Pontus de Tyard

Who was Pontus de Tyard?

Pontus de Tyard was a French poet and priest, a member of "La Pléiade".

He was born at Bissy-sur-Fley in Burgundy, of which he was seigneur, but the exact year of his birth is uncertain. He became a friend of Antoine Héroet and Maurice Scève. His first published work, Erreurs amoureuses 1549, was augmented with other poems in successive editions till 1573. His work anticipated that of Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, but on the whole his poetry is inferior to that of his companions. However, he was one of the first to write sonnets in the French language. He is also said to have introduced the sestina, originally a Provençal invention, into French poetry.

Tyard contributed to the poetic and metaphysical program of La Pléiade by elaborating, in his Solitaire Premier, ou Prose des Muses, et de la fureur poétique, a full theory of divine fury, derived in large part from the Latin translations and commentaries by the neo-platonic author Marsilio Ficino of Plato's dialogues Ion and Phaedrus at the end of the 15th century. Tyard distinguished divine inspiration from madness or "alienation" brought on by other causes, and subdivided divine inspiration into four kinds: poetic fury, gift of the Muses; knowledge of religious mysteries, through Bacchus; prophecy and divination through Apollo; inspiration brought on by Venus/Eros.