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Lydgate, John (ca. 1370–1450) poet

Born in Lidgate in Suffolk, John Lydgate began his

education at the abbey of Bury Saint Edmunds and

later became a priest. After attending Gloucester

College, Oxford, he returned to Bury Saint Ed-

munds and taught rhetoric to sons of noble fami-

lies. Upon his return home, he began writing

prolifically.

Lydgate’s works are numerous and wide-rang-

ing, and despite his varied style, he was criticized

repeatedly for being too ornate and wordy. In-

cluded among his works, which exhibit both depth

and breadth, are didactic poems, religious prayers,

lyrics, fables, satires, and mummings, poems re-

cited alongside performers who gesture and move

but who do not speak.

Two of his most important works are The Siege of

Thebes (1420–22) and The Fall of Princes (1431–38).

The Siege of Thebes is a verse translation of an

anonymous Old French poem titled Roman de

Thebes (ca. 1150). In Lydgate’s version, the author-

narrator imagines himself a fellow pilgrim accom-

panying those featured in CHAUCER’s Canterbury

Tales. Offering to tell a tale to help pass the time on

the return trip to London, the author-narrator tells

a story about the siege of Thebes. This story depicts

events leading up to the time when the story told by

Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale” begins. The narrative

frame, as well as the many instances in the text

where Lydgate mimics Chaucer’s language, attests to

Lydgate’s well-known admiration of Chaucer.

Despite the readability of The Siege of Thebes,

The Fall of Princes was Lydgate’s most popular

work during his lifetime. It is a verse translation,

with creative additions by Lydgate, of a French ver-

sion of

BOCCACCIO’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.

As his longest work, The Fall of Princes offers in-

numerable biblical and classical stories detailing

the rise and fall, and the ambitions and disastrous

grave mistakes of aspiring individuals. The work’s

ultimate purpose is to show that sin results from

immoral action.

During the 15th through the 17th centuries, Ly-

dgate was considered equal to Chaucer and

GOWER

as a poet of estimable skill. In addition, the sheer

volume of his work helped develop the East Mid-

land dialect as part of the Modern English language.

Works by John Lydgate

Bergen, Henry, ed. Lydgate’s Fall of Princes. London:

Boydell and Brewer, 1967.

Erdmann, Axel. Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes I. London:

Boydell and Brewer, 1996.

Works about John Lydgate

Ebin, Lois A. John Lydgate. Boston: Twayne, 1985.

Schirmer, Walter F. John Lydgate: A Study in the Cul-

ture of the XVth Century. Westport, Conn.: Green-

wood Press, 1979.

Lydgate, John 167

168

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Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527)

political philosopher, nonfiction writer

Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the most famous and

influential political philosophers in Western his-

tory. His very name was used to coin the word

Machiavellian, which describes a deceitful and

ruthless person, willing to do anything to achieve

his or her objectives. The ideas and principles

Machiavelli introduced into political philosophy

have influenced our world ever since, and continue

to do so today. Many of his ideas, however, have

been greatly misunderstood.

The time and place in which Machiavelli lived

had a profound effect on his political views. He

was born in Florence, the son of a wealthy lawyer.

During his lifetime, Italy was going through a cul-

tural revolution known as the RENAISSANCE, which

produced art and literature greater than anything

seen since the time of the ancient Romans. How-

ever, it was also an age of political instability. Rival

city-states competed for power and influence

throughout Italy and were often engaged in full-

scale warfare. Within individual city-states them-

selves, different political factions struggled for

dominance, often reporting to violence and mur-

der to get what they wanted. Often, these factions

were focused around powerful families, such as the

Medicis and the Borgias. Machiavelli’s own city of

Florence experienced a great deal of political vio-

lence, and this eventually led to fateful conse-

quences for him.

Machiavelli would not begin writing until

rather late in life. He almost certainly received an

excellent education, and throughout his life he dis-

played an astonishing knowledge of classical his-

tory. In 1494 he took an administrative job with a

new Florentine government, which had just over-

thrown the Medici family in a coup d’état.

