La Belle Dame sans Mercy
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La Belle Dame sans Mercy is a French narrative debate poem on courtly love written by Alain Chartier in 1424.
La Belle Dame sans Merci by John William Waterhouse, circa 1893
La Belle Dame sans mercy, Detail from Yale, Beinecke 1216
François Villon
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François Villon is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of the
La Belle Dame sans Mercy
…written in a series of eight verse stanzas (huitains), each line of which contains eight syllables (octosyllabes), a style later imitated by the poet François Villon in the "Ballade des dames du temps jadis." In the debate, Lover and the Lady present their arguments in alternating octaves. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCBC…
Stock woodcut image, used to represent François Villon in the 1489 printing of the Grand Testament de Maistre François Villon
Depiction of Villon by the Mexican artist Federico Cantú Garza
A page from Villon's Le grand testament. Kungliga biblioteket in Stockholm, Sweden.
Statue in Utrecht, Netherlands