1558). Their genre repertoire was varied: poems, hymns, poems celebrating special events, and later sonnets. However, what was most valued in their performance and remained in the anthology of French poetry were madrigals, epigrams - anacreontics, glorifying the joys of life or regretting how quickly they pass (motive carpe diem). Maro remained a poem of precisely this kind, translated by the young Pushkin, in Russian poetry:

I'm not that passionate lover,

To whom did the world marvel before:

My winter and summer are red

Gone forever, no trace.

Cupid, god of the young age,

I have been your faithful servant;

When could I be born again,

Is this how I would serve you?

"The Old Man. From Maro" (1815)

Marot is faithful to the Epicurean ideal not only in poetry, but also in his stormy life, which began much more successfully than it ended. His father, as if by inheritance, gave him the position of court poet. Young Clement welcomed the ascension to the throne of King Francis in 1515, who would come to his aid more than once and rescue his poet, including after repeated imprisonments: either Clement would eat a modest meal during Lent, or he would distinguish himself with too sharp verses. Of the French poets, Marot valued Villon most of all, whom he published in 1533, to some extent predicting his own fate.

In 1534, after the “case of the posters” (more about it in § 12.4), Marot finally quarreled not only with the church, but also fell out of favor with the king. Thanks to the patronage of Margaret of Navarre, he took refuge in Ferrara, where he met Calvin and converted to Protestantism. The poetic result will be the translation of the psalms. Maro will even follow Calvin to Geneva, but his invincible love of life will be out of place here too. He returns to France, republishes the collection “The Complaint of a Christian Shepherd,” and again flees to Italy, where he soon dies.

The fate of Saint-Gelais, who spent most of his life at court, was much more prosperous, but, like his poetry, less bright. His name is remembered most of all because Saint-Gelais is credited with writing the first sonnet in French. However, this is not indisputable: not only the right to the first sonnet, but also the honor of renewing French poetry is disputed, in addition to the Parisians, by the residents of Lyon, the second cultural center of France. The courtiers were opposed here by the townspeople: the most talented of them Maurice Sav (15017–1562?) and his student, the “beautiful canister” (so called after the profession of her father and husband) Louise Labé (15267–15657).

Although Seve began writing sonnets at the turn of the 1530s, in Lyon they were in no hurry to break with the national tradition for the sake of the Italian mode. Love is sung here in the genres of troubadour poetry, with Sav continuing her “dark” style, while Louise Labé prefers the “light” one. The sonnet, which did not contradict historical logic, is perceived in Lyon as a continuation of this tradition, albeit updated by the philosophy of Plato. For example, Sav named his beloved Delia (Delie) which is an anagram of the word "Idea" ( L"idee ), reminiscent of the Platonic prototypes of things. However, the whole tone of poetry is somewhat grounded: the poetic word in a city dweller’s house sounds different than in a medieval castle or in Italy on the threshold of a new era. So the principle of creative imitation for the sake of the development of national poetry is realized in the French Renaissance even before it was powerfully declared by the poets of the Pleiades.

It is in its unity - how the first school of national poetry, consciously created on the basis of a common program, the Pleiades became an event on a European scale. However, it could not have realized itself if it had not united poets, each of whom was a personality, and its leaders - Roisard and Du Bellay - were poets who determined the further course of French poetry.

Pierre Ronsard (1524–1585) came from an ancient family, many of whose members, like the poet’s father, distinguished themselves in military service. Pierre appears at court early: first as a page of the king's third son, Charles of Orleans, then in the retinue of Princess Madeleine, who became the wife of the Scottish king James V. Ronsard accompanies her to Scotland, and after her sudden death he returns to Paris and here he studies at a privileged school for pages. During one of his trips in 1540, Ronsard became seriously ill and, for treatment, retired to the family castle of La Possoniere in Vendôme, where he would spend the next few years. The consequence of the disease is deafness, and the young man has to rebuild his life plans. In 1543, Ronsard took monastic vows, but this was only a formal step, giving the right (as Petrarch once did) to receive church positions - sinecures, the payment for which was a vow of celibacy. During these years, forcedly spent away from the bustle of Paris in the rural solitude that Ronsard forever loved, a passion for poetry comes. She aroused his interest in antiquity and made him think about continuing his education.

In 1547, Ronsard entered the College of Cocrets, where the famous Hellenist Jean Dora became a teacher. There he also met with future friends and literary associates: Antoine de Baif, Joachin Du Bellay and others. Back in Vendomois (c. 1542), Ronsard tried his hand at the high lyrical genre of ode. Now, under the influence of Dor and a new interest in the Greek classics, this hobby took a concrete form - Pindaric ode. Unlike the Horatian ode, it does not glorify a solitary life devoted to reflection and moral dignity, but subjects related to the sphere of public and state importance. Its strict form, where stanzas alternate in a three-part sequence: stanza - antistrophe - epod, is in tune with the French taste, brought up in the spirit of poetic rhetoric, but by this time tired of its excessive formalization. The Pindaric ode, filled with delight, singing the glory of the gods and heroes in a high syllable, restored the poetic word to its original rights.

However, the ode now has a different subject: its supreme deity is not Jupiter, but Henry, King of France. Ronsard stated this in his ode “To the King,” dedicated to the coronation of Henry II in 1547:

Mais Henri sera le dieu

Qui commencera mon mettre,

Et que j"ai voue de mettre

A la fin et au meilieu.

Already in this early ode, Ronsard began developing a ten-line odic stanza, which would have a great future. He also outlined the principle metaphorization – exalting earthly greatness to the skies. Royal dignity takes on divine characteristics.

Heuretis Phonneur que j"embrasse,

Heuretis qui se pent vanter

De voir la Thcbaine Grace

Qui sa vertu veut chanter:

L'aiant pour ma guide, Sire,

Autre bien jc ne desire,

Que d'apparoistre a tes yeus,

Le saint Harpeur de ta gloire,

Et l "archer de ta memoire

Pour la tirer dans les cieus.

(Henry will be the deity with whom I begin my poem, with whom I swear to finish it, and who will compose its entire content. Happy is the honor that has befallen me; happy is he who can boast that the Theban mercy was shown to him in the desire to sing it. Be my guide, sir, I have no other desire than to appear before you as a sacred singer of your glory, an archer of your memory, to direct it to heaven.)

This is exactly the tone that is appropriate at the court of Henry II (1547–1559), who inherited from his predecessors a state that increased significantly in size, increased in its European significance, and turned into an empire of the nobility with a king elevated to the top of this hierarchy. The path was opened to the greatness of the French king and his court, which fully revealed itself a century later under Louis XIV. Ronsard's friend and addressee of his poems P.-L. Lesko continues the construction of the Louvre, which has become the embodied symbol of this greatness.

It was different under Henry’s father, Francis, who organized his court on the model of the Italian rulers. Now the French royalty is clothed with immeasurably greater glory and expects higher delight from its poets. Ronsard was the one who was the first to respond to this request, finding the tone and figurative structure befitting the “politics of greatness” proclaimed by Henry. Here, for example, is how Ronsard continues the coronation ode, picking up a metaphor that likens the poetic word arrow, for the purpose of which its ruler was chosen in the middle of France:

Muse, bande ton arc dous,

Muse, ma douce esperance,

Quel Prince fraperons nous,

L'enlorgant parmi la France?

The ode requires figurative courage and surprise. Her delight is, as it were, two-directional: the poet is absorbed in the subject of his praise, but not so much that at the same time he does not enjoy his own poetry, without being amazed at how much is available to her. The idea of ​​a new dignity for poetry drives Ronsard’s work (see “The Elitism of Poetry” in the “Materials and Documents” section). This is one of his constant odic themes. He addresses her directly (“To the Lyre,” “To his Muse”) or unfolds the entire mythological genealogy of poetry and inscribes his achievements into it, as in one of the most extensive and famous odes to “Michel L'Hopital, Chancellor of Madame Margarita” (Margarita, Duchess of Berry - sister of King Henry). This was the last Pindaric ode written by Ronsard (1552). The reason for it was the intercession of L'Hopital, when, in the presence of King Mellen, de Saint-Gelais began to speak angrily and derogatorily about the collection of Ronsard's odes.

Ronsard repeatedly emphasized, including in the odes themselves, that he began the transformation of poetry, which before him was in the power of the “rude monster of Ignorance” (“Her vilain monstre Ignorance", ode to "Madame Margarita"). This is a direct and not the only attack that offended his predecessors. But even in relation to his own comrades, Ronsard did not forget to emphasize his primacy. First of all, this concerns the Angevin Joachen Du Bellay (1522–1560), whose poetry collection "Olive" (1549) preceded both "Odes" (1550), which united the first four books of Ronsard, and his "Love Poems" ("Les Amours", 1552), in the appendix to which the fifth book of odes was given. In addition, under the name Du Belle saw the light manifesto of a new poetic group - "Defense and Glorification of the French Language" (1549), although the extent of Ronsard's participation in it continues to be debated to this day.

Young poets attached great importance to the meaningfulness of their activities and reproached their immediate predecessors for their lack of a program, without which serious creativity is impossible. In addition, back in 1539, Francis I signed an ordinance in Villers-Cotterets that legalized the French language as the only state language. The young national state was filled with a sense of its spiritual dignity, so the manifesto that came from the pen of Du Bellay was a step in tune with the general cultural situation in France.

Du Bellay admits that his native language is inferior in richness to Greek and Latin, but this is not because it is inferior to them in nature, “as fertile as that of other languages.”

This is the fault of “those who looked after him and did not care for him with diligence, but treated him like a wild plant grown in the desert, never watering him, without pruning him, without protecting him from the thorns and thorns that obscured the light from him , and allowing it to wither and almost die. If the ancient Romans had been so inattentive to caring for their tongue when it was just beginning to sprout, then, quite obviously, it would not have become so great in such a short time."

So, if in anything one should imitate the ancients, then in the care with which they cultivated the soil of their language, and not assume that it is impossible to compare with them in this:

"... Having learned these languages, one should not neglect one’s own and... if anyone, by natural inclination (as can be judged by the Latin and Italian works of Petrarch and Boccaccio, as well as a number of learned people of our time) feels that it is more natural for him to write in his own language, and not in Greek or Latin, then let him then try to earn immortality at home, realizing that it is better to write well in his own vernacular language than poorly in these two languages ​​... "

To know and learn is an absolute virtue; Before you imitate, you need to make sure that you want to acquire something that you really don’t have. Only then, without sacrificing one’s own, is it useful to take from both orators and poets, who serve as “the two pillars that support the building of every language...”.

