Pierre de Ronsard

Timeline

1. 1524–1547La Possonnière manor · VendômoisBorn at the manor of La Possonnière in Vendômois, son of a chamberlain of Francis I's court. As a youth he entered court service, in 1537 accompanied Princess Madeleine to Scotland to marry James V, and later traveled to Flanders and elsewhere. Around 1540 illness left him hard of hearing, ending his diplomatic career; he turned instead to following the humanist Jean Dorat in Paris, studying Greek and Roman poetics with Baïf and others.
2. 1547–1560Paris · ParisWith Du Bellay, Baïf, Belleau, Thiard, Jodelle, and Dorat he formed a poetic group first called the Brigade and later the Pléiade, aiming to elevate French through classical genres. In 1549 Du Bellay published Défense et illustration de la langue française; in 1550 Ronsard issued his four books of Odes, styling himself the French Pindar; in 1552 the Amours de Cassandre transplanted the Petrarchan tradition; and in 1555–1556 the Hymnes expanded into philosophical and natural subjects, establishing his standing in poetry.
3. 1560–1585Priory of Saint-Cosme · Indre-et-LoireDuring the Wars of Religion he wrote political poems such as Discours des misères de ce temps. Charles IX treated him as a laureate poet and urged him to complete a Virgilian national epic; in 1572 the first four books of the Franciade appeared, but it was never finished. That same year, after the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the court atmosphere changed abruptly. Under Henry III his favor declined and he retired to the priory of Saint-Cosme near Tours, where his Sonnets pour Hélène (1578) showed a late lyric flowering; he died there on 27 December 1585.