SOURCE: “The Theme of Authority in the Works of François Villon,” in The Centennial Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1980, pp. 65-78.

In this essay, Harrison offers a counterpoint to the common scholarly view of Villon as an enemy of authority. Harrison delineates several types of authority present in Villon's works to argue that Villon did not view all authority equally and that Villon himself had a sense of his own authority as a literary master.

I

Because of his life as an activist, both student and post-graduate, Francois Villon has often appeared to be engaged in a lifelong rebellion against all authority figures. He was supremely poor, often in difficulty with the law, and he wrote irreverently about many of the men of high station of his time and place; it is easy to conclude that he condemned authority out of hand.¹ Yet, a close reading of his poems...