Du Bellay is a poet and speaks in detail about poets, surveying the riches of ancient and modern literature. In the ode one should remember the example of Horace, in the sonnet - of Petrarch. The sonnet had a special fate in Renaissance poetry. This is the only form that is on par with the poetic genres sanctified by the authority of antiquity. All the rest of the heritage of recent centuries, inherited from the troubadours, is nothing more than “spicy seasonings that spoil the taste of our language...” The sonnet is now becoming a universal form of poetry. Together with him, the influence of Petrarch grows, turning into European fashion, into Petrarchism. It is necessary to assimilate and overcome not only the ancient, but also the new tradition.

The question of the relationship between imitation and originality was central not only in the “Defense and Glorification of the French Language”, but also at the early stage of the existence of the entire poetic group, later called Pleiades. Its participants disagreed especially sharply on the issue of following antiquity. For example, Ronsard was at that moment a more obedient student of Jean Dore than Du Bellay, who chuckled at his excessive commitment to the classics, the love and knowledge of which nevertheless united them all:

“The main means capable of leading to the achievement of the intended goals, the Pleiades manifesto declared “imitation” or (according to the clarification included in the second edition of “Olive”) “absorption” (“ innutrition ”)" .

If Du Bellay retained the honor of being the main theorist of the group, then Ronsard has been its undisputed leader, the collector of poetic forces from the very beginning. He calls the group of his college classmates Kokre Brigade. Later, in 1553, the initially working definition of like-minded people acquires an evaluative meaning, and they are likened to the seven luminaries in the sky. Three years later, the title appears for the first time in "Elegy to Cretoflu Choiseul" Pleiades - but analogies with how the group of Alexandrian poets of the 3rd century called themselves. BC. The poetic phenomenon was defined by analogy with the astronomical one, appearing under its mythological name. Thus, in the very name there is a union of poetry with knowledge and mythology; modernity was programmatically united with antiquity.

The composition of the seven was not determined once and for all. It was based on the original trinity: Pierre Ronsard, Joachin Du Bellay, Antoine de Baif. Later they were joined by the poet and playwright Etienne Jodel, Pontus de Tiard, and Remy Bello. The remaining place was most often assigned to the Hellenist Jean Dora, but sometimes Guillaume Desautels, Jean de Laneruse, and Jacques Peletier appeared in the Pleiades. The evolution of the Pleiades, as well as the individual poets of the group, was very significant. The first ambitious period, overshadowed by the conviction of the new dignity of poetry, gives way in 1552–1553. (but according to Yu. B. Vipper’s definition) a time of “disappointments and revelations.” The year 1560 becomes a turning point, with the death of Du Bellay and the beginning of the religious wars. Dora and Jodelle show themselves to be ardent Catholics. Ronsard continues the line of civil poetry begun by his late friend in the cycle “Reflections on the Disasters of Our Time,” where, constrained in his assessments of what was happening by the official position of a court poet, he called for peace and an end to religious hostility.

• Du Bellay J. Defense and glorification of the French language // Aesthetics of the Renaissance. T. 2. pp. 240-241.
• Right there. P. 250.
• Right there. P. 252.
• Right there. P. 257.
• Whipper Yu. B. Poetry of the Pleiades. Formation of a literary school. M., 1976. P. 139.

The poetry of the Pleiades is the poetry of competition, competition in poetic skill, competition with the ancients and Italians. Competition with Italy in the field of high poetry required the mastery of Petrarchist lyricism and its most important poetic genre - the sonnet. Y.B. Vipper quotes Du Belle: “Sing beautiful sonnets - this is as learned as the kind Italian invention /... / for the sonnet you have Petrarch and how modern Italians” Y.B. Vipper. Op. op., p.136..

A detailed examination of the sonnet in the poetry of the Pleiades is given in the work of Yu.B. Vipper. He calls the sonnet “an irreplaceable catalyst for high poetic technique in terms of effectiveness.” Yu.B. Vipper believes that the very form of the sonnet was deeply in tune with “some fundamental features of aesthetic preferences and inclinations characteristic of the creators of French literature” Yu.B. Vipper. Decree. cit., p. 137..

Supporters of the renewal of French poetry, proclaimed by the leaders of the Pleiades, were not slow to respond to the demands of the time. Petrarchic in spirit, lyrical collections began to appear one after another. The desire to imitate the Petrarchic hobbies of the leaders of the Pleiades spread wider and wider in the literary environment.

Y.B. Vipper says that “of the Petrarchist collections created by the Pleiades poets, the most notable as a whole are Du Bellay’s Olive and Ronsard’s Love Poems,” since in them “not only the creative beginning of each of the poets is fully expressed , but they also represent certain milestones in terms of formal structure” Y.B. Vipper. Decree. cit., p. 176.. “Olive”, for example, is the first collection of love poems in France, composed only of sonnets. In “Love Poems” by Ronsard, the construction of tercets based on three rhymes, which then became traditional in French versification, is finally consolidated, as well as the principle of regular alternation of male and female rhymes, which over time acquired a mandatory character. In addition to this, you can also quote L.E. Masloboeva, who says that “all these works are marked by the pathos of the affirmation of new poetry and are imbued with optimism” by L.E. Masloboeva. Op. cit., p. 19..

Ronsard brought the emotional power of his sonnets to poetry. Yu.B. Vipper writes that the aesthetic embodiment of this power is served by three main points:

1. Expanded and at the same time organic division of a poetic phrase, giving scope to the movement of thought, filling the verse with deep breathing.

2. Masterly mastery of rapid rhythm, creating a dynamism in the reproduction of feelings previously unprecedented in French poetry, subject to the laws of noble and proportionate harmony.

3. The ability to transform the musicality and euphony of a verse into a direct expression of its emotional content Yu.B. Vipper. Op. op., p. 191..

It is the musicality of the verse that Y.B. Vipper calls one of the most important achievements of the Pleiades in comparison with the “more rational lyrics” of Y.B. Vipper. Op. op., p. 193. poets who preceded the Pleiades.

Ode in the poetry of the Pleiades.

The development of the ode genre also became one of the most important achievements of the Pleiades poets. Ronsard, of course, played a leading role in this (despite the fact that the odes to Du Bellay were written and published earlier). Y.B. Vipper calls the publication of Ronsard’s odes in 1550 “a turning point in the history of French poetry, which largely anticipated and predetermined the later / ... / paths of its development” Y.B. Vipper. Decree. cit., p. 195.. It was in the “Odes” that the theoretical postulates proclaimed in the “Defense and Glorification of the French Language” were most fully manifested. “Sing odes not yet known to the French muse: to a lute tuned in harmony with the Roman and Greek lyre; and let there not be a single verse in them that does not show a trace of rare ancient erudition” Y.B. Vipper. Decree. cit., p. 195., wrote Joachin Du Bellay in his manifesto. Ronsard's work was an attempt to transfer the ancient ode to French soil.

Ronsard borrowed the main feature of the ancient ode - its function of glorification. In Yu.B. Vipper we find: “The main purpose of the ode for Ronsard and his associates is to glorify and thereby perpetuate through the power of the poetic word life values, be it the exploits of historical figures, the creations of thinkers and poets, the delights of native nature or the virtues of loved ones” Yu. B. Vipper. Decree. cit., p. 196.. Naturally, the laudatory functions of the ode predetermined its attraction to sublime intonations and a solemn tone. Y.B. Vipper highlights several aspects of the laudatory ode to Ronsard:

1. On the one hand, this praise reveals a desire to idealize reality, embellish it, elevate it and monumentalize it.

2. On the other hand, the praise also reflects the poet’s worldview, his characteristic joyful love of life, admiration caused by the diversity of the world and intoxication with his own creative powers Yu.B. Vipper. Decree. cit., p. 197..

Ronsard in his “Odes” enriched French poetry thematically and emotionally. Yu.B. Vipper notes that “more diverse registers of feelings became available to her, starting from the solemnly sublime and ending with the intimate and playful” Yu.B. Vipper. Decree. cit., p. 198..

It was in the “Odes” that Ronsard carried out his reform of the strophic system, and also carried out a number of metric innovations. The variety of different strophic forms becomes truly enormous, which gives a new impetus to the development of poetry. The most important points of the reforms, according to Yu.B. Vipper, were:

1. The reform contributed to the rapprochement of poetry with music, the penetration of the musical principle into it. The strophic structure enhanced the melodic organization of the poem and allowed for wider variations in the melodic pattern, which determines the tonality and musical sound of the work.

2. The reform gave an innumerable number of versions of the stanza, many of which later became classics and entered the golden fund of French poetry. Moreover, the very variety of strophic structures created by Ronsard was the main manifestation of poetic quality in comparison with the previous poetic tradition.

3. Expanding the visual possibilities of verse due to the strophic principle, as well as giving poetic thought greater dynamism Yu.B. Vipper. Op. cit., pp. 201-203..

LECTURE 9

Poetry of the Pleiades: the richness and beauty of human feelings. P. Ronsard. J. Du Bellay. Literature of the period of civil wars. A. d'Aubigne: crisis of humanistic ideals.

In the middle of the 16th century. Several young humanist poets from noble families, who jointly studied ancient, mainly Hellenic, literature, formed a circle, or “Brigade,” as they called themselves. When their number increased to seven in 1556, they began to solemnly call themselves the Pleiades (seven stars), having adopted this name from the circle of ancient Greek poets led by Theocritus. New bright stars began to shine in the sky of French poetry. Of course, not all Pleiades poets were equally gifted. The most talented of them were Ronsard and Du Bellay. These were stars of the first magnitude. But even such less brilliant talents as Baif, Bellot or Jodelle still belong to the most attractive writers of the French Renaissance. In the work of the Pleiades, French humanistic poetry reached great heights. We have the right to talk about the second intensive flowering of Renaissance literature in France. At first, prose led the way (Deperrier, Margaret of Navarre, Rabelais). It was the first and at the same time vigorous flowering. Then came the turn of poetry. The palm went to the Pleiades, which had a huge influence on all modern French poetry and in some ways anticipated the literature of classicism.

