Maurice Scève
Authors: Giordano Michael J. 
Published: November 2015

Maurice Scève born in 1501 or the beginning of 1502 was celebrated in his own times as the preeminent poet of the French Renaissance in Lyon when that city was enjoying a burst of commercial and cultural success. Though few facts are known about his life, it is certain that there was an invigorating reciprocity between his considerable literary talents and Lyon’s prestigious position as a cosmopolitan crossroads bringing together influences from Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Low Countries. Scève is primarily known as the author of France’s first canzoniere, titled Délie, object de plus haulte vertu (1544), which in the manner of Francesco Petrarca’s Rime sparse unfolds as a sequence of love poems devoted to a single woman whose poet-lover gains self-knowledge through the vicissitudes of thwarted passion. Délie has been credited by historians as the only 16th-century work to incorporate imprese in a serious and sustained treatment of love. In addition to Petrarchism, the other main tributaries flowing through the work derive from the Greek Anthology, the Latin elegiacs, amour courtois, and Neoplatonism, especially of Marsilio Ficino, Sperone Speroni, and Leone Ebreo. At the same time, Scève is distinctively French in his decision to compose in his native language and to transform and condense Petrarch’s sonnets into the French ten-line stanza called a dizain. He also incorporated a number of linguistic reforms that would be prescribed by Joachim du Bellay in his Deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse (1549). Moreover, Délie appealed to the music lovers in Lyon, since seven poems were put to music by contemporary composers as chansons of three or four voices. Though highly conscious of Italian models but innovative in implementing French reforms, Scève forged a style (or rather an idiom) so singular that it defies comparison, causing the critic Odette de Mourges to call him “un-French” at times. A year after Délie, the Lyonnais printer Jean de Tournes published a handsome volume titled Il Petrarca and dedicated it to his friend “M. Mauritio Scaeva.” In the preface De Tournes states that the author of Délie personally narrated to him the story of his discovery of the tomb of Petrarch’s beloved Laura in Avignon in 1533. True or not this created a symbolic association of Scève with Petrarch at a time (1545) when the Italian poet was held in such high esteem that even the King François Ier was reported to have visited the archaeological site. Scève’s entry into the literary world came in 1535 with a translation of the Spanish novel La déplourable fin de Flamete, élégante invention de Jehan de Flores Espaignol. This itself was a continuation of Boccaccio’s Fiammetta, which mixed love and adventure in a tragedy of frustration and disillusion. Scève’s first literary success took place at the Court of Ferrara where Renée de France, serving as judge of an anatomical poetry competition, awarded him the poetic laurel for his blazon titled “Le Sourcil” (“The Eyebrow”). This poem was first published in 1536 with another called “The Tear” (“La Larme”), and when we add other blazons on the “Forehead” (“Le Front”), “Sigh” (“Le Souspir”), and “Neck” (“La Gorge”), we have a total of five whose style consistently combines the fetish with Neoplatonism. The unpredictable, shocking death of the Dauphin in 1536 moved the humanist Étienne Dolet to organize a collection of works eulogizing his short life, and Scève’s contributions amounted to one-third of the volume consisting of five Latin epigrams, two French huitains, and a long allegorical eclogue in French Arion. In 1542 Scève published two psalm translations into the vernacular that associated him with a type of spirituality characteristic of such figures as Erasmus, Lefèvre d’Étaples, Clément Marot, and Marguerite de Navarre. Another original side of Scève can be seen in his second bucolic ecologue titled La Saulsaye, églogue de la vie solitaire (1547) where solitude in nature itself without the amenities of civilization is the debated goal. With regard to civic matters, the high esteem in which Scève was held by the city of Lyon is best shown when in 1548 he was chosen by the consulat to be the principal coordinator of pageantry for the prestigious Entrée Royale to honor of the new King Henry II and Queen Catherine de Médicis. Amid a background of political tensions Scève was also commissioned to write the official, printed account of the ceremony titled La Magnificence de la superbe et triumphante entrée de la noble et antique Cité de Lyon faicte au Treschrestien Roy de France Henry deuxiesme de ce nom, et à la Royne Catherine son Espouse, le XXIII de Septembre M.D.XLVIII. Readers will by now have appreciated the variety of genres practiced by Scève, but along with Délie the other great work he authored was the biblical epic Microcosme (1562). Consisting of 3,003 verses divided into three books, the poem is a sweeping view of human history with the humanist aim of portraying Adam’s temptation and fall as the incentives to advance unlimited human progress. Scève wrote short pieces such as epitaphs, encomia, celebratory and gift poetry (xenia), and commemorations; some of these were poèmes d’escorte such as sonnets opening and closing two works of the Queen Marguerite de Navarre. Not only was Scève among the first French writers to compose sonnets along with Clément Marot, Mellin de Saint Gelais, and Peletier du Mans, but also he was an honored member of the sodality of Lyonnais humanists (the Sodalitium Lugdunense) for his neo-Latin poetry. French literary history traditionally refers to L’école de Lyon grouping Scève with the two renowned poetesses Louise Labé and Pernette du Guillet; however, while one cannot justify the label “school of Lyon,” they are all love poets adapting Petrarchism and Neoplatonism to highly introspective lyric poetry. There are certain works that have sometimes been attributed to Scève in whole or in part, and debate will continue: these works are Le Petit Oeuvre d’amour, et gaige d’amytie (1537), Paradoxe contre des lettres (1545), and it is speculated that he contributed to Jeanne Flore’s Contes amoureux (1540) and La Pugnition de l’amoureux contempné (1540). There is evidence that Scève was still alive in 1563 but the date of his death is not known. Perhaps owing to his obscurity, it would not be until the 19th century that there would be renewed interest in Scève, partially explained by his works’ similarities with French symbolism. However since Verdun-Louis Saulnier’s majesterial 1948 study, Délie’s reputation has soared, attracting a range of scholarship; in 2013 the French educational system selected this work for its national agrégation exams. Unless otherwise indicated, translations in this article are by the author. D is an abbreviation of dizain, a popular ten-line stanza or poem in the French Renaissance. The word huitain designates a popular eight-line stanza or poem in the French Renaissance.