Francois Villon Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Francois Villon

Although his verse gained him little or no financial success during his life, François Villon is today perhaps the best-known French poet of the Middle Ages. His works surfaced in several manuscripts shortly after his disappearance in 1463, and the first printed collection of his poetry—the Levet edition—came out as early as 1489. More than one hundred printed editions followed, and Villon's poetry has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. At the request of King Francis I, the poet Clément Marot prepared the first critical edition of Villon's work in 1533. Basing his edition on previous printed editions, Marot supplemented it “avecques l'ayde de bons vieillards qui en savent par cueur” (with the aid of good old men who know it by heart). That old men had learned Villon's work by heart and that Marot's edition went through fifteen reprintings from 1533 to 1542 attest to the poet's popularity. François Rabelais mentions Villon in Les horribles et épouvantables faits et prouesses du très renommé Pantagruel, roy des Dipsodes (The Horrible and Terrifying Deeds and Words of the Renowned Pantagruel, King of the Dipsodes, 1532) and quotes from his poetry in the Quart livre (Fourth Book, 1548).

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