It should, however, be borne in mind that the activities of the Pleiades took place under more difficult conditions. The Catholic reaction was advancing rapidly. The country was torn apart by deep contradictions. Humanism recoiled from the Reformation. In 1562, a religious war began, which lasted with short interruptions until the end of the century. All this led to the fact that humanistic freethinking has largely lost its former scope. The giants of Rabelais turned into ordinary people. Their deafening laughter fell silent. The spirit of Rabelaisianism flew away from French literature. The poets of the new school did not encroach on Catholicism and its dogmas. Their religion was that of the king, in whom they saw the embodiment of national unity. But they were still not as infinitely far from Rabelais as it might seem at first glance. Like Rabelais, they worshiped the great heritage of classical antiquity and passionately loved their homeland.

The main concern of the Pleiades poets was to create poetry worthy of the new France. Joachin Du Bellay writes about what exactly the new humanistic poetry should be in his treatise “The Defense and Glorification of the French Language” (1549), which became the manifesto of the Pleiades. The young poet calls on his contemporaries to decisively reject all outdated poetic forms: rondos, ballads, whirls, royal songs “and other spices that spoil the style of our language and serve only as evidence of our ignorance” (II, 4). Directing his blow against the court rhymers who compose gallant trinkets, Du Bellay declares that he “has always considered our French poetry capable of a higher and better style than that with which we have been content for so long (II, 1).

Court poetry seems to him old-fashioned, petty and trivial. He dreams of poetry, the “higher” style of which would correspond to its higher nature and purpose. What we are talking about here is essentially the content of poetry, or, as the author puts it, about doctrine, which would serve as a solid basis for the work (II, 3). Without denying that “one must be born a poet,” Du Bellay does not separate inspiration from reason, or reason from work. “Whoever wants to fly around the world in his works,” the author declares, “must stay in his room for a long time; and whoever wants to live in the memory of posterity must, as if dying to himself, become covered in sweat and tremble more than once, and how many of our court poets they drink, eat and sleep for their own pleasure - the poet must endure hunger, thirst and long vigils for the same amount of time. These are the wings on which the writings of people fly to the sky" (II, 3).

Poetry should not be an elegant rattle, a thoughtless social pastime. According to Du Bellay, she does not even have the right to be mediocre (II, 2).

After all, by “amusing” with the beauty of words, it is so easy to lose the “power of things” (I, 8), and without great internal content, poetry ceases to be what it should be. A real poet must captivate the reader and ignite his heart. And for this he must know the truth of human feelings. According to Du Bellay, "only he will be a real poet... who will make me indignant, calm down, rejoice, be upset, love, hate, admire, be surprised..." (II, 11). Such a poet is no longer a pathetic entertainer of the secular mob, but a priest crowned with the gods. He owns the hearts of people, and he must remember his noble mission.

But where can one find worthy examples of poetry? Du Bellay points to a reliable source. This is classical antiquity. He calls on his compatriots to “turn to the imitation of the best authors of Greek and Latin, directing the edge of their style to their greatest merits, as to the right goal; for there is no doubt that the greatest part of skill lies in imitation” (II, 8). By putting forward the principle of imitation here, Du Bellay does not at all mean blind copying of foreign models. He even severely condemns those imitators who, without penetrating “the most hidden and inner aspects of the author taken as a model,” grasp only the external features (I, 8). By imitation Du Bellay means creative competition.

“So, first of all,” declares Du Bellay, “read and reread, O future poet, leaf through the Greek and Latin samples night and day!” Having rejected outdated French forms, let the poet turn to such classical genres as the epigram and elegy, and at the same time not shy away from “ancient myths, which are a considerable adornment of poetry.” “Sing odes,” he continues, “still unknown to the French Muse: to a lute tuned in tune with the Greek and Roman lyre. And the content will be the praise of the gods and valiant people, the fatal transience of worldly things, youthful worries - love, wine, loosening tongues, and all sorts of feasts. Try most of all to ensure that this type of poem is far from ordinary language, enriched and exalted with proper names and non-idle epithets, decorated with all sorts of sayings and varied in all kinds of colors and poetic decorations.” Next, Du Bellay talks about epistles, Horatian satyrs, rural eclogues in the style of Theocritus. “As for comedies and tragedies, if kings and the state wanted to restore them to the ancient dignity stolen from them by farces and morality plays, I would be of the opinion that you should take up them.”

One should also not, according to Du Bellay, ignore the achievements of Italian Renaissance literature. He speaks with particular warmth of the sonnet, “as learned as it is a amiable Italian invention,” glorified by Petrarch and several modern Italian poets (II, 4).

Du Bellay devotes a separate chapter to the epic. Pointing to the example of Ariosto, who, in his opinion, equaled Homer and Virgil, he believes that epic poetry could shine brightly in France. After all, if Ariosto successfully turned to ancient French stories, then why don’t French poets turn to such “beautiful old French novels” as “Lancelot” or “Tristan”, or use “the great eloquence collected in old French chronicles, just as Titus Livy used the annals and other ancient Roman chronicles": "Such work will undoubtedly serve to the immortal glory of its founders, to the honor of France and to the great glorification of our language" (II, 5).

Meanwhile, there are learned pedants in France who disdain their native language, consider it poor, barbaric, and cannot be compared with the famous languages ​​of classical antiquity. These people “with the arrogance of the Stoics reject everything written in French,” believing that the French vernacular language “is not suitable for writing or learning” (I, 1).

And Du Bellay passionately defends the rights of the French language. He is convinced that the French are “in no way inferior to the Greeks and Romans” (I, 2). And if the French language is “not so rich in comparison with Greek and Latin,” then the ancient languages ​​were not always rich. “If the ancient Romans had been as careless in cultivating their tongue when it first began to sprout, it probably would not have become so great in such a short time.” And Du Bellay already foresees the time when the French language, “which has just taken root, will emerge from the earth, rise to such a height and achieve such greatness that it will be able to equal the languages ​​of the Greeks and Romans themselves, giving birth, like them, to Homers, Demosthenes, Virgils and Ciceros, just as France sometimes gave birth to its Pericles, Alcibiades, Themistocles, Caesars and Scipios" (I, 3).

However, even now, according to Du Bellay, the French language is not at all poor. During the reign of Francis I, in connection with the general rise of French culture, he achieved significant successes (I, 4). And it will become even richer and more elegant if French writers work tirelessly to improve it. To do this, it is necessary to enrich its vocabulary in every possible way and diversify its forms.

The writer has the right to “invent, assimilate and compose, in imitation of the Greeks, certain French words.” After all, new phenomena of life, new concepts require new words, and the poet cannot do without them (I, 6). He must, without limiting himself to a narrow court circle, carefully look at the life of the country and draw from it a wide variety of information, so that his poetry is abundant and wide-ranging (I, 11). Archaisms and dialectisms should also not be neglected. Anything can go to the advantage of a skilled poet.

But we have already seen something similar in Rabelais’s verbal workshop. But doesn’t Du Bellay’s assertion that the types of verse, “although rhetoric strives to limit them,” are as “varied as the human imagination and like nature itself” (I, 9), make us once again recall Rabelais’s novel, unusually diverse in its genre composition? All this indicates that Du Bellay’s poetics has not yet become normative, that this is the poetics of the Renaissance, and not of classicism, although tendencies characteristic of classicism are already appearing in it. In particular, this is reflected in Du Bellay’s attraction to rhetorical grandeur, so beloved by classicists. For example, he advises poets to “more often use the figure of antonomasia, which is as common among ancient poets as it is little used and even unknown among the French. Its elegance is that the name of an object is indicated through its property, such as: father striking with lightning - instead Jupiter, the god, twice born instead of Bacchus, the Virgin Huntress - instead of Diana "... (II, 9).

The reform proposed by Du Bellay very soon proved its fruitfulness. Already in the early 50s, La Boesie could write in his “Discourse on Voluntary Slavery”: “... French poetry, currently not pretentious, but as if completely updated by our Ronsard, our Baif, our Du Bellay. owe the enormous successes of the French language, and I flatter myself that the Greeks and Romans will soon have no other advantages over us in this respect, except the rights of seniority."

It should still be noted that the creative practice of the Pleiades, which initially closely followed the theoretical principles of Du Bellay, later followed a broader path. The poets of the new school did not stop at imitating ancient authors and Petrarchists. Over the years, their poetry became more and more original and national. Classical features merged with folk features. Du Bellay wanted to see the pinnacle of future French poetry in a solemn epic. But the Pleiades never put forward a second Virgil. But in the field of lyric poetry she achieved truly remarkable results.

The recognized head of the galaxy was Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585). He was born into the family of a poor nobleman in the province of Vandome. The father of the future poet was no stranger to literature. A participant in the Italian campaigns, he brought many books from the country of Petrarch to his ancestral castle and willingly wrote poetry. Proximity to Francis I made it possible to send his son to the court, and young Ronsard for a number of years served as a page to the king's children. He visited England, Scotland, Flanders, Denmark, Germany and Italy. Getting to know different countries and meeting educated people was not in vain for the inquisitive young man. Ronsard is increasingly attracted to the culture of humanism. Tempting prospects opened up for the young, handsome, brilliant aristocrat, but debilitating malaria suddenly struck him (1542), depriving him of his hearing, and interrupted the court career that had so successfully begun. Now Ronsard could devote himself entirely to literary works. True, he still had to act as a court poet, creating scripts for ballets or madrigals for masquerades, but in his declining years he appeared at court less and less, preferring rural solitude to the bustle of high society, where “only glitter and lies” reign. At the same time, Ronsard was by no means indifferent to the fate of his beloved homeland. He was plunged into despondency by the increasingly intensified struggle of religious parties, which threatened to destroy the political unity of France. He called on his enemies for reconciliation, and when civil war broke out, he resolutely opposed the Huguenots, seeing them as the culprits of the disasters that had begun. At the same time, the religious side of the conflict occupied Ronsard the least. It was not about God, but about France that he thought when creating his poetic “Discourses”.