A few years later, Machiavelli was given a diplo-

matic position in the government. As a result, he

spent several years traveling through Italy, France,

and Germany. His observations and experiences

during these years would greatly influence his po-

litical ideas. He met with powerful rulers and offi-

cials, including the pope, the king of France and

the Holy Roman Emperor. He also met and be-

friended the great artist,

LEONARDO DA VINCI. Most

important of all, he encountered the infamous Ce-

sare Borgia, the brilliant but ruthless warlord who

then dominated much of central Italy. Later, Bor-

gia would become the inspiration for Machiavelli’s

masterpiece, The Prince.

Machiavelli held other important positions in

the Florentine government and helped reorganize

the city-state’s military. But in 1512, with the as-

sistance of a foreign army, the Medici once again

seized control of Florence. Because he had served

the government that had earlier overthrown them,

Machiavelli was arrested by the Medici. For some

time, he suffered imprisonment and torture, which

undoubtedly affected him for the rest of his life. In

1513 he was released from prison and banished to

the country estate of San Casciano, forbidden to

play any role in Florentine politics.

It was during his exile in San Casciano that

Machiavelli began his literary career. It was partly

an effort to gain favor with the Medici, but Machi-

avelli also desired some activity to lessen the dull-

ness of his exile. In a relatively short time, he

produced a body of work that completely revolu-

tionized political philosophy and changed the way

Western civilization thought about affairs of state

for the next several centuries.

His first book, The Prince, was quite short, but it

was by far his most famous and influential work.

In it, Machiavelli describes the ideal ruler, one who

is best able to seize and control political power. Al-

though written in 1513, The Prince was not pub-

lished until 1532, after Machiavelli’s death.

Between 1513 and 1517, Machiavelli wrote Dis-

courses on the First Decade of Titus Livy, which is

usually known simply as the Discourses. In this

work, Machiavelli analyzes the history of the

Roman Republic by studying the work of the

Roman historian Livy, using the information to lay

out his own theories of government and political

organization. While The Prince seems to favor an

authoritarian and monarchist form of govern-

ment, Discourses takes the opposite viewpoint,

seeming to favor a republican form of government.

This contradiction in Machiavelli’s views has puz-

zled many historians and created much confusion

concerning what form of government Machiavelli

truly favored.

Despite its focus on a republican form of gov-

ernment, Discourses contains rather frank and cyn-

ical political views. Machiavelli argues that politics

must be completely divorced from ethical and

moral considerations and through repeated exam-

ples shows leaders being ruined because they al-

lowed their ethical views to blind them to political

reality. Machiavelli also presents his view that, in the

end, brute force is the key element in affairs of state.

During the same time period in which Machi-

avelli wrote The Prince and Discourses, he also pro-

duced The Art of War, in which he presents his

ideas concerning the interrelationship between

politics and warfare. Many of his conclusions were

later shown to be quite flawed; for example, he dis-

missed the value of artillery, which later came to

dominate military tactics. His most important as-

sertion in The Art of War, which he also discusses

in The Prince, is that a city-state should rely on a

military made up of its own citizens, rather than

on one made up of mercenary soldiers. Citizen-

soldiers, he claims, will obviously be more loyal to

the state, because they will serve out of patriotic

loyalty, rather than merely a desire to be paid.

In addition to his treatises on political philoso-

phy, Machiavelli became a playwright. He wrote

Andria in 1517 and Mandragola in 1518. Between

1520 and 1525, he also wrote a history of Florence.

While well-written and interesting, these works are

not nearly as famous as Machiavelli’s work on po-

litical philosophy.

After Machiavelli’s death, his political writings

became extremely popular and were read through-

out Europe. Much of what he wrote was banned by

the Catholic Church, but this likely increased the

works’ reputation rather than decreased it. Over

the next several centuries, Machiavelli was con-

demned as an evil man whose vision in The Prince

contributed to the rise of such villains as Adolf

Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Machiavelli did not advo-

cate authoritarian government when he wrote The

Prince; he merely stated what, to him, was the real-

ity of his time. Machiavelli has been criticized for

his cynical view of human nature and his belief

that political theory should be divorced from

ethics. Nevertheless, he remains perhaps the most

influential political philosopher of the Western

world.

