Tyard, Pontus de

Abstract

Pontus de Tyard, a scholar of encyclopedic learning and a bishop (Chalon-sur-Saône), was a Petrarchist and Platonizing poet, associated with the “Lyon School” and the “Pléiade,” and a theoretician of poetry, music, and the sciences. He was, like Peletier du Mans, particularly interested in mathematics and in the potential of French as a literary and scholarly language.

In his poetry, Tyard successively sings the praises of two mysterious muses, linking human to divine love [Erreurs amoureuses (1549–1555), Vers liriques (1552–1555), Nouvell’œuvres poetiques (1573), Douze fables de fleuves ou fontaines (1585)]. In his scientific work, he investigated a series of knowledge areas and their applicability to issues of faith, the philosophy of language, and political thinking. He translated Judah Abrabanel’s Dialoghi d’amore (Leone Ebreo, 1551) and composed six Discours philosophiques (1552–1558), the Solitaire premier (on poetic frenzy), the Solitaire second (on music), the Discours du temps, de l’an et de ses parties (on time), L’Univers (Premier and Second Curieux, on cosmology), and Mantice (on astrological divination), and later he wrote some more treatises on science, faith, onomastics, and political writings.

He was an active member of two academies – the Académie de poésie et de musique presided by Baïf (under Charles IX) and the Académie du Palais (under Henry III). He contributed to contemporary debates around music and its primacy, the legitimacy of human curiosity, and the conception of language, in an allusive, dialogic way.