In his worldview, Ronsard was rather a pagan, in love with the picturesque charm of classical myths, the beauty of nature, earthly love and sonorous poetry. This love for life is spread throughout all his poetry collections. It appears already in the first sonnet cycle “Love for Cassandra” (1552-1553), written under the great influence of Petrarch and his students.

These sonnets by Ronsard also contain melancholic notes characteristic of Petrarchism and longing for an unattainable goal. Unrequited love torments the poet's heart. He turns pale and falls silent in the presence of a proud beauty (“When alone, away from the noise”), only the midnight forest and the river wave listen to his complaints and foam (“All the pain that I endure in a hidden illness”). The poet seems to be entirely woven from hopeless contradictions (“I love, I swear, I dare, but I don’t dare”). At the same time, the sonnets of this cycle have a bright sensual element. It is much more palpable here than in the refined, but very conventional and therefore coldish poetry of the Petrarchists. Cassandra does not become a poetic fiction. This is a living woman, and everything around her is alive. Ronsard dreams of her hot embrace (“Even death is welcome in your arms!”), and revels in the spectacle of beauty:

When you, having risen from sleep as a benevolent goddess,

Dressed only in a golden tunic,

Either you curl them gently, then, whipping up a thick chignon,

You will spread it down to your knees with an unconstrained wave...

And then, lying on the green moss among the centuries-old forest, Ronsard gazes without stopping at the portrait of the beauty, in which the poet and artist Denizot managed to capture “The whole world of delights in a living image” (“Granite peak over a bare steepness”). Blooming, fragrant nature seems to testify to the poet’s love, and he immerses himself in leaves and flowers, “Wrapping his hand around a bouquet of fragrant May” (“When, like hops, hugging a branch”).

Subsequently, Ronsard finally moved away from the affected Platonism of the Petrarchists and their precise mannerisms. In the sonnet cycle “Love for Mary,” healthy sensuality and noble simplicity already reign entirely. Ronsard himself points out this in a sonnet addressed to the participant of the Pleiades, the poet Pontus de Thiard:

When I started, Tiar, they told me

That a simple person will not understand me,

That I am too dark. Now it's the other way around:

I have become too simple, having appeared in a new style...

However, it was not for nothing that Ronsard visited the school of Petrarchism. He became an outstanding master of the sonnet. Petrarch helped him look deeper into the world of human feelings and understand what is graceful in poetry. But, having taken from Petrarchism everything that seemed valuable to him, Ronsard went his own special way. He stopped shunning the ordinary and the “low”. His Maria is not a noble lady, like Cassandra Salviati was, but a young, cheerful peasant woman. In order to tell readers about his love, he no longer needs the motley tinsel of Petrarchism. He talks about love shared, healthy and therefore beautiful. And he talks about her with a joyful, sometimes sly smile. There is so much real tenderness in the famous sonnet “Marie the Sloth! It’s time to get out of bed!” And how the poet loves to chat alone with Maria about this and that! The appearance of a guest makes him tongue-tied. But the guest leaves, and again Ronsard makes jokes, jokes, laughs, easily finding the right words (“Love is a magician. I could do it for a whole year”). He writes about his happiness to Joachin Du Bellay in Rome (“Meanwhile you live on the ancient Palatine”). With ancient frankness, he sometimes talks about the pleasures he experiences in Mary’s arms. Either he is jealous of her doctor, who for the hundredth time wants to see a young woman without a shirt (“Oh, that damn doctor! He’s coming here again!”), then he forgives her for a fleeting betrayal (“Having found out that his beloved is close to someone else”). Ronsard is pleased that his girlfriend is not an empty social coquette, languishing from idleness. She

Spins or sews all day, winds a ball, knits,

With two sisters getting up at dawn, -

In winter by the fireplace, and in summer in the yard...

He intends to give her a Vendôme spindle, knowing that this gift will bring genuine joy to Mary: “After all, even a small gift, a guarantee of incorruptible love, is more valuable than all the crowns and scepters of the universe” (“Spindle”). And when Mary unexpectedly died in the prime of life, Ronsard mourned her untimely death in a number of heartfelt poems (“The Death of Mary”, etc.).

Ancient literature played a major role in Ronsard's creative development. Ronsard walked in the direction indicated by Du Bellay, and in the poem “As soon as Kamena opened her source to me,” he proudly noted his services to French Renaissance poetry:

Then for France, for the native language,

I began to work bravely and sternly,

I multiplied, resurrected, invented words,

And what was created was glorified by rumor.

Having studied the ancients, I discovered my path,

He gave order to phrases, variety to syllables,

I found the structure of poetry - and by the will of the muses,

Like the Roman and the Greek, the Frenchman became great.

Du Bellay advised French poets, following the example of the ancients, to “sing odes dedicated to the praise of the gods and valiant people” or to “youthful amusements” - love, wine and all kinds of feasts. Ronsard became the first French ode-writer. He was temporarily carried away by Pindar. However, the magnificent grandiloquence of the Pindaric odes , which subsequently attracted classicists so much, did not enter the literary use of Renaissance France, and Ronsard himself soon preferred a more natural and simple manner.

He is much closer to Horace and the Greek Anacreontics, discovered and published in 1554 by Henri Etienne. His small intimate odes (odolettes) are imbued with Renaissance love of life. There is a lot of light and a lot of joy in the poetic world of Ronsard. Ronsard is attracted by love pleasures, merry feasts, friendly meetings, good books, and blooming nature. Together with his friends, he wants to feast while the lyre sings until dawn and raises the first toast to Henri Etienne, who returned Anacreon to the people (“We do not hold in our hand”). He is captivated by the singing of a cheerful lark (“Lark”) or the babbling of a stream over which shady willows bend (“Bellery Creek”). Ronsard writes very willingly about nature. The Gastinsky forest, with which his youth is connected ("Gastinsky forest"), is dear to him, and he sincerely regrets its death. He asks the loggers why they are destroying his forest? Don't they see that the blood of a young nymph who lived under the bark of the tree is flowing from the trunk? (Elegy to the Gastin Forest). For Ronsard this is real sacrilege. After all, nature is not dead. She is full of life. The pagan gods have not died; the poet sees and hears them clearly. As in the legendary times of Orpheus, he talks with nature, listens to its voices, it is all filled with echoes of ancient myths for him. The muses lead their round dance for him, Apollo descends from a transcendental height, and nymphs inhabit forests and river streams. And we are not at all surprised that we are not talking about fabulous Arcadia, but about France in the 16th century, that nymphs are hiding in the Bellerie stream, and Phoebus is frolicking on the banks of the Loire (“To the Source of the Loire”).

Ronsard's poetry is very specific and flexible. He has the eye of an experienced sculptor. In one of the eclogues, he very accurately describes the chased images on the bowl, and his poems acquire weight and relief, as if they were cast from silver. At the same time, Ronsard's poems are surprisingly melodic. Many of them became popular songs, and in spirit they are very close to the folk songs that the young Du Bellay looked down on.

But the wonderful world of Ronsard's poetry is not so cloudless. Ronsard is haunted by the thought of the transience of life. The fragrance of flowers in his poems is often mixed with the smell of decay (“Stanzas”). But Ronsard does not talk about all this in order to inspire disgust for life and its joys. On the contrary, following Horace, he calls for “seizing the coming day” and not missing out on anything that can give life to a person. Is a rose less beautiful because it must soon wither? Addressing the poet Adamis Jamin, he writes:

So, Jamen, seize, seize the day that has come!

He will quickly flash, elusive, like a shadow,

Invite your friends to a feast and let the cups ring!

Only once, my friend, today we are given,

So let's sing love, fun and wine,

To drive away war, and time, and sorrows.

And yet there is something unsettling about all this. Apparently, a purely personal moment also had significance here. After all, Ronsard was overcome by a debilitating illness, and over the years its power was felt more and more strongly (“I’m dry to the bones...”). In addition, everything around was becoming more and more alarming; no one knew what tomorrow would bring.

One should not, however, see the true content of Ronsard's life in the pursuit of the moment. Ronsard loved poetry, women, friends, but his greatest love was France. In one of his first printed works, in the “Hymn of France” (1549), he sang of his beautiful fatherland. Desperate for the glory of France, he took up his pen. In 1564, he even began to write the monumental epic "Franciade", which was supposed to become the French "Aeneid", but could not cope with this enormous task. By the nature of his talent he was not an epicist; Moreover, he could not help but feel all the precariousness of the modern position of France. He was worried about religious strife, which turned into open civil war, and the increased power of gold (“Hymn to Gold”), and the fact that hypocrisy, denunciations, and big lies reigned at the royal court (“Leave the country of slaves, the power of the pharaohs”).

Ronsard contrasted this spoiled, agitated world with the Horatian preaching of quiet joys in the lap of nature. Only far from the vicious bustle of palaces can a person breathe deeply. Only there can he feel free. In this regard, Ronsard waxes poetic about the working life of a simple plowman:

Blessed is he who goes his own way across the field,

Doesn't see senators dressed in red toga,

He sees neither kings, nor princes, nor nobles,

No lush courtyard, where there is only glitter and lies...

("To Cardinal de Coligny")

However, the rural idyll depicted by Ronsard did not have a solid basis in life, as indeed did all the idyllic literature of that time. Her soul was a dream of a golden age, which in Rabelais took the outline of the Theleme monastery, and in Ronsard it appeared in the form of either an idyll, then a fairy tale about the blessed islands ("Blissful Islands"), then a mythical Elysium in which harmony reigns, unknown on earth (" How grapes climb, hugging trees."

Ronsard's poetry did not lose its artistic power in his later years. This is clearly evidenced by the excellent “Sonnets to Helen,” written by the aging poet in the late 70s. Among them we find the famous sonnet “When, as an old woman, you spin alone,” which is one of the most remarkable creations of French Renaissance lyric poetry

The poetry of the Pleiades was sometimes called aristocratic and courtly, not paying attention to the fact that it went far beyond the narrow confines of the court, becoming the most important phenomenon of national French culture of the 16th century. Ronsard was proud that “all the people sing his songs.” He makes an imaginary shepherd say over his grave mound:

He was not seduced by the absurd

The bustle of the courtier

And noble praises

I didn't look for it.

