The Duchess and the Poet: Rereading Variants of Two Poems Written in Exile by Clément Marot to Renée de France in Relation to Ongoing Diplomatic Negotiations (1535–1538)

Abstract

Guillaume Berthon’s study investigates the literary afterlife of the “Ferrarese imbroglio” in Marot’s poetry. This chapter identifies and compares extant witnesses of two poems written during Marot’s stay in Italy, offering a critical edition and textual analysis of both. Berthon examines the larger politico-religious situation, Renée’s personal situation, and the thematic evolution of the poems between their initial composition for Renée and their dissemination to a wider public. One poem anticipates the birth of Renée’s third child and posits an apocalyptic vision of Christ’s return amidst the current turmoil of the Church, while the second, written after Marot fled Ferrara in the wake of the imbroglio, excoriates the materialism of Venice, a city that gilded its churches, but neglected its poor. Berthon demonstrates that Renée’s influence is ever-present in the poems, but in an effort to secure royal patronage, their heterodox backdrop necessarily faded as the political tides changed.