Les Amours, Pierre de Ronsard, Françoise Joukovsky, Albert-Marie Schmidt

"What did he bring to love poetry? An analysis of passion and its sufferings? Catullus or Propertius had not waited for him to do so. A sincere confession of his hesitations between steadfast love and inconstancy? Like him, Marot went back and forth from one inspiration to another, refusing a choice that would have impoverished him. The creation of an emotional landscape, through obsession and symbol? Petrarch set an example for him. A formal game, a search for the unexpected, for strange metaphors or shocking antitheses? But every century has its précieux. No, let's rather perceive this unique tone, this voice characteristic of the poet of the Amours, in the dream that the poet substitutes for a failing reality, in this fictional, yet complete happiness, an outpouring of the senses, music and poetry. Imperfect loves of a being often disappointed, but "loves of the poet", who knows other joys. Despite his pessimistic vision of human relationships, despite his disillusioned – and very modern – reflection on the pathological illusions of passion, Ronsard sang of love because it is the poetic act par excellence." Françoise Joukovsky.