He gave it to the melodious lyre

Many new harmonies

The father's land raised

("To choose your tomb")

Ronsard was not only an excellent lyricist, worthy to stand on a par with Petrarch and Shakespeare. In his creative heritage, a prominent place is occupied by poetic messages, odes, and hymns, in which he appears to us as a thinker and a master of oratory, sometimes pathetic, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes close to colloquial speech.

Among the best examples of this poetic type is the lengthy “Hymn to Gold” mentioned above. It contains reflections on the destinies of people and one’s own destiny. Seeing how the world is gripped by the “spirit of profit,” Ronsard is at the same time not inclined to extol poverty. He does not intend to challenge history, which is subject to the power of gold. According to the poet, “God does not give gold so that we / Provide it to flatterers, corrupt girls of darkness” ... “The treasures of the earth are for life and goodness.”

In “Speech against Fortune,” dedicated to de Coligny, Cardinal of Chatillon, Ronsard, complaining about the machinations of evil fortune, angrily denounces the vices of the surrounding world, which has lost its noble straightforwardness and the ability to appreciate true talent.

But to gain recognition in our time,

You need to throw away honor and shame like a burden.

Shamelessness is the idol to whom one is subordinate

Everything, from top to bottom, estates and ranks...

(Translated by G. Kruzhkov)

And in a poetic letter to Henry II, eloquently condemning the belligerence of kings, Ronsard dreams of the time when blessed peace will finally reign in France (“Peace”).

“The quotation of the text is taken from the book: Centuries and the Renaissance” is, of course, a metaphor, but a metaphor, as we will try to show, that has a very real meaning. However, it was not invented by us, but is contained in explicit or hidden form by many domestic and French researchers of the 20th century, who saw that over the four centuries separating us from Ronsard, Du Bellay and their comrades in the poetic school, the poetry of the Pleiades remained constant " component" of French literature. As the history of French literature has shown, the works of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baif, Jodelle and even the “minor” poets of the Pleiades contained much of what found its varied continuation in subsequent eras. The fables of La Fontaine, the comedies of Molière, the satires of Mathurin Regnier, the poems and epigrams of the freethinking poets of the 17th century, the elegies of Chenier, the poetry of the romantics, the war and post-war love and civil lyrics of France of the 20th century - these, in the most general form, are the main, clearly identified evidence of “eternal modernity” poetic heritage of the Pleiades1 “Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” aimed at creating truly national poetry that could compete with the best examples of ancient and contemporary Italian authors, poetry that would become evidence of the greatness and originality of French literature.

"Text citations taken from the book: Ages and the Renaissance" of the authors, and then felt able to challenge all modern poetry and offer it new and difficult roads. And their audacity, as shown first of all by their own poetic creativity, had weighty grounds, for with the names of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baif, Belleau, Jodel and other poets of the Pleiades, as Yu. B. Vipper rightly notes, “a revolution equal in the historical significance of the shift that was then, already in the 17th century, made in the field of tragedy by Corneille, and later in the genre of comedy by Moliere"2.

The first theoretical manifesto of the new school was “Defense and glorification of the French language” by Du Bellay (La Deffe “Text quoted from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” 3 “Text quoted from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” “Pleiad” is nothing more than myth, and that it is hardly possible to say that the poets included in it constituted a single school. These doubts are associated with a number of circumstances. Firstly, the extreme individuality of each of the poets of the new school is striking. Secondly, they are confusing. those by no means idyllic relationships that sometimes developed between its participants. However, the theoretical program of any literary school, if it unites writers gifted with true talent, never fully determines all its possible individual phenomena. Belonging to one or another school “in no way.” , - as L. Ya. Ginzburg writes, - does not cover the writer’s activity either in its entirety or throughout its entire duration. It only testifies to the fact that at a certain historical moment, signs appear in the writer’s work that correspond to the theoretical provisions of one or another. another group. These signs are sharpened in moments of struggle, gravitating towards collective forms, and are neutralized during periods of peaceful work, when everyone is responsible only for themselves. In any case, a literary historian should not be upset when he encounters a statement that cannot in any way be subsumed under the author’s group affiliation.”4

“Text citation taken from the book: Centuries and Renaissance” of the “new era” in the art of words, supporting each other in periods of struggle and equally alien to rigid normativity in prescribing rules and poetic regulation. Du Bellay and Ronsard, Jodelle and Tauro, Baif and Bellot could allow themselves and others, when the need arose, to enter into open polemics not only with literary opponents, but also with comrades in the literary struggle, and even with ourselves.

“The quotation of the text is taken from the book: Centuries and the Renaissance” - Ronsard, who gave his school this name and who, together with Joachin Du Bellay, determined both its “available composition” and the main directions of poetic reforms.

The name of the school did not arise immediately. In 1549, in one poem (published in 1552), describing the joint journey of Dore's disciples to Arcueil, Ronsard calls them the Brigade. Thus, at the beginning the Brigade is just Kokra's college brothers. But already in 1553 in his “Dithyrambs in honor of the goat Jodelle, the tragic poet”5 (Dithyrambesagrave; la pompe du bouc de Jodelle, poète tragique) and in the poem “The Blessed Islands” (Iles Fortu “Text quotation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance" "Elegy to Cretaflu de Choiseul" by Ronsard; the poetic Taurot opened with Baif's sonnet8 "Text quoted from the book: centuries and the Renaissance" in mutual understanding, but a feeling of urgent need to submit one's own creative quest to the judgment and verification of fellow poets, and sometimes the desire explain his own, special position, convince of its legitimacy and necessity. Thus, Ronsard, who began the renewal and “glorification of the French language” with Horatian and oratorically sublime odes in the style of the Greek poet Pindar, then turned to the simplicity and naturalness of the expression of earthly human emotions in the introductory one. poem to the “Second Book of Love Poems” (Le seco “Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” “climate” of France in the late 40s of the 16th century.

Having become a single absolutist state in the first third of the 16th century (the last major duchy, Brittany, was annexed to the lands of the crown in 1532), France was one of the most centralized and powerful powers in Europe. Power was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the king, and the feudal aristocracy was replaced by a court aristocracy, whose influence was determined not so much by origin as by proximity to the person of the monarch. The principles of the Renaissance, established in Russian culture thanks to the first generation of French humanist scientists and writers (Rabelais, Marot, Deperriers, etc.), the ideals of unlimited freedom of spirit and “flesh,” the belief in the infinity of human possibilities, although they remained, so to speak, ideal perspective, no longer seemed so unconditional in their real application. The times of religious and political freethinking are left behind: the persecution of Protestants in France, which began under Francis I (1515 -1547), intensified under Henry II (1547 -1559) and became the harbinger of religious wars that raged for more than thirty years and brought France to the brink of a national catastrophe and state split. However, in those years when the Pleiades began its activities, the unity of the country had not yet been shaken. The centralization of French social life and its successes in foreign policy led to the formation and strengthening of national identity both in the sphere of state and in the sphere of culture. During the reign of Henry II, the royal court, stronger than the court of his father Francis I, began to determine the literary situation. The pomp and majesty with which the king surrounded himself, in order to ritualize his authoritarianism, required attracting to the court a huge number of sculptors, artists, musicians, organizers of festivals and, of course, poets, who were no longer allowed those familiar, sarcastic barbs and familiarity that he dared Clement Marot (1496 - 1544) in relation to his monarch. The court poets of Henry II and the most talented of them, the bishop-poet Medlen de Saint-Gelais (1491 -1558), composed elegant être “Quotation of the text taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” - these words of Du Bellay make us recall the one contained in Rabelais in The 2nd book of his epic “Gargantua and Pantagruel” provides a program for the humanistic education of man. Later, Du Bellay’s colleague in the Pleiades, the humanist Pelletier du Man, in his “Poetics” will add as a matter of course: “There is no need to say that our poets need knowledge of astrology, cosmography, geometry, physics. .."13. The program for educating the poet, set out in the “Defense”, and then repeatedly repeated and developed in the statements of other figures of the Pleiades14, reflected the idea of ​​the poets of the new school about the high mission of art and its creators, capable of becoming involved in all spheres with their talent and work human activity and comprehend the secrets of nature and the universe. This is why Du Bellay calls the poetry of the “Marotists” “unscientific,” because, from his point of view, they lack “the basis of good writing, that is, knowledge.” The “Defense” consistently affirms the principle of doctus. poeta (scientific poet), once proclaimed by the Greek poet Pindar, a difficult and ascetic path is drawn on which a new poet must take, mastering the “doctrine”: “Whoever wants to fly around the whole world in his creations,” writes Du Bellay, “must remain for a long time in your room; and whoever wants to live in the memory of posterity must, as it were, die to himself." And, contrasting the doctus poeta with the court rhymers, he adds: "... and as much as our court poets drink, eat and sleep for their own pleasure, so must the poet endure hunger, thirst and long vigils."

In “Defense,” the cult of antiquity, common to the entire Renaissance, is theoretically fixed: Du Bellay puts forward the principle of imitation of the ancients as the main means of renewing national poetry.

"Text citation taken from the book: Centuries and the Renaissance" - Pietro Bembo, Girolamo Vida, Bartolomeo Ricci, Trissino and many others. However, Du Bellay, borrowing from his Italian predecessors arguments “in favor” of mastering the ancient heritage, immediately clarifies the meaning and direction of the future implementation of the “principle of imitation” on French soil. He believes that imitation is a forced and temporary path for Russian poetry15. Forced, because its current state did not withstand, from Du Bellay’s point of view, comparison with the greatest creations of the newly discovered, or rather through different eyes, seen during the Renaissance, the verbal culture of Greece and Rome. “I would very much like,” Du Bellay confidentially reports, “for our language to be rich enough in its own models, so that we do not need to resort to foreign models” (Book I, Chapter VIII). Du Bellay outlines the prospect that he sees for the modern poet who has been “trained” by the Ancients:

Create, dare and do it, Ronsard,

So that the Roman and the Greek bow before the Frenchman16.

And Ronsard, feeling the good burden of this difficult task on his shoulders, answered Du Bellay a few years later:

Having studied the ancients, I discovered my path,

He gave order to phrases, variety to syllables,

I found the structure of poetry - and by the will of the muses,

Like the Roman and the Greek, the Frenchman became great.

Translation by V. Levik

And another extremely “Renaissance” remark by Du Bellay is contained in his “Defense”: “First of all, it is necessary that he (the imitator - I.P.) be able to know his strengths and check what he can do; let him diligently explores her own nature and resorts to imitation of the one whom she feels closest to her, otherwise his imitation will be like the imitation of a monkey."17 Du Bellay does not provide a single model to follow in each genre, but according to the general postulate of the Renaissance figures, for whom man became the measure of all things, he also proceeds in literary theory from the Socratic principle “know thyself.” In other words, the very choice of a role model is both the disclosure of one’s own capabilities and the awareness of one’s own individual taste. In addition, the entire “Defense” and the first poetic experiments of the Pleiades are animated by the idea of ​​​​the high purpose of the poet - “companion of the gods,” a person who should have “divine frenzy” (fureur divi “Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” “Handra” B Pasternak: Du Bellay's foreign language text becomes, first of all, a fact of national poetry, enriching it not only with a new lyrical theme, but also with an individual way of revealing it. And one more remark regarding Du Bellay's sonnet.

Daniello writes his S "il viver "Quotation of the text taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance" -1491, allowed reading, and therefore interpretation, in thirty-two different ways). That is why the old genres seemed to the leaders of the Pleiades incapable of containing that humanistic and highly intellectual content, which they sought to instill in national poetry. They began by throwing “from the ship of modernity” the old genres, which Du Bellay calls “spices that distort the taste of our language and serve only as evidence of our ignorance”23.

As a counterbalance to the old genres, based on the doctrine of doctus poeta and the principle of imitation of the ancients, the genres of ancient and Italian poetry - epic poem, ode, elegy, epistle, satire, eclogue and sonnet - became a counterbalance to the old genres. At the same time, Du Bellay did not at all try to accurately define their formal boundaries, bull; this is understandable, for he transferred the emphasis from the formal to the substantive side of poetry. Moreover, in “Defense” there is no differentiation of genres by topic. All genres are subject to the same requirements - poetic erudition, seriousness, a combination of “pleasant with useful,” sublimity of style.

Du Bellay's manifesto caused a scandal no less than three centuries later, in the 20s of the 19th century, the first speeches of the French romantics. The "Marotists", court poets, a few adherents of the medieval "great rhetoricians" and even some members of the "Lyon school" (that is, poets who also took the path of exalting poetic content) were united in their rejection of the "Defence". The “Crusade against Ignorance”24, announced in the Defense, immediately gathered the forces of opponents to repel it: the Lyon teacher of rhetoric Barthélemy Hanot issued a pamphlet in which he furiously attacked the program of borrowing new genres contained in the Defense and, at the same time, responded with great displeasure about Ronsard and his Brigade, who, it seemed to him, confused poets and oriented them towards creating, as he wrote, “sophisticated poetry” 25. Sibilet in his “Message to the Reader” (Au Lecteur) spoke about the ridiculousness of the claims of Du Bellay and his associates. Mellen de Saint-Gelais ridiculed the incomprehensibility of Ronsard's odes to the king, and Guillaume Desautels, who soon became an admirer and follower of the Pleiades, expressed doubts about the need for a radical restructuring of poetry and in “Response to a Fierce Defense...” (Réplique aux furieuses défe"Text quoted from the book: centuries and the Renaissance" "Pindarization" and turning to more familiar poetic themes. Apparently this is so, and even the sublime idealism of Ronsard's "Sonnets to Cassandra" began to be perceived by contemporaries as a kind of return to the national tradition of glorifying courtly love, so familiar from poetry troubadours and trouvères. The poets of the Pleiades seemed to have yielded to the tastes of the court public, but the courtly cult of the lady, the aestheticization of unrequited love, were clothed in the clear, elegant form of the sonnet, the sonnet about which Du Bellay wrote in “The Defense”: “Sing beautiful sonnets - this is as learned as it is a amiable Italian invention... For the sonnet you also have several modern Italians."26 And if the Pindaric ode with its complex strophic alternation, abstract exaltation and excessive metaphorism quickly crashed, then the light and graceful ode in its Horatian form has firmly entered into French poetry. As for the sonnet, for him, too, the “Pindarism” of the Pleiades was not in vain, for from the heights of Pindar it was easier to move into the equally highly ideal world of Petrarch and open up the possibility for the French sonnet to become the focus of all the themes of the century. Unlike the medieval fixed genres (rondo, ballad or virele), the sonnet, not being bound by medieval canons, was a genre, so to speak, open to absorbing the high ideas of the Pleiades about the purpose of the poet, about poetry - evidence of the greatness of the spirit of the nation and the “mentor” of contemporaries. The poets of the Pleiades, primarily Du Bellay and Ronsard, limitlessly expanded the thematic scope of the sonnet: from the traditional love genre of lyricism, it turns into such a voluminous form that it can accommodate philosophical and elegiac motives, civil and satirical themes. It is enough to open "Regrets" and "Antiquities of Rome" by Du Bellay, "Sonnets to Helen" by Ronsard, "Sonnets against the Preachers of the New Faith" by Jodelle, "Sighs" by Magny to see how different the later sonnets of the Pleiades are from their original model - the sonnets of Petrarch and Italian "Petrarchists". And “by the grace” of the Pleiades, from the second half of the 16th century, the sonnet really became, as Aragon said, “a national way of speaking” (u “Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” “Defense” and the first books of Ronsard’s odes were not the only “poetic act" that amazed his contemporaries. The next no less strong shock was caused by the "Book of Pranks" (Livret de Folastries, 1553), as well as "The Grove" (Bocage, 1554) and "The Mixture" (Mesla."Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance" "low" (style bas). It was no coincidence that "The Book of Pranks" appeared without the name of the author. In it, Ronsard largely turns to self-parody, debunking the cult of Homer and Petrarch, sublime platonic love and the pride of poetic self-indulgence, and most importantly, gives space cheerful “Gallic” spirit and “dangerous” free-thinking, which were so characteristic of Clement Marot and Rabelais. But, despite the fact that “Pranks” testified to the return of the Pleiades to the national tradition, the tradition itself appears in them transformed and “equipped” with motifs from. Catullus, neo-Latin poets (Pontano, John Secundus, etc.), reminiscences from Horace and Ovid.

“The Grove” and “The Mixture” introduced into French poetry that powerful stream of cheerful and epicurean Anacreontic lyricism, which would then be so clearly felt in Parni and J.-B. Rousseau, Goethe and Beranger, and in Russia in Derzhavin, Batyushkov, and Pushkin28 “Text citation taken from the book: Centuries and Renaissance” “Pushkin notes” in Ronsard’s poems. And this is understandable, because in Pushkin’s lyrics, especially of the early period, not only does the name of Anacreon often appear (the poems “The Coffin of Anacreon”, “The Vial of Anacreon”), but also the as free and personal “appropriation” as it was in Ronsard clearly appears "Greek poet. By the way, the Horatian themes in the odes and sonnets of the Pleiades will also remind us of Pushkin, be it “Bellery Creek” or “When in the midst of the noise of being...” by Ronsard, Du Bellay’s friendly messages to his compatriots from Rome, poems glorifying rural solitude or stigmatizing “ vile mob", and much, much more. And this is natural, since Ronsard, Du Bellay and their comrades in the new school introduced the “eternal themes” of poetry into Russian literature, filled it with the depth of universal human content, be it love and death, civic and patriotic feelings, philosophical reflections on the world and man . And, developing these themes, they absorbed into their poetry that classical literary heritage, which was revived whenever the literature of different eras and different countries was faced with the task of creating a universally significant national literature.

“The quotation of the text is taken from the book: Centuries and the Renaissance” - 1555, we emphasize once again that the principle of imitation of the ancients and the assertion of the poet’s right to freely choose models for this imitation were not at all discarded. The appeal to previously rejected domestic genres, or rather their combination with the traditions of foreign language genres, gave the national tradition itself a new look. That is why, although in “Pranks” the influence of medieval farces, pastourels, poetic “disputes”, folk songs and the poetry of Clément Marot is clearly noticeable, the griviness, and sometimes very crude eroticism, sharp anti-clericalism in the spirit of the poets of the early Renaissance, sounding in Ronsard’s collection, They do not deprive this book of “scholarship,” they only transfer it “to another register.” Ronsard's colleague in the Pleiades, Olivier de Magny, very accurately called this work “a book of learned pranks”29.

The poets of the Pleiades, as unanimously as during the times of “Pindarization” and “Petrarchization,” turned to the “low style”30 - Magny in the collection “Fun” (Gaytez, 1554), Tayuro - in “Sonnets, Odes and Amenities... ". And, for example, for Baif, who even somewhat earlier than Ronsard turned to the search for a “low style,” the combination of the “Gallic spirit” and ancient tradition will retain its dominant significance for a long time.

This new stream of Pleiades poetry was greeted very favorably by the “Marotists,” which cannot be said about zealous Catholic and Huguenot poets, wide circles of moralizing-minded intelligentsia, who attacked Ronsard, accusing him of disrespect for morality and religion. Jean Macé in the pamphlet “Philippique against the French poets and rhymers of our time” (Philippique co “Text citation taken from the book: Centuries and the Renaissance” “vows” given to oneself at the very beginning of one’s creative path.

At the same time, it would be rash to discount the experience of sublime “Pindarization” and “Petrarchization.” Despite the fact that Du Bellay in the satire “Against the Petrarchists” (Co “Text citation taken from the book: Ages and Renaissance” History and Fate of Art. To this scale of themes and the greatness of the style - first of all and most powerfully present in Ronsard, - such works of the French romantics as “Reflections” (Méditatio “Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” go back to the “low”, and ultimately to the “middle” style of poetry - were not oblivion of the original principles of their first manifesto, but creative their development and rethinking. Without touching in detail on the individual appearance and originality of the poets of the Pleiades 35 “Text citation taken from the book: Ages and Renaissance” “Defenses”, “examined his own nature”, “checked what he could handle” and chose his own path “on peaks of Parnassus.

“Quotation of the text taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance” “Precious stones” is the main work of life, believed that it opens a new genre and, as he said, “the hidden Quotation of the text taken from the book” of poetry. Indeed, Bellot, called by Ronsard “the painter of Nature,” paved the way for descriptive poetry in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the 16th century, perhaps more than others, sought to give a detailed description of “landscape in its natural simplicity”36 and made this his primary concern .

“Text citation taken from the book: Ages and the Renaissance” with restraint and asceticism, alien to the hedonism of the Pleiades, Jodel largely departs from the Renaissance, harmonious style characteristic of “Regrets” and “Antiquities of Rome” by Du Bellay or “Sonnets to Helen” by Ronsard. He develops his own special form of sonnet (which was later called the “Jodel sonnet”), saturated with metaphysical symbolism, the drama of contrasting emotions, anticipating future Baroque poetry.

Jacques Tayuro, as if knowing in advance about the short life span allotted to him, immediately began to develop a “middle style” and remained in the history of poetry primarily as a “light” poet. He, before others, felt the gap between the dream of spiritual freedom and reality and, having not so much a crowd of truly great writers, asked: “or is every people destined for an era in which a constellation of geniuses appears, shines and disappears?.." 37. And although Pushkin, believing Boileau, treated the poetry of Ronsard very strictly and had in mind primarily the 17th century of France, such an era of “truly great” poets was the “age of Ronsard” and his Pleiades, whose light is just as radiant in the 20th century I. Yu. Podgaetskaya.

“Text quoted from the book: Ages and the Renaissance” “Captive Cleopatra” (Cléopatre captive) Ronsard and his friends staged a solemn procession “in the manner of ancient festivals,” leading a goat entwined with flower garlands, which they presented as a gift to the poet.

6. Pontus de Thiard with the second book of “Love Delusions” (Les Erreurs amoureuses, 1550), Guillaume Desautels with the collection “Continuation of Relaxation from a More Serious Occupation” (Suite du Repos de plus gra “Text citation taken from the book: centuries and Renaissance” “imitations” ancient" first drew attention to 3. Gukovskaya in the book: "From the history of linguistic views of the Renaissance." Leningrad State University, 1940.

16. J. Du Bellay. Poésies fra "Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance" ésie fra "Text citation taken from the book: centuries and the Renaissance" "Pranks" according to various collections, and "Pranks" was renamed into the more neutral "Fun" (Gaytez).

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According to its semantic meaning, the word “pleiad” implies a certain community of people of the same era and one direction of activity. The word originates in ancient Greek mythology. The Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, whom Zeus took to heaven and turned into a constellation. Six of them shine with bright light, and only one hides bashfully - after all, unlike her obedient sisters, she preferred a mortal lover to the gods. According to the same mythology, it was the

It is not surprising that this has become a favorite symbol for servants of the muses for many centuries and millennia. The constellation has found a particularly vivid reflection in belles-lettres. Back in antiquity, in the 3rd century BC, the Alexandrian school of poetry was born. Seven poets who belonged to it - Homer the Younger, Apollonius, Nicander, Theocritus, Aramur, Lykotron and Filik - organized themselves into a separate circle and called themselves “Pleiades”. This movement has remained in history as an example of high poetry.

Millennia passed, history repeated itself. During the Renaissance, in 1540, new poets of the Pleiades declared themselves in France. This was the time of French romanticism, and also a craze for ancient poetics. A group of young poets led by unveiled a truly revolutionary program for the development of national literature. It is noteworthy that there were also seven of them, they called their community nothing more than “Pleiades”. It was an attempt to revive and give new breath to native literature, and at the same time there was a certain disdain for the centuries-old traditions of French poetry.

What was the program of the Pleiades poets based on? It was set out in a treatise by Joachin du Bellay and was a kind of manifesto not for revival, but rather for the creation of new literature. poets advocated for introducing the traditions of ancient Alexandrian verse into French literature. They explained such a wish by the fact that it was Hellenic, Alexandrian poetry that was close to perfection - both in syllable and in poetics in general. The frankly weak and controversial treatise made a subtle nod towards the native language: yes, the French language is wonderful, it has great potential, but it is not as developed as Greek or Latin, and therefore it needs to be developed. What development path did Pleiades advise you to take? This was nothing more than an imitation of the ancients.

The poetic community included five more - Etienne Jodel, Jean Antoine de Baif, Remy Bellot, Jean Dora, Pontus de Tiard. The legacy of the Pleiades, which has reached the present day, is better known for the poetry of Pierre de Ronsard, which became an example of true French romanticism and lyricism, than for the failed experiments of the Young Hellenists of the Renaissance. Already in the 70s, in his declining years, he wrote real masterpieces, in particular, “Sonnets to Helen”, which remain in the history of French literature - a dedication to his last hopeless love. And there is not a trace of imitation in them, there is no Alexandrian verse dear to his heart, but there is only the living, suffering soul of the poet.

In later periods in the history of literature, the word “Pleiades” was heard more than once in relation to poetry. This was, however, a purely defining designation of poets of one movement or one era. Thus, in modern literary criticism the term “poets of the Pushkin galaxy”, “galaxy of poets of the Silver Age” is often used.” But this is, as Goethe wrote, “a new age - different birds.”

Group of 7 French poets, headed by Pierre de Ronsard and existed from 1550 to 1585.

When creating the group, he took as a model the Alexandrian Pleiades, which included 7 famous Greek poets.

The group's manifesto was a treatise Joachena du Bellay 1549: Defense and glorification of the French language / La Defense et illustration de la langue francoyse.

7 poets were the first to write poetry in French, and not in Latin or Greek.

“Pleiades is a poetic school whose activity took place in the third quarter of the 16th century, and its influence remained predominant until the end of the century.

The Pleiades included the humanist scientist Jean Dora (1508-1588) and his students and followers - Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585), Joachin Du Bellay(1522-1560), Jean Antoine de Baif (1532-1589), Etienne Jodel (1532-1573), Remy Bellot (1528-1577), Pontus de Thiard (1521-1605); Jacques Peletier du Man (1517-1582), Guillaume Desautels (1529-1581), Jean de La Peruse (1529-1554) and others also joined it.

The historical and literary role of the Pleiades was that it decisively introduced humanistic ideas and ideals into poetry. Without breaking with the traditionalist type of thinking as such, with super-personal values ​​and ideals, the Pleiades - over the head of the established medieval poetic tradition - turned to the traditions of ancient culture and attempted its successful restoration on the basis of the culture of the 16th century. A comparison of the poetics of the Pleiades with the poetics of the “great rhetoricians” allows us to understand the innovative nature of the aesthetic principles of the school of Ronsard and Du Bellay.

The ancient imagery itself had long been firmly part of the arsenal of the poetic culture of the “great rhetoricians,” but it functioned in many ways differently than that of the Pleiades poets. It was no coincidence that the authors of the 15th century considered their work as a “second rhetoric”, for they saw the difference between an orator and a poet only in the means of expression (the poet uses poetic meter, but the orator does not) and in the material (the poet primarily thinks in allegorical and mythological images ), but by no means the goal. The goal was thought to be the same - to convince and instruct the audience in Christian truths, using all possible techniques from the rhetorical arsenal. Unlike the rhetorician, however, the poet had to put his teachings into figurative form, for which he used the richest reserve of ancient myths.

Thus, the poet could not simply say that the light of truth disperses the darkness of ignorance, he had to “poeticize” this thought, that is, he must personify it, say, in the form of a struggle Apollo with Python. “Poetic” stories were understood as mythological stories themselves, told in poetic form. The whole point, however, is that ancient myths seemed to the “great rhetoricians” to be deliberate “fictions”, pagan “fables”, which played the role of a very convenient, but completely conventional and decorative “packaging” for Christian content.

The poet was perceived as a kind of philosopher, a servant of moral truth - but precisely and only a servant, since truth is given by divine revelation and is objectively poured into the world.

According to this view, the poet, strictly speaking, does not create anything himself; he only opens, reads and deciphers the “book of the world”, in which everything is already written in advance, and communicates what he has read to his audience.

The poetry of the “great rhetoricians” had a purely rationalistic, utilitarian and educational orientation. These features in general were not alien to the Pleiades, however, she significantly rethought them, which was primarily manifested in the theoretical manifesto of the school, written Joachin Du Bellay, - in “Defense and Glorification of the French Language” (1549).

The main idea of ​​the manifesto is that antiquity created eternal and universal aesthetic models, which are the absolute criterion for all subsequent times and peoples. Therefore, it is possible to create something worthy in poetry only by approaching these models, that is, by “imitating” the ancients and “competing” with them. The Italians followed this path back in the 14th century and were not mistaken, as evidenced by the brilliant literature they created. Therefore, one can imitate both ancient and Italian humanistic culture directly. This is a commonplace of French Renaissance thought. However, if the Neo-Latin poets preferred to compete with the Romans in their own language, then Du Bellay put at the forefront the conviction that through “cultivation” it is possible to raise the “French dialect” to the level of Latin, that is, to create a national poetry that can compare with the ancient one and even surpass it.

The reform of poetry concerned primarily two areas - lexical and genre. As for vocabulary enrichment, here Du Bellay suggested two main ways:

1) borrowings (both from ancient languages ​​and from the languages ​​of various modern professions) and
2) creation of neologisms (in particular, on an Italian basis).

As for genres, Du Bellay uncompromisingly rejected the entire medieval system of genres, and this applied to both lyrical (ballad, royal song, le, virele, dizen, etc.) and dramatic (morality play, farce, etc.) genres, which were to be replaced by the revived genres of ancient literature - ode, elegy, epigram, satire, epistle, eclogue (in lyric poetry), tragedy and comedy (in drama).

This reform, carried out by the Pleiades, was a turning point in French literature, defining its appearance not only in the 16th, but also in the 17th and 18th centuries, for it was about something much more than a simple change in “genre forms,” as we have seen , that in medieval poetry the genre was not a purely compositional formation, but presupposed its own theme, its own ways of interpreting it, its own system of visual means, etc., i.e., it acted as a predetermined semantic and figurative language, like that ready-made “prism” , through which the poet could only look at reality. We are talking about a fundamental feature of not only medieval, but also any (including ancient) traditionalist culture.

An author belonging to such a culture never relates to the object he depicts “directly,” relying exclusively on his individual experience, but, on the contrary, only indirectly, through an already existing word about this object, which is precisely fixed in the system of semantic and pictorial expressive clichés, in their totality making up this culture.