Machiavelli, Niccolò 169

Critical Analysis

Of all his writings, Machiavelli is most renowned for

The Prince, which is one of the most famous pieces

of Western literature. In this work, Machiavelli de-

scribes his view of the ideal prince, who is able to

seize and maintain power in a nation or city-state.

Although intended to describe the circumstances of

16th-century Italy, the author’s insights into human

nature and the affairs of state have a universal ap-

plicability, irrespective of time or place.

On many occasions in The Prince, Machiavelli

states that the exercise of political power must be

completely detached from any ethical or moral

consideration. He believed that any prince who

acted out of moral principle would inevitably be

destroyed, because he would be surrounded by

rival princes who would not be so constrained.

However, in order to maintain appearances,

Machiavelli believed a prince should always work

hard to appear moral and ethical, even if it would

be foolish to actually be moral and ethical.

To Machiavelli, this attitude could not be

judged as morally right or wrong; it was simply re-

ality. He was not attempting to advocate a particu-

lar way in which princes should govern, but was

simply attempting to describe the actual way in

which such governing was done. He did not see

anything necessarily immoral in authoritarian

rule, so long as it benefited the people. He recog-

nized that a strong authoritarian government often

provided order and stability, whereas a weak re-

publican government often resulted in chaos and

disorder. Through the use of his superior knowl-

edge of classical and contemporary history, he pro-

vided many examples of such events.

Another important quality of The Prince is

Machiavelli’s sense of realism. Throughout the

work, he stresses the role played by “Fortune,” and

warns princes to beware of sudden and unex-

pected shifts in the balance of power. He states that

wise princes should be prepared for such unfore-

seen events by constantly training themselves in

the methods of warfare and diplomacy and always

anticipating the worst.

After its publication in 1532, The Prince became

widely popular and influential throughout Europe

and gained a reputation as a textbook for those

who sought to win political power. Its influence re-

mains with us to this day.

English Versions of Works by Niccolò

Machiavelli

Art of War. Edited by Christopher Lynch. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Discourses on Livy. Translated by Julia C. and Peter

Bondanella. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2003.

Florentine History. Translated by W. K. Marriott. New

York: Barnes and Noble, 2004.

The Prince. Translated by Luigi Ricci. New York: Pen-

guin Group, 1980.

Works about Niccolò Machiavelli

De Grazia, Sebastian. Machiavelli in Hell. New York:

Vintage Books, 1989.

Falco, Maria J., ed. Feminist Interpretations of Niccolo

Machiavelli. University Park: Pennsylvania State

University Press, 2004.

Skinner, Quentin. Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduc-

tion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Viroli, Maurizio. Niccolò’s Smile: A Biography of

Machiavelli. Translated by Anthony Shugaar. New

York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.

Malory, Thomas (1410?–1471) novelist

The enduring status of King Arthur as the most

popular hero of English literature is due in large

part to a man whose own origins remain mysteri-

ous. Little is known for certain about Thomas Mal-

ory aside from the facts that he was a knight, he

was at some point a prisoner, and he finished Le

Morte D’Arthur (The Death of Arthur) in the year

1469. The consensus holds that he was born in

Warwickshire and knighted in 1441. After he

served in the English army and in Parliament, the

next records show him in prison for charges of

robbery, vandalism, assault, rape, and attempted

170 Malory, Thomas

murder. He insisted on his innocence. Despite two

dramatic escape attempts—once by swimming the

castle moat—he spent the last years of his life in

Newgate prison, where he composed his epic work.

Malory’s English sources are the alliterative

Morte Arthur and the anonymous

SIR GAWAIN AND

THE GREEN KNIGHT. He probably drew on Geoffrey

of Monmouth’s legendary history of Britain for the

characters of Merlin, Guinevere, and Mordred. The

rest of Malory’s material—the characters of

Lancelot, Tristan, the quest for the Holy Grail, and

the codes of chivalry and courtly love—came from

the large body of French romances that circulated

on the continent. Of these, the Lais of Marie de

France, the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, and an

anonymous work called the Prose Lancelot all have

their echoes in Malory’s collection. Several

Arthurian characters are also the subject of the col-

lection of Welsh tales known as The Mabinogion,

but it is unknown whether Malory knew the Celtic

tradition.

