Pleiades

The original name of the group is Brigade ; the name "Pleiades" first appeared in 1553 . Earlier, the same name was used by a group of Alexandrian poets of the 3rd century . By analogy with the mythological Pleiades , seven daughters of titan Atlanta , the number of participants in the association was to be seven people. Most of the participants in the association were fellow practitioners of Ronsar College Kokre. In addition to him, the group included Joachin du Bellet , Jacques Peletier du Mans , Jean de Laperus , Jean Antoine de Baif , Pontus de Tiar and Etienne Jodelle (perhaps he was later replaced by Guille Desothel ). After the death of Jean de La Peruzza in 1554, Remi Bello took his place in the union; after the death of Peletier du Mansa in 1582, Jean Dora replaced him.

The first serious work of the group was its literary manifesto “The Defense and Glorification of the French Language” (1549), traditionally attributed to Joachin Du Bellet (1522–1560), where new ideas about national culture and literature were clearly declared. The author linked the rise and flowering of culture with a nationwide rise and prosperity; the level of cultural development was thus determined by the level of development of the state and the people. At the same time, the manifesto traced the cult of antiquity, characteristic of the Renaissance, and the slogan of imitation to the ancient authors was declared. The art program "Pleiades" affirmed the priority of the French language and its equality with Latin and Italian, proclaimed the high appointment of the poet-creator. Language was proclaimed a kind of art, and poetry - its highest form. They considered the ancient heritage a stimulus for the development of national literature. The composition of the group changed, but the leaders in it were Pierre Ronsard (1524–1585), Joachin Du Bellet and Jean Antoine Baif. To the greatest extent, the spirit of the Renaissance culture and its ideals were expressed in the works of the leader of the Pleiades, Ronsard.

The Pleiades should not be considered a single poetic school (despite the fact that Ronsard’s priority for all members of the group was indisputable). The general attitude of the Pleiades was to abandon traditional (national) poetic forms (in this regard, the group argued with Clement Marot ), in relation to poetry as serious hard work (and not an empty pastime, which the poets of the great rhetoric and the same Maro allegedly indulged in ) and in the “chanting of spiritual aristocracy” ^[1] . This aristocraticism was fed by the apologetic concept of the poet, which was characteristic of the Renaissance and was associated with the influence of Neo-Platonism . The latter is intended to strive for Beauty, actively resorting to mythological imagery, neologisms and lexical borrowings, enriching the syntax with characteristic turns for Latin and Greek . Instead of medieval genres (except eclogue , elegy , epigram , epistle, and satire , which should still be preserved), it was proposed to refer to the ancient ( ode , tragedy , epic , hymn ) and characteristic of Italy ( sonnet ). The manifesto of the group was signed by Du Bellet (but, apparently, composed with the active participation of Ronsard) treatise “ Protection and glorification of the French language ” ( La Deffence, et Illustration de la Langue Française , 1549 ). At the turn of the 1550s-1560s, the position of the poets of the Pleiades, not without the influence of the socio-political situation, changed somewhat: there was a tendency to deepen the philosophical, on the one hand, and civil pathos, on the other (however, the patriotic feeling paints a manifesto Pleiades).

• Amadis Jamen
• Claude de Potu
• Jacques Tagyuro

• The poetry of the Pleiades / Comp. I. Yu. Podgaetskaya. M .: Rainbow, 1984

• The Pleiades // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 t. (82 t. And 4 extra.). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Castor G. La Poétique de la Pléiade: étude sur la pensée et la terminologie du XVIe siècle. - P .: Champion, 1998.
• Wipper Yu. B. Poetry of the Pleiad. - M .: Science, 1976. - 432 p. - 14 500 copies
• A.D. Mikhailov. Poetry of the Pleiad // History of World Literature: in 9 volumes . - M .: Science, 1985. - V. 3: Literature of the Renaissance: XIV — first quarter of the XVII centuries. / Ed. ed. N.I. Balashov . - p. 255-262. - 816 s. - 60 000 copies

• (fr.) Poets of the Pleiades and samples of their creativity
• (fr.) Literary trends: the Pleiades