In not a few passages
of the religious poems Margaret has reached (and as she had no examples
before her except Marot's psalms, which were themselves later than at
least some of her work, may be said to have anticipated) that grave and
solemn harmony of the French Huguenots of the sixteenth century, which
in Du Bartas, in Agrippa d'Aubigne, and in passages of the tragedian
Montchrestien, strikes notes hardly touched elsewhere in French
literature. The _Triomphe de l'Agneau_ displays her at her best in this
respect, and not unfrequently comes not too far off from the apocalyptic
resonance of d'Aubigne himself. Again, the _Bergerie_ included in the
Nativity comedy or mystery, though something of a Dresden _Bergerie_ (to
use a later image), is graceful and elegant enough in all conscience.
But it is on the minor poems, especially the Epistles and the _Chansons
Spirituelles_, that the defenders of Margaret's claim to be a poet rest
most strongly. In the former her love, not merely for her brother, but
for her husband, appears unmistakably, and suggests graceful thoughts.
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