Malory also drew extensively on the cultural cli-

mate of his own time. The upper class in 15th-cen-

tury England followed a veritable cult of chivalry,

engaging in tournaments, combat, and romance

nearly as frequently as Malory’s characters do.

Knights errant traveled the countryside, and or-

ganizations such as the Order of the Garter mod-

eled themselves after the Round Table. In a world

fraught with disorder, adherence to a code of ethics

and loyalty proved a stabilizing force. This is the

theme Malory took up in his work.

Le Morte D’Arthur encompasses the entire life

of Arthur, although its title suggests that it focuses

on the elements that lead to the king’s eventual de-

mise. The colorful characters of Arthur’s court

form a constellation around the ideal of knight-

hood embodied by Arthur himself. Destiny is a

driving force in the Arthurian saga, and mysterious

supernatural beings intervene in the course of

events. Yet all of Malory’s characters possess the

ability to make their own choices, and tragedy

often results from the flaws in human nature, not

from the caprices of the world outside.

The plot, structured as a series of individual

stories, develops through a series of tests: Knights

are tested for their courage, their skill at arms, and

their loyalty to king and lady. Though Malory de-

lights much more in describing battle scenes than

in analyzing a character’s emotion, the reader can

enjoy Malory’s conversational tone, his extravagant

dialogue, his alternating moments of irony and

pathos, and the subtle humor that surfaces

throughout, as in this passage:

“Wherefore this is my counsel: that our king

and sovereign lord send unto the kings Ban

and Bors by two trusty knights with letters well

devised, that and they will come ...to help him

in his wars, that he would be sworn unto them

to help them in their wars....Now,what say

ye unto this counsel?” said Merlin.

“This is well counselled,” said the King.

Thomas Caxton printed the first edition of Le

Morte D’Arthur in 1485. Despite the French title, Le

Morte D’Arthur was written in Middle English. In

1934 a manuscript was discovered at Winchester

College that contains elements that the printed edi-

tion left out. Many scholars consider the Winchester

manuscript closer to Malory’s true vision for the tale.

The number of reprints, editions, and retellings

of Malory’s stories stand as proof of the popularity

of the Arthurian legends. Malory was read and ad-

mired by such later British writers as Philip SID-

NEY

, Sir Walter Scott, Edmund Spenser, and Alfred

Tennyson. The never-ending fascination with the

myth of Arthur suggests that these narratives sat-

isfy some deep need on the part of reading audi-

ences—a need, perhaps, to believe in a world in

which justice prevails, the mighty are committed

to high ideals, the vulnerable are defended and evil

defeated, and magic is a very real force.

Works by Thomas Malory

Le Morte D’Arthur: Complete, Unabridged, Illustrated

Edition. Edited by John Matthews. London: Cas-

sell, 2003.

Malory, Thomas 171

Le Morte D’Arthur: The Winchester Manuscript.

Edited by Helen Cooper. New York: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1998.

Works about Thomas Malory

Armstrong, Dorsey. Gender and the Chivalric Com-

munity of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur. Gainesville:

University Press of Florida, 2003.

Field, P. J. C. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory.

Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 1999.

March, Ausiàs (ca. 1397–1459) poet

Ausiàs March was a Catalan poet especially con-

cerned with the emotions of life: love, death, pain,

and spirituality. Born in Gandia in the kingdom of

Valencia, March wrote his poems in his native lan-

guage, much to the displeasure of one of his edi-

tors. “Had March written in Spanish,” argues

Robert Archer, “he would by now undoubtedly be

more widely recognized as the finest lyric poet in

the Iberian Peninsula before the sixteenth century.”

March’s immense poetic talent focused on

womanly beauty and love. He believed that “as a

‘composite’ being . . . man is pulled by body and

soul towards two opposed forms” of good

(Archer). This sensation of torment, the stretching

of one’s nature in two seemingly opposing direc-

tions, became the topic of March’s poems about

love. His greatest work was “Cant spiritual”

(“Spiritual Song”), in which the poet confesses

that his fear of God is greater than his love for

God.

