Villon, François ( 1431-?)

Villon, François. Real name perhaps either François de Montcorbier or François des Loges ( 1431-?)

French poet of the late Middle Ages, widely celebrated by 19th-century romantic novelists and poets and known for the vigor and imagination, the realism, pathos, technical skill, and expressive lyric power of his verse. Well-known single poems by him are his Petit Testament, Grand Testament, Ballade des Pendus, Ballade des Dames du temps jadis (famous in English in its translation by D. G. Rossetti), and Ballade pour Prier Nostre Dame. Villon came of a poor family with well-to-do relatives, from one of whom he took the name by which he is best known. He held both Bachelor's and Master's degrees front the Sorbonne and spent most of his time in student brawls in the Latin Quarter. He was arrested several times for complicity in murders and robberies, and in 1462 was sentenced to be hanged.

Later his punishment was changed to a banishment of ten years, and immediately thereafter the poet disappeared; no further record exists of him. Victor Hugo and R. L. Stevenson are among the writers who celebrated his exploits, many of which were imaginative inventions. The Vagabond King, a popular 20th-century operetta, deals with a highly fictitious episode in his career. Justin Huntly McCarthy's If I Were King and Needles and Pins portray Villon as a prominent character, and Stevenson depicts him in his Lodging for the Night.