Ballads Done Into English From the French of Francois Villon

About This Book

This collection brings together English verse translations of the poetry of Francois Villon (1431-c. 1463) by three of the finest Victorian poets: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and John Payne. Rossetti's contributions include the celebrated Ballade des dames du temps jadis with its famous refrain about the snows of yesteryear. Villon himself was a Paris-educated cleric implicated in a killing, sentenced to hang, and vanished from the historical record after 1463, leaving behind works that combine confessional intensity, