Maurice Scève
Encyclopedia
Maurice Scève French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, was born at Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

, where his father practised law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

.

He was the centre of the Lyonnese côterie that elaborated the theory of spiritual love, derived partly from Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 and partly from Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

. This spiritual love, which animated Antoine Héroet
Antoine Héroet
Antoine Héroet, surnamed La Maison-Neuve , French poet, was born in Paris of a family connected with the well known chancellor, François Olivier....

's Parfaicte Amye (1543) as well, owed much to Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), the Florentine translator and commentator of Plato's works.

Scève's chief works are Délie, objet de plus haulte vertu (1544); three anatomical blazons (La Gorge, Le Sourcil, La Larme); the elegy Arion (1536) and the eclogue La Saulsaye (1547); and Microcosme (1562), an encyclopaedic poem beginning with the fall of man. Délie consists of 449 dizains (10-line epigrammes) preceded by a dedicatory "huitain" to his mistress, ("A sa Délie"). The poems alternate with 50 emblems, which include an image and a motto, the latter generally taken up from the last line of the following "dizain". The collection thus reflects the more general 16th-century vogue for emblem books (A. Alciati's emblems are particularly characteristic of the genre). Scève's epigrams, which have seen renewed critical interest since the late 19th century, were seen as difficult even in Scève's own day, although Scève was praised by Du Bellay, Ronsard, Pontus de Tyard and Des Autels for raising French poetry to new, higher aesthetic standards. His enthusiastic admirer Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet was a French scholar, translator and printer.-Early life:He was born in Orléans. A doubtful tradition makes him the illegitimate son of Francis I; but it is evident that he was at least connected with some family of rank and wealth.From Orléans he was taken to Paris about 1521, and...

 confesses he could not understand them.

Scève was also a well versed musician as well as a poet; he cared very much for the musical value of the words he used, in this and in his erudition he forms a link between the school of Marot
Clément Marot
Clément Marot was a French poet of the Renaissance period.-Youth:Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot , whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman from the Caen...

 and the Pléiade
La Pléiade
The Pléiade is the name given to a group of 16th-century French Renaissance poets whose principal members were Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Jean-Antoine de Baïf. The name was a reference to another literary group, the original Alexandrian Pleiad of seven Alexandrian poets and...

. Délie (sometimes understood as an anagram for l'idée) is the first French "canzoniere" or poetic collection modeled after Petrarch's Canzoiere, a series of love poems addressed to a Lady. Scève was soon followed by Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard was a French poet and "prince of poets" .-Early life:...

 in Les Amours de Cassandre and by Du Bellay
Joachim du Bellay
Joachim du Bellay was a French poet, critic, and a member of the Pléiade.-Biography:He was born at the Château of La Turmelière, not far from Liré, near Angers, being the son of Jean du Bellay, Lord of Gonnor, first cousin of the cardinal Jean du Bellay and of Guillaume du Bellay.Both his parents...

 in Olive, these times collections of sonnets.

The Lyonnese school, of which Scève was the leader, included his friend Claude de Taillemont and the women writers Jeanne Gaillarde--placed by Marot on an equality with Christine de Pisan, Pernette du Guillet
Pernette Du Guillet
Pernette Du Guillet was a female French poet of the Renaissance.She was born in a noble family and married in 1537 or 1538 a man with the last name Du Guillet. In the spring of 1536, she met the poet Maurice Scève , and she would serve as Scève's poetic muse, inspiring his Délie...

, Louise Labé, Clémence de Bourges and the poet's sisters, Claudine and Sibyile Scéve. Scève died sometime after 1560; the exact date is unknown. See also Louise Labe
Louise Labé
Louise Labé, , also identified as La Belle Cordière, , was a female French poet of the Renaissance, born at Lyon, the daughter of a rich ropemaker, Pierre Charly, and his second wife, Etiennette Roybet...

.

English translation

  • Emblems of Desire: Selections from the "Délie" of Maurice Scève, Richard Sieburth
    Richard Sieburth
    Richard Sieburth is a translator, essayist, editor, and literary scholar. He has gained widespread recognition for his numerous translations from both German and French literature, receiving a number of awards and prizes for his work. Sieburth is considered an authority on literary modernism,...

    , Editor and Translator. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002) ISBN 0812236947

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