When choosing a genre, the poet chose not only a strophic, etc. “form”, he chose a semantic language in which he had to talk about the world.”

Kosikov G.K. , The work of the Pleiades poets and the dramaturgy of the Renaissance / Collected works, Volume 1: French literature, M., Rudomino Book Center, 2011, p. 101-103.

In the morning, having gotten ready, I walked along the alley:
The sea sighs, the cicadas chatter.
And looking forward to a Sunday walk
At the intersection I slowed down.

A Subaru roared past,
The hot air washed over me.
I remember the number: seven, three... Lady?!
It's a pity that fate didn't deal me the ace.

Why, Countess, did you deceive me again?
I would sit at the card table, but, alas...
I smoothed my hair with my fingers,
He pulled on his jacket and adjusted his glasses.

Suddenly, unexpectedly before my eyes
An image appeared - six twinkling stars...
The thought suggested itself: why a crossover?
Did Kenji Kita carry this sign?

Gathered together in the azure field
Mitsuraboshi merged to form FHI.
Not finding worthy options,
He named the car himself...

Before the advent of the human race
A series of ten-year battles,
Titanomachy that Hesiod
It was sung to us in theogony,

Completed. Zeus overthrew the Titans
To Tartarus, under the supervision of Hecatoncheires,
Their leader, the hardy Atlas
Doomed to hold the heavenly sphere.

Seven daughters: Keleno, Asterope,
Maya, Taygeta, Electra, Merope,
And Alcyone - the love of Poseidon -
The way for sailors will be illuminated from the sky.

Heavenly nymphs, Artemis' train,
Eternally running, driven by Orion,
Looking for peace. Turned into stars
(Zeus the Thunderer fulfilled their request)

The night is decorated with a timid radiance,
Only Merope in a distant constellation,
As if embarrassed by a mortal husband,
It shines weaker than the sisters... In the winter cold

Raising your eyes, will you pay attention?
An inconspicuous flicker:
Stozhary is visible to a clear eye,
People are promised the return of spring...

So, looking at the strange pattern,
I made a brief review of the myths.
Life is not that simple, believe me...
It’s even simpler – just be able to understand it.

=====
Founder and first president of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (FHI), Kenji Kita, was personally involved in the creation of the first prototype of the P-1 passenger car in 1954.
When the P-1 was created, Kita, who believed that a Japanese car should have a Japanese name, announced a competition for the best name for the P-1. However, none of the competition names suited Kenji, and he eventually came up with it himself - “Subaru”.
The word "Subaru" is the Japanese name for the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation Taurus. About a dozen of its stars can be seen in the night sky with the naked eye, and about 250 more can be seen with a telescope. The original Japanese name for cluster comes from the verb subaru (to be gathered together). The brand and its logo also reference another ancient Japanese name for the Pleiades, Mitsuraboshi, alluding to the six companies that merged to form FHI.

A.S. Pushkin argued that the plot of his story “The Queen of Spades” is based on a real story from the life of Princess Golitsyna, who revealed to her lost grandson the secret of three true cards (“Three, seven and ace will win you in a row...”).

Titanomachy - in ancient Greek mythology, the battle of the Olympian Gods with the Titans, a series of battles over ten years long before the existence of the human race. The Titanomachy is also known as the Clash of the Titans or the Battle of the Gods.
Several poems about this war are known from Greek literature of the classical period. The dominant and only one that has survived to this day is the Theogony written by Hesiod.
Having defeated the Titans, Zeus threw them to Tartarus. On Atlas (Atlas), who was the leader of the Titans, he placed the vault of heaven and ordered him to forever support the sky on his shoulders. Atlas is a symbol of endurance and patience.
Hecatoncheires - in ancient Greek mythology, hundred-armed, fifty-headed giants, the personification of the elements. During the Titanomachy, they responded to the call of the Olympian Gods and opposed the Titans. Later they guard them in Tartarus.

The Pleiades - in ancient Greek mythology, a group of seven nymphs, daughters of Atlas: Alcyone, Keleno, Maia, Merope, Asterope, Taygeta and Electra.
The Pleiades are the companions of Artemis, her escort. Subsequently, they were turned by Zeus into stars - the constellation Pleiades and began to be considered as celestial nymphs.
According to the myth, the hunter Orion began to pursue the Pleiades sisters, who, fleeing his persecution, turned to the gods for protection. Zeus turned the Pleiades into stars and placed them in the sky in the form of an asterism of the same name in the constellation Taurus, and Orion, as punishment for his insolence, was also turned into a group of stars and placed in the sky in the form of a constellation, not far from the Pleiades. It turned out that Orion was now doomed to unsuccessfully pursue the Pleiades across the sky until the end of time.
All the Pleiades are connected by family ties with the gods, and only Merope was the only one who married a mortal, therefore in the constellation, ashamed of her act, she shines weaker than the others.

The Pleiades (astronomical designation M45; sometimes the proper name Seven Sisters is also used, the old Russian name is Stozhary or Volosozhary) - an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus; one of the closest star clusters to Earth and one of the most visible to the naked eye.
There are several different versions of the origin of the name "Pleiades". According to one of them, it comes from the Greek “to sail,” because the Pleiades asterism is observed at night in the Mediterranean region from mid-May to early November, that is, during the period of active trade travel in antiquity.
“Joyfully, Odysseus strained the sail and, with a fair wind,
Trusting, he swam. Sitting on the stern and with a mighty hand
Turning the steering wheel, he was awake; sleep did not descend on him
He never took his eyes off the Pleiades...”
Homer, "Odyssey".

For the ancient Greeks and Romans, the rising of the Pleiades in the morning before sunrise meant the return of spring.

Sarkizov-serazini Ivan Mikhailovich “sports massage I m sarkizov serazini therapeutic physical culture

Third quarter of the 16th century. - the years of the reigns of Henry II, Francis II and Charles IX are called not by their names, but by the era of the Pleiades, or more often - by the time of Ronsard.

All the most talented in the literature of France of those years was grouped around the Pleiades, a group of poets led by Pierre Ronsard and Joachin (Joachim) du Bellay. The very name of the group was given by Pierre Ronsard in one of his poems, not only hinting at the famous constellation, but also in memory of the “pleiad” of seven Hellenistic poets of the 3rd century. BC, led by Theocritus.

Over the years, the composition of the group has changed: here are the lyricist Remy Belleau, and the poet-playwright Etienne Jodel, and the musician, poet and theorist of verse Jean Antoine de Baif, and the Neoplatonist poet Pontus de Guillard, and the lyricists Jonce Pelletier, Guillaume Desautels, Olivier de Magny, Jean Tayuro, Jacques Grevin, Jean Passera, Amadis Jamin and many others.

What united the group? Some theoretical provisions, as usual. They were presented in treatises, prefaces to collections of poems, and poetic epistles. The first place both in time and in importance belongs here to the “Defense and Glorification of the French Language” by J. Du Bellay.

From the first steps, the activities of the Pleiades are distinguished by their overall concern for all French literature in the name of the exaltation and glory of France: it protects the native language, without condemning Latin, it raises the language to the level of art, proclaiming Poetry as the highest form of its existence.

According to Du Bellay's theory, the practical achievement of the ideal expression of national literature had to be achieved through imitation not of the letter, but of the spirit of antiquity.

The best authors of the Pleiades, brilliantly using Pindar's technique, created a French ode and brought the poetic word to the highest degree of perfection. Ronsard, one might say, created a new French lyric poetry, just as Pushkin did here. Ronsard, like Du Bellay, had a subtle sense of proportion, laconicism, and even rightly rejected Italian poets who, in his words, “usually pile up four or five epithets in one verse.”

The Pleiades theorists, turning to the work of Horace, urged not to rush to publish the works, but to tirelessly polish their style. However, no amount of learning and hard work will save if the poet is not inspired by the muses, and poetic theory is built in accordance with the teachings of Plato, who claims that poets are exponents of the divine inspiration descending on them.

Du Bellay spoke about the high purpose of the poet-creator, that he must make the reader “indignant, calm down, rejoice, be upset, love, hate.”

"Pleiad" did another important thing - it freed the poet from complete dependence on the patron of the arts, and made him a professional.

True, during the years of religious wars, in the context of the Counter-Reformation, the paths of the group members diverged quite sharply: Ronsard and Baif became court authors, Jodelle went into opposition, many others were no longer alive. But in general terms, the job was done: a national school, national poetry was created, moreover, the influence of the “Pleiades” spreads throughout Europe: Edmund Spencer and Philip Sidney are trying to implement a similar reform in England, in Poland the brilliant Jan Kochanowski, in his work, Germany - Weckerlin and Opitz, even the Italian Chiaberra declares himself a supporter of Ronsard's ideas.

But theories are theories, and literature is created primarily by geniuses. The Pleiades gave such geniuses to France, and France to the whole world. These geniuses were Joagent du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard.

Pierre Ronsard

Now about Ronsard. Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585) was born into the family of a poor nobleman, whose ancestors came from Hungary. The poet's father, a participant in almost all Italian campaigns of the early 16th century. He was a good amateur poet and instilled in his son a love of antiquity. In his youth, the future poet visited England, Scotland, Flanders, Germany, and studied languages ​​and ancient literature under the guidance of Jean Doré.

After the appearance of his first books, Ronsard immediately became the head of a new movement and the “prince of poets.” His worldview is integral, cheerful, and humanistic. During this period, Ronsard is a true man of the Renaissance.

His best creations of this period, that is, the late 40s. - “Odes”, in which, using Pindar’s technique, Ronsard achieved wonderful poetry, philosophical and aesthetic depth.

In addition to the Odes, the extensive cycle of Petrarchist sonnets “Love for Cassandra” is significant.

By the mid-50s. Ronsard moved on to the "poetry of reality." Two brilliant cycles of poems to Mary in the manner of Catullus, Ovid and Tibullus marked a new stage in his work.

Here nature and man unite, the tone of the poems becomes calmer, the Alexandrian twelve-syllable replaces the impetuous ten-syllable verse of the cycle to Cassandra. Subsequently, Alexandrian verse would become the main meter of classicist drama and high poetry in France.