March was greatly interested in the works of

Aristotle and Dante and was influenced by the

Provençal troubadours, including Arnaut Daniel.

March created courtly love poems that went far be-

yond the physical realm, as well as poems in which

he took hold of the metaphysical to explore death

and faith through poetry. He is remembered for

having founded Catalan poetry, and his works are

valued for their eloquent presentation of love as a

moral and spiritual experience.

English Versions of Works by Ausiàs March

Ausiàs March: A Key Anthology. Edited by Robert

Archer. Oxford: Anglo-Catalan Society Occasional

Publications, 1992.

Ausiàs March: Selected Poems. Edited by Arthur Terry.

Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976.

Works about Ausiàs March

Archer, Robert. The Pervasive Image: The Role of

Analogy in the Poetry of Ausiàs March. Philadel-

phia: John Benjamins Publishing, 1985.

McNerney, Kathleen. The Influence of Ausiàs March

on Early Golden Age Castilian Poetry. Amsterdam:

Rodopi B.V., 1982.

Marguerite de Navarre (Marguerite

d’Angoulême, Margeurite d’Alençon,

Marguerite of Navarre)

(1492–1549)

poet, dramatist, novelist

The daughter of Charles d’Orléans, comte d’An-

goulême, Marguerite was raised in Angoulême, in

western France, by her widowed mother, Louise

de Savoie, who ensured that her children were

thoroughly educated. At age 17, Marguerite was

married to the duc d’Alençon and went to live with

him at Alençon, in Normandy. In 1515 her

younger brother François succeeded his cousin

Louis XII as king of France. François continued

military campaigns in Italy that Louis XII had

begun; in his absences, his mother acted as regent,

and Marguerite began to spend much of her time

at court. She was interested in all the arts, sup-

ported writers, and transformed the court into a

brilliant literary center. She was also deeply en-

gaged by religious thought. She had contacts

among many of the leaders of the religious reform

movement that was developing at the time, among

them John

CALVIN. In the early 1520s, she began to

write religious poetry.

The duc d’Alençon died in battle in 1525, and

two years later Marguerite married Henri d’Albret,

king of Navarre, at the time a separate country in

172 March, Ausiàs

the Pyrenees Mountains, now part of France. She

divided her time between François’s court and her

husband’s. She and Henri had two children: a

daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, who inherited the

throne of Navarre, and a son who died in 1530, a

few months after birth.

The death of her son, and of her mother the fol-

lowing year, seem to have made writing more im-

portant to Marguerite. In 1530 she published her

first poem, Miroir de l’âme pêcheresse (Mirror of the

Sinful Soul), which was banned by theologians at

the Sorbonne for what they considered to be

heresy. During the 1530s she wrote both religious

and secular lyrics, as well as plays that were staged

at both courts. She also began this decade with a

great deal of influence over François and his poli-

cies, but gradually the two became estranged as

François began to feel threatened by the religious

reformers close to Marguerite. By 1540 she was no

longer welcome at François’s court.

It was probably in the early 1540s that Mar-

guerite wrote her two long philosophical poems, La

Coche, ou le Debat sur l’Amour (The Coach, or the

Debate on Love) and Le Triomphe de l’Aigneau (The

Triumph of the Lamb). In 1547 she published two

collections of her works: Les Marguerites de la Mar-

guerite des Princesses tres Illustre Royne de Navarre

(The Pearls of the Pearl of Princesses, the Illustrious

Queen of Navarre) and Suyte des Marguerites . . .

(More Pearls . . .) Each book contained examples of

all the genres she had attempted: plays,

FARCE, lyrics,

sacred allegories (see ALLEGORY), and longer poems.

At the time of her death, Marguerite was work-

ing on a collection of stories modeled on BOCCAC-

CIO’s Decameron. The plots are drawn from French

folklore, and the focus is generally on the trials en-

dured by women and their need to maintain their

chastity and love of God. But they include much

humor and a wealth of fascinating detail about

everyday life. Marguerite completed only 72 of the

100 stories she had planned. Two themes that run

throughout the stories are sorrow over the death of

loved ones and, primarily, love, which is, in turn,

related to her social and religious subjects. The col-

lection was published in 1558 under the title Hep-

taméron des Nouvelles (Heptameron of Stories), the

work for which Marguerite of Navarre is best

known today.

