Pierre de Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585) was born at the manor of La Possonnière in the Vendômois, in the Loir valley, and began his career as a page at the French court. An illness that left him largely deaf turned him from a court and military career to study and poetry. At the Collège de Coqueret he studied the classics under Jean Dorat with Joachim du Bellay and others, and became the leader of the group of poets later known as the Pléiade.

His first books of Odes appeared in 1550 and his Amours in 1552; later works include the Hymns, the Sonnets pour Hélène (1578) and the unfinished epic La Franciade. Honoured as the Prince of Poets under several French kings, he died in 1585 at the priory of Saint-Cosme near Tours. These English versions are from Curtis Hidden Page's Songs and Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard (1903), a selection that gathers them under headings of its own.