François Villon, a cursed poet avant la lettre? The ballad of the hanged men as a poetic model for Rimbaud, Pound and Augusto de Campos

Abstract

This article is not intended to subscribe the modern image of François Villon as a cursed poet avant la lettre, but to show how this image was the result of the various appropriations of his work by important modern and modernist poets. The use of the Ballad of the hanged men, one of his best known compositions, as a poetic model by Rimbaud, Pound and Augusto de Campos can be regarded as an exemplary case of his modern reception. The study of its parody by the French symbolist, its pastiche by the American modernist and its translation by the Brazilian concretist will permit to discuss the place occupied by the “medieval poet” in building their own poetic projects. Although they are entirely incompatible with the poetic project of Villon, lapidary displayed by the Ballad of hanged men, the retaken of this ballad by such different poets witness the fecundity of this project.