English Versions of Works by

Marguerite de Navarre

Marguerite de Navarre: The Coach and the Triumph

of the Lamb. Translated by Hilda Dale. Bristol,

U.K.: Intellect, 2003.

The Heptameron. Translated by P. A. Chilton. New

York: Viking Penguin, 1984.

Works about Marguerite de Navarre

Cottrell, Robert D. The Grammar of Silence: A Read-

ing of Marguerite de Navarre’s Poetry. Washington,

D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1986.

Lyons, John D., and Mary B. McKinley, eds. Critical

Tales: New Studies of the Heptameron and Early

Modern Culture. Philadelphia: University of Penn-

sylvania Press, 1993.

Stephenson, Barbara. Power and Patronage of Mar-

guerite de Navarre. Aldershot, Hampshire, U.K.:

Ashgate Publishing, 2004.

Thysell, Carol. The Pleasure of Discernment: Mar-

guerite de Navarre as Theologian. New York: Ox-

ford University Press, 2000.

Wertheimer, Molly Meijer, ed. Listening to Their

Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historical

Women. Columbia: University of South Carolina

Press, 1997.

Williams, H. Noel. The Pearl of Princesses: The Life of

Marguerite D’Angouleme, Queen of Navarre.

Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004.

Marieke van Nimwegen (Mariken van

Nieumeghen, Mary of Nemmegen)

(ca. 1500) medieval Dutch story

The Dutch story Marieke van Nimwegen dates to

the late medieval period, around 1500. At that

time, belief in witchcraft was very prominent, and

Marieke van Nimwegen 173

witches were believed to be women who had sexual

relationships with the devil. Marieke van Nimwe-

gen is the story of such a woman and her eventual

redemption. The story is a “miracle play,” a me-

dieval drama dealing with religious subjects.

The story’s main character is Marieke, a young

and beautiful orphan who lives with her uncle Gijs-

brecht, a pious priest, near the town of Nimwegen.

After her father and mother, Gijsbrecht’s sister,

died, she came to live with her uncle to keep his

house for him. One evening, Marieke goes to the

market in Nimwegen and accidentally gets caught

away from home in the dark. She begs refuge with

her aunt, Gijsbrecht’s other sister, but her aunt re-

fuses her and accuses her of prostitution and

drunkenness. Marieke is enraged and storms out of

the town to find some bushes by the road to sleep

under.

When Marieke angrily swears that she does not

care whether it is God or the devil who comes to her

aid, a one-eyed devil appears in the road before her.

He introduces himself as Moenen, the Master of

Arts. He says that if she comes to live with him in

Antwerp, he can teach her seven arts: grammar,

rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and

alchemy. Marieke badly wants to learn these things

and agrees to live with him. Before they leave, Moe-

nen makes her change her name to Emmeken (since

Marieke means Mary, a name unpleasant for the

devil) and swear never to make the sign of the cross.

When Marieke does not return from the mar-

ket, Gijsbrecht gets worried and goes to Nimwegen

to ask his sister if she has seen her. His sister first

denies it but finally tells Gijsbrecht that she had

turned his niece away. Gijsbrecht returns home

deeply saddened and worried.

After living with Moenen for seven years and

learning many things from him, Marieke becomes

homesick and tired of the sinful life they live. She

convinces the devil to take her back to Nimwegen,

where she immediately slips away and returns to

Gijsbrecht. The devil attempts to murder her but is

prevented by God because Marieke is repentant.

Marieke and Gijsbrecht travel to Rome, where she

visits the pope to repent for betraying God and

living with the devil. Three rings of iron are put

around her neck and arms, and she is told that if

the rings fall off, everything she has done will be

forgiven. Deeply repentant, Marieke spends the

next 24 years at a monastery for converted sinners

with the weight of the rings upon her. Finally, an

angel comes to her and removes the rings, and

Marieke is at last redeemed.

The story of Marieke van Nimwegen is a fa-

mous tale in the Netherlands and was made into a

movie titled Mariken Van Nieumeghen in 1974.

Today, a statue of Marieke stands in Nimwegen,

Holland.

English Versions of Marieke van Nimwegen

Raferty, Margaret M., ed. Mary of Nemmegen. Me-

dieval and Renaissance Texts, vol. 5. Leiden,

Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 1991.

Rietbergen,P.J.A.N.Europe: A Cultural History. New

York: Routledge, 1999.

Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On

Fairy Tales and their Tellers. New York: Noonday

Press, 1996.

Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain

(1688–1763) playwright, novelist

Pierre Carlet was born in Paris to Nicolas Carlet, a

military officer, and Marie-Anne Bullet. In 1698

the Carlet family moved to Riom, where Nicolas

had taken a job as director of the royal mint. Pierre

began studying law in Paris in 1710. A few years

later, he settled in Paris, where he gained entrance to

literary salons and began to publish under the name

Marivaux. In 1717 Marivaux married Colombe Bol-

logne, with whom he had a daughter. Soon after, he

unfortunately lost most of the family’s money in

land speculation. Although he eventually finished

his law degree (1721), he devoted most of his time

to literature. In 1742, he was honored with election

to the

ACADÉMIE FRANCAISE.

As a writer, Marivaux was influenced by

CORNEILLE, RACINE, LA FONTAINE, and BOILEAU.His

novels include a number of FARCEs. In Pharsamon

(written 1713, published 1737), which paid hom-

174 Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de

age to CERVANTES’s Don Quixote, the protagonists

suffer through a series of adventures because they

have read too many ROMANCEs. Telemachus, a Par-

ody (1714, published 1736) rewrites FÉNÉLON’s

Telemachus in a way that mocks social conditions

in France. In 1716 Marivaux even attempted a

mock EPIC parodying Homer’s Iliad.

The following year, as Oscar Haac notes, Mari-

vaux abandoned parody and “began writing in the

realistic style that became his distinguishing mark

and brought him success.” The Life of Marianne

(1731–41) and The Peasant Who Gets Ahead in the

World (1734–35) feature narrators looking back on

how they achieved their comfortable social posi-

tions. Marianne almost certainly influenced

Samuel RICHARDSON. Along with Madame de

LAFAYETTE’s work, it set the standard for the mod-

ern novel.

Marivaux also composed some three dozen

plays. Unlike molière, whose work Marivaux dis-

liked, he emphasizes dialogue over plot. His plays

observe the traditional UNITIES, but their style is

original, and his tragedies are far less gloomy than

those of his predecessors and contemporaries. He

wrote his comedies in prose, rather than verse, and

they contain not only noble but even tragic ele-

ments. More important, as Haac argues, for Mari-

vaux “comedy becomes an effective technique for

analysis,” notable for its “realism, the comic imita-

tion of refined manners on the part of servants

who never succeed in mastering them, the ambi-

guity of human motives ever present even in re-

fined speech which barely covers up greed and

sensuous desire.” This realism is evident in one of

Marivaux’s best plays, The Game of Love and

Chance, a three-act comedy first performed in

1730. In the opening scenes, Silvia awaits the ar-

rival of her intended husband, Dorante. She de-

cides to switch places with her servant Lisette so

that she can observe Dorante without his knowl-

edge. Unbeknownst to her, however, Dorante has

switched places with his servant Harlequin. Thus,

Silvia finds herself falling in love with a “menial

servant” (the disguised Dorante), as does Dorante

(with the disguised Silvia). Meanwhile, Lisette and

Harlequin parade their version of noble airs, but

each worries that the other is in love with who they

are pretending to be. It is only after much soul-

searching on the nobles’ part, and comical dialogue

on the servants’ part, that a happy ending is

reached.

At the time in which the play was written, not

everyone appreciated Marivaux’s works. VOLTAIRE

complained that Marivaux’s plots involved “weigh-

ing flies’ eggs in scales of gossamer,” and the term

marivaudage came to be applied to exaggerated,

overly refined speech. Over time, a larger audience

has begun to agree with Haac that Marivaux’s

works possess both emotional and intellectual ap-

peal. His plays are now produced more often in

France than any except those of Molière.