Eustache Deschamps is arguably the best and certainly one of the most prolific French poets of the fourteenth century. A disciple of the last great poet-musician, Guillaume de Machaut, Deschamps is the first major French lyric poet known to have dismissed the need for musical settings for his poems. He explains divorcing the lyric from music in L' Art de dictier (The Art of Poetry), the first book on prosody in French. His Le Miroir de mariage (The Mirror for Marriage), a discussion of the advisability of marriage, includes scenes worthy of Geoffrey Chaucer. Respected by his contemporaries for the range and wit of his many short works, yet demeaned by nineteenth-century critics, in recent years Deschamps has received critical attention both for his vivid glimpses of fourteenth-century life and for the vivacity and humor of his 1,500 poems.

Born in Vertus in Champagne circa 1340, he was always referred...