THE FIRST FRENCH SONNETEER* HOUGH the question, who wrote the first French sonnet, was first mooted in the days of Ronsard and du Bellay, now and again, after a period of quiescence, it engages the attention of scholars. It is a thorny question indeed; and, accordingly, we can readily understand Louis de Veyrieres’ wisdom and condone his timidity when he exclaims: “ Comme il y a doute a cet égard, nous abandonnons la controverse a ceux qui sont moins ignorants que nous.” ® The distinction of introducing the sonnet in France has been of- fered many writers. Etienne Pasquier declares that: “‘Celuy qui premier apporta I’usage des sonnets fut le mesme du Bellay par une cinquantaine dont il nous fit présent en l'honneur de son Olive.” But Ronsard declares that long before du Bellay d’un ton plus haut que tui ‘Tyard chanta son amoureuse ennuy Qui jusqu’a Tos consumoit sa mouélle Pour Ies beaux yeux de sa dame cruelle, Du Bellay himself hazards a guess much nearer the truth. He says in the preface to the 1550 edition of the Olive: “ Ce fut pourqtoy a la persuasion de Jacques Peletier je choisi le sonnet, Pode, deux poémes de ce temps la (c’est depuis quatre ans) encore peu usités entre les nostres: etant le sonnet d’Italien devenu Frangois, comme je croy, par Mellin de Saint Gelays.” None of the early writers whom I have been able to consult seems to have thought of Marot in this connexion, yet his claim to have written the first French sonnet is recognised by modern critics to be as substantial and plausible as Saint Gelays’. Marot first went to Italy in 1524, in the train of Francis I. He probably then came into contact with Italian writers and their works. At all events, in Epigram LXI (1527), appear the lines On the origin of the sonnet see E, H, Wilkins, Mod, Phil, XIII, 463. 2 Sonnetistes anciens et modernes, Introduction, 1869. 189 Copsright (6) 2002 ProQuest Information anel Learning Company Copyright (c) Columbia University