Philippe Desportes, a French courtier poet who…
1583 CE
Philippe Desportes, a French courtier poet who bases his style on that of the Italians—chiefly Petrarch, Ludovico Ariosto, and Pietro Bembo—had in about 1567 displaced Pierre de Ronsard as the favorite poet of Henry, Duke d'Anjou, whom he had accompanied to Kraków when Henry was elected king of Poland in 1573.
With the publication that year of Desportes' Premières Oeuvres (“First Works”), he became Ronsard's rival.
Desportes had returned to France with Henry on the death of Charles IX in 1574, and has written sonnets and elegies, in graceful alexandrines, for Henry III and others to present to their mistresses.
He received the livings of the abbeys of Tiron and Josaphat in 1583, enjoying the revenues of other benefices also and entertaining an intellectual circle in a princely manner.
His Dernières amours (1583; “Last Loves”), also known as Cléonice, marks his farewell to secular verse.
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West Europe
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