Editing Alain Chartier

{{Short description|French poet and political writer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2014}}
[[File:Alain Chartier.png|thumb|upright=1.4|Probable representation of Alain Chartier from a copy of his ''Livre de l'Espérance'']]
'''Alain Chartier''' ({{circa|1385}}{{snd}}1430) was a French poet and political writer.<ref>{{Citation |last=Laidlaw |first=James |title=Alain Chartier and the Arts of Crisis Management, 1417–1429 |date=2000 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt5vj9h1.8 |work=War, Government and Power in Late Medieval France |pages=37–53 |publisher=Liverpool University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctt5vj9h1.8 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

== Life ==
Alain Chartier was born in [[Bayeux]] to a family marked by considerable ability. His eldest brother [[Guillaume Chartier (bishop)|Guillaume]] became [[bishop of Paris]]; and Thomas Chartier became notary to the king. Jean Chartier, a monk of St Denis, whose history of [[Charles VII of France|Charles VII]] is printed in vol. III. of ''Les Grands Chroniques de Saint-Denis'' (1477), is also said to have been a brother of the poet.<ref name="McRae2004">{{cite book|author=Joan E. McRae|title=Alain Chartier: The Quarrel of the Belle Dame Sans Mercy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vZ8AAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3|date=2 August 2004|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-88853-4|pages=3}}</ref> Alain studied, as his elder brother had done, at the [[University of Paris]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoffman |first=Edward J. |title=Alain Chartier: His Work and Reputation |publisher=Wittes Press |year=1942 |location=New York}}</ref> He then went to work for the Duke Louis and [[Yolande of Aragon|Yolande of Anjou]], whose daughter Marie was engaged to the youngest son of Charles VI.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Chartier |first=Alain, activeth century |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1205808 |title=The poetical works of Alain Chartier |date=1974 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |others=James Laidlaw |isbn=0-521-07940-3 |location=London |oclc=1205808}}</ref> He followed the fortunes of the [[Dauphin of France|dauphin]], afterwards [[Charles VII of France|Charles VII]], acting in the triple capacity of clerk, notary, and financial secretary.<ref name="EB1911" /> He later would become a member of several important ambassadorial trips, serving as orator and secretary for Charles VII, travelling to Vienna and Buda to see [[Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor|Sigismund]]; to Venice to appear before the Senate, to Rome to deliver a letter to the Pope, and to Scotland to negotiate the marriage of the daughter of James I, [[Margaret of Scotland, Dauphine of France|Margaret]], then not four years old, with the dauphin, afterwards [[Louis XI of France|Louis XI]].<ref name=":0" /> He appears to have taken holy orders and was named canon of Paris, rector of the parish of Saint-Lambert-des-Levées, and even Archbishop of Paris. He died in [[Avignon]] in 1430; the reason for his presence there remains a mystery. An epitaph for his tomb was commissioned by his brother Guillaume Chartier, but the stone has not survived.

== Literary career ==
[[File:Leighton-Alain Chartier-1903.jpg|right|upright=1.2|thumb|"Alain Chartier" by [[Edmund Leighton]], depicting the kiss from [[Margaret Stewart, Dauphine of France]]]]
Alain's earliest poems were likely the ''Lai de Plaisance'' (Lay of Pleasure) followed by the Débat des Deux Fortunés en Amours (''Debate of the Two Lovers'') also called the ''Débat du Gras et du Maigre'' (''Debate of the Fat and the Thin'').<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bourgain-Hemeryck |first=Pascale |title=Les Oeuvres latines d'Alain Chartier |publisher=Editions du CNRS |year=1977 |location=Paris}}</ref> The ''Livre des Quatre Dames'' (1416) was written after the [[Battle of Agincourt]]. In 1422 he wrote the famous ''[[Quadrilogue invectif]]''. The interlocutors in this dialogue are an allegorical representation of France and the three orders of the state, the Clergy, Knight, and People.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Delogu |first=Daisy |title=Allegorical Bodies : Power and Gender in Late Medieval France. |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2014 |location=Toronto}}</ref> Chartier lays bare the abuses of the feudal army and the sufferings of the peasants. He maintains that the cause of France, though desperate to all appearance, was not yet lost if the contending factions could lay aside their differences in the face of the common enemy.<ref name="EB1911" /> He also wrote ''Débat du reveille-matin'' (1422–26?), ''[[La Belle Dame sans Mercy]]'' (1424), and others.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Chartier, Alain|volume=5|page=953}} Endnote:

* [[Jean Baptiste Georges Mancel|Mancel]], ''Alain Chartier, étude bibliographique et littéraire'', 8vo (Paris, 1849)
* [[Didier Delaunay|D. Delaunay]]'s ''Étude sur Alain Chartier'' (1876), with considerable extracts from his writings.
* His works were edited by [[André Duchesne|A. Duchesne]] (Paris, 1617).
* On Jean Chartier see [[Auguste Vallet de Viriville|Vallet de Viriville]], "Essais critiques sur les historiens originaux du règne de Charles VIII," in the ''[[Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes|Bibl. de l'École des Chartes]]'' (July–August 1857).</ref> In 1429 he wrote the ''[[Le Livre de l'Espérance|Livre de l'Espérance]]'', which contains a fierce attack on the nobility and clergy. He was the author of a diatribe on the courtiers of Charles VII, entitled ''Le Curial'', translated into English by [[William Caxton]] about 1484.<ref name="EB1911" />

== Interpretation ==
The story of the famous kiss bestowed by [[Margaret Stewart, Dauphine of France]] on ''la précieuse bouche de laquelle sont issus et sortis tant de bons mots et vertueuses paroles'' ('The invaluable mouth from which issued and which left so many witty remarks and virtuous words'), first told by Guillaume Bouchet in his ''Annales d'Aquitaine'' (1524), is interesting, if only as a proof of the high degree of estimation in which he was held. Jean de Masies, who annotated a portion of his verse, has recorded how the pages and young gentlemen of that epoch were required daily to learn by heart passages of his ''Breviaire des nobles''. [[John Lydgate]] studied him affectionately. His ''Belle Dame sans mercy'' was translated into English in the 15th century by Sir [[Richard Ros]], with an introduction of his own; and [[Clément Marot]] and [[Octavien de Saint-Gelais]], writing fifty years after his death, find many fair words for the old poet, their master and predecessor.<ref name="EB1911"/>

The English Romantic poet [[John Keats]] famously wrote the ballad '[[La Belle Dame Sans Merci]]', using the title from Alain Chartier.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/symons-chaucerian-dream-visions-and-complaints-la-belle-dame-sans-mercy-introduction|title=La Belle Dame sans Mercy: Introduction {{!}} Robbins Library Digital Projects|website=d.lib.rochester.edu|access-date=2020-02-18}}</ref>

== Works ==

=== Works in Latin ===
* ''Discours au roi (Charles VI) sur les libertés de l'Église'' (1412?)
* ''Epistula ad fratrem suum juvenem''
* ''Francigenæ magni, gens fortis et inclita bello...''
* ''Lettre à l'Université de Paris'' (probably around 1419)
* ''Premier discours de la mission d'Allemagne''
* ''Second discours de la mission d'Allemagne''
* ''Discours au roi d'Écosse'' (1428)
* ''Persuasio ad Pragenses de fide deviantes''
* ''Ad detestationem belli Gallici et suasionem pacis'' (1423)
* ''Dialogus familiaris Amici et Sodalis super deplorationem Gallicæ calamitatis'' (approximately 1427)
* ''Invectiva ad ingratum amicum''
* ''Invectiva ad invidum et detractorem'' 
* ''Tractatus de vita curiali''
* ''Lettre sur Jeanne d'Arc'' (1429)

=== Works in French ===
* ''Le Débat des deux fortunés d'amour'' (''Le Débat du gras et du maigre'', approximately 1412/1414)
* ''Le Lay de plaisance'' (approximately 1412/1414)
* ''Le Livre des quatre dames'' (1416)
* ''[[Quadrilogue-invectif|Le Quadrilogue invectif]]'' (''Livre des trois estaz nommé Quadrilogue'', 1422)
* ''Le Bréviaire des nobles'' (approximately between 1422 and 1426)
* ''Le Débat de réveille matin de deux amoureux'' (1423?)
* ''La Complainte contre la mort de sa dame'' (1424)
* ''[[La Belle Dame sans mercy]]'' (1424)
* ''L'Excusation'' (1425)
* ''Le Lay de paix'' (approximately between 1424 and 1426)
* ''Le Débat du hérault, du vassault et du villain'' (or ''Le Débat patriotique'', between 1422 and 1425)
* ''[[Le Livre de l'Espérance]]'' (or ''Consolation des trois vertus'', 1429)

==References==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Alain Chartier, Baudet Herenc and Achille Caulier, ''Le Cycle de la Belle Dame sans Mercy : une anthologie poétique du XVe siècle (BNF MS FR. 1131)'', Edition bilingue établie, traduite, présentée et annotée par David F. Hult et Joan E. McRae. Paris : Champion, 2003.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120426075432/http://www.forlang.mtsu.edu/alain/bibliography.html Biographical references from the International Alain Chartier Society]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chartier, Alain}}
[[Category:Alain Chartier| ]]
[[Category:1380s births]]
[[Category:1430 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Bayeux]]
[[Category:Writers from Normandy]]
[[Category:French poets]]
[[Category:15th-century French writers]]
[[Category:15th-century French poets]]
[[Category:French male poets]]
[[Category:15th-century writers in Latin]]