Nick Grammos’s Reviews > The complete works of Francois Villon ; trans., with a biography and notes > Status Update
Nick Grammos
is on page 48 of 228
This edition, from 1960, has French and English facing each other. I can read the English and indulge in the French, though I don't understand much more than the rudiments, I can at least enjoy the sounds and rhythms of the French. I'm sure some of the meanings are changed in 600 years, too. I wonder if the French spelling is modernised. It looks clear and neither Shakespeare or Chaucer are that clear in English.
— Aug 25, 2021 10:51PM
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Nick Grammos
is on page 120 of 228
"I am a lecher, and she's a lecher with me
Which one of us is better? We're both alike
the one as worthy as the other. bad rat, bad cat
We both love filth and filth pursues us
we flee from honour, honour flees from us"
— Sep 01, 2021 05:55AM
Which one of us is better? We're both alike
the one as worthy as the other. bad rat, bad cat
We both love filth and filth pursues us
we flee from honour, honour flees from us"
Nick Grammos
is on page 120 of 228
I love the subversive elements:
"I give them leave to start a school
where pupil teaches master"
In the world of brothels there is love and power inversions in the Ballad of Fat Margot:
"Then both drunk we sleep like dogs
When we awake, her belly starts to quiver
And she mounts me, to spare love's fruit
I groan, squashed beneath her weight-
This lechery of hers will ruin me."
— Sep 01, 2021 05:46AM
"I give them leave to start a school
where pupil teaches master"
In the world of brothels there is love and power inversions in the Ballad of Fat Margot:
"Then both drunk we sleep like dogs
When we awake, her belly starts to quiver
And she mounts me, to spare love's fruit
I groan, squashed beneath her weight-
This lechery of hers will ruin me."
Nick Grammos
is on page 68 of 228
He bequeaths nothing but his body to the ground, his library and poems to his mother. He has nothing else.
You have to love old Villon. He is free through poetry to speak of truths unavailable to kings and bishops, priests and rich men. Lucky guy in medieval France.
— Aug 29, 2021 10:23PM
You have to love old Villon. He is free through poetry to speak of truths unavailable to kings and bishops, priests and rich men. Lucky guy in medieval France.
Nick Grammos
is on page 68 of 228
Villon makes me think of the lines from the Dylan song: "when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose"
In his own way Villon writes: bien est eureaux qui riens n'y a!
translated as: "That man is lucky who has nothing"
a phrase that is adaptable to any circumstance when our vanities or ambitions don't serve us well. Nothing is something that cannot cause us harm.
— Aug 29, 2021 10:21PM
In his own way Villon writes: bien est eureaux qui riens n'y a!
translated as: "That man is lucky who has nothing"
a phrase that is adaptable to any circumstance when our vanities or ambitions don't serve us well. Nothing is something that cannot cause us harm.
Nick Grammos
is on page 56 of 228
laide viellesse amour n'empestre
ne que monnoye qu'on descrie
old age's ugliness will frighten love away
like coins they've taken out of circulation
— Aug 29, 2021 02:03AM
ne que monnoye qu'on descrie
old age's ugliness will frighten love away
like coins they've taken out of circulation
Nick Grammos
is on page 10 of 228
There's something about these mass paperback books of the mid 20thC that give me a warm feeling. People were getting tertiary educated, the knowledge offered by literature was still real and relevant. There were authors like Villon who were wanting to be discovered. Publishers like Bantam operated on a kind of moral crusade to bring ideas to wide audiences. What happened?
— Aug 23, 2021 08:27PM
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Ilse
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Aug 27, 2021 06:02AM
How fascinating you experience Villon’s French as clear, Nick! I was once told ‘ce qui n’est pas clair, n’est pas Français’ – apparently such could be said from early on :)?I had been circling around reading du Bellay’s sonnets because they play a part in Gabriel Josopovici’s The Cemetery in Barnes, but hadn’t done so partly because I was wondering about the accessibility of the French (I find reading 16th century Dutch already quite exacting). Looking forward to your thoughts on Villon!
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Ilse wrote: "How fascinating you experience Villon’s French as clear, Nick! I was once told ‘ce qui n’est pas clair, n’est pas Français’ – apparently such could be said from early on :)?I had been circling arou..."Thanks for noticing my little comments, Isle. My French isn't good enough to make a proper commentary. I really only have a weak reading ability. But I plan to improve myself. What I read didn't feel like reading Chaucer or Shakespeare - older more difficult English. But perhaps Villon has been updated and cleansed for the modern reader - I wouldn't know - and that's what I was reading rather than its original form.
A funny expectation clarity, wasn't French cleansed of all its regional attributes by the French Academy starting in the 17thC? After Villon. So Villon is spared any need to be viewed through the lens of modern French.
My view so far - Villon is the Caravaggio of literature. He focuses light with piercing clarity on his subject. And his life and subjects are not the parlors of the rich, but the streets. i better remember this for the review :-)
