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For the scholarly (and/or otherwise) interested: At this page I gathered digital versions of the some of my academic publications. I took the opportunity to add some material to the articles (images, extra info, curious details) etc.

  • Was Marot a 'witty court poet' or a 'renewer of poetry'. Was he serious in his religious poems or...? After years of 'living with his poetry', I think he was a 'Person', as complex as any human being. So the answer is not simple but multiple. No, yes, he was all that and probably even more. At least he was not boring. Therefore this excerpt of an article I wrote in which I correct the image of Marot 'badinant'. Viewing him not only as as a ‘court poet’ - writing light verse (badinage) - but also as a ‘learned poet’ opens up new possibilities not only to understand why he translated the Classics: Ovid, Virgil, Martial - to which list the Hebrew Psalter should be added, but also how he did it. The 'playful' and the 'serious' are not conflictuous, but united in Renaissance Humanism. That is where Marot really belongs (imho).

  • The legend of Marot offering his Psalms to the Emperor Charles V in 1540 (the Villemadon Letter)
    A critical essay about the 'legend' that in the winter of 1539/1540 Marot offered his Psalm paraphrases first to King Francis I and then to the Emperor Charles V (passing through Paris). One can read this story everywhere, but its historicity does not stand scrutiny. Even worse: this legend obscures some elementary facts in the chronology of Marot's Psalm paraphrases. The original article was published in Renaissance Studies, Volume 22 Issue 2, Pages 240 - 250 [online: 21 Mar 2008. DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2008.00489.x]

  • "Dear Doctor Bouchart, I am no Lutheran... : Marot addressing the core-issue of the theological debate of his time. In this essay an often quoted poem (Epistre à M. Bouchart) is close-read. The reference to his own captivity and his plaidoyer of not being guilty of the charge of heresy (core: I confess 'being a christian', and reject the addition of any confessional adjective to this confession) is carefully examined and reinterpreted from its publication date: after the 'Wonder-Year' (1533) and before the 'Affaire des Placards' (1534, the annus horribilis of the French Reformation). En passant the famous story of Marot having been imprisoned because he had eaten 'the bacon' (1526) is critically assessed and demythologised. The article was published in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance – Tome LXX – 2008 – no. 3, pp. 567-578.

  • New light on Marot's final days, his tomb and laudatory epitaph in Turin (published in Studi Francesi 161/2010 [anno LIV - fascicolo II - maggio/agosto 2010], 293-303; re-edited to better fit the way articles are read on www). In this research-essay the Turin Cathedral (the shrine of the shroud) is explored looking for traces of Marot's burial place. Because of some coincidences the exact spot of the epitaph inside the Church (erased by the Inquisition) could be established. A reproduction and some photographs make things imaginable.

 

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