François Villon

François Villon (c. 1431-c. 1463), French poet, considered by many scholars France's outstanding lyric poet, famous for the beauty and originality, as well as the evocative quality, of his verse.

Villon was born in or near Paris in about 1431. His real name is thought to have been either François de Montcorbier or François des Loges. He assumed the name Villon, however, out of gratitude to his patron Guillaume de Villon, a chaplain and professor of canon law. While earning the degree of Bachelor of Arts (1449) and Master of Arts (1452) at the Sorbonne, Villon participated fully in the roistering academic life of the time. In 1455 he killed a priest in a street brawl. A year later he was involved in the theft of 500 crowns from the chapel of the Collège de Navarre in Paris, for which crime he was banished.

During the next four years (1456-1460) Villon wandered about France. In 1461 he was arrested by order of the bishop of Orléans and imprisoned in the town of Meung. After a few months, however, he and his fellow prisoners were pardoned by Louis XI.

Villon returned to Paris in 1462, but quickly got into serious trouble again. He was arrested as a result of his presence at a serious fracas and was condemned to death. About a year later, his sentence was commuted to banishment from Paris. Information on his activities thereafter has not been found.

Villon's great merit as a poet lies in the subjectivity of his verse. He candidly expressed what he felt, whether good or bad, and his frankness about himself led him to write with equal frankness about others; his poems, therefore, present a colourful and generally reliable picture of his times. His major writings include Les Lais (The Lays), also called Le Petit Testament (The Little Testament), written in 1456, and Le Testament, also called Le Grand Testament (The Great Testament), written in 1461. Both poems are composed of eight-line stanzas, with eight syllables to a line. Le Grand Testament, which ironically and sincerely reviews his own vagabond life and also human life in general, focusing on his abhorrence of illness, prison, and old age, as well as his fear of death, includes a number of ballades and rondeaux. Among Villon's minor work are some half-dozen poems written in underworld slang.