Pierre de Ronsard’s “The Nightingale”

In French Blog Posts by Brock Bourgase

My Second Essay for FCS369Y: Irony and Pierre de Ronsard’s “Nightingale” All night the nightingale hears Ronsard’s pleas.Singing, sighing, the bird learns of love scorned.It knows life without love is a heart torn,But it may not see the poem’s irony. Pierre de Ronsard constructs the poem by comparing himself to a nightingale, fluttering from tree to tree and warbling its song during the night, hoping to find true love. The foundation of the metaphor is the role the nightingale as a symbol for tragic love in literature. In his cathedral for Marie d’Anjou, Ronsard used some conventional architecture, such as …

Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron

In French Blog Posts by Brock Bourgase

My First Essay for FCS369Y: Allegories and Humour Show how Heroes are RewardedLike the wry smile Leornardo da Vinci painted on Mona Lisa, Jean Clouet’s portrait of Marguerite de Navarre, displays her knowledge and wit. She proved a controversial figure during the French Renaissance, a proponent of the abilities of women and religious integrity but also a writer who was quite risqué. Always supporting her words with actions, she provided protection to persecuted authors like François Rabelais and once rode on horseback from Lyons to Madrid in order to negotiate the freedom of her brother François I from Spanish captivity …