In the golden autumn of French Renaissance literature, one name shines with particular brilliance: Pierre de Ronsard, the master lyricist who transformed French poetry and established himself as the supreme voice of his generation. Born in September 1524 at the Château de la Possonnière in the Vendômois region of France, Ronsard would live until December 27, 1585, leaving behind a literary legacy that would influence…
“Although the art of poetry cannot be grasped or taught by precepts, being more a matter of the mind than of tradition, human craft, experience and labour can still permit a few rules.”
Neighbourhood:
Italian Renaissance Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sensuality, Tenderness
John Bennet, born probably around 1575 and last securely active in 1614, occupies a distinctive if elusive place in the cultural history of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. He is frequently described as a poet because his finest music is inseparable from the language it sets, but the surviving evidence identifies him principally as a composer: a writer of madrigals and psalm settings whose art depended upon an excep…
Neighbourhood:
Lute-Song Composers, Poet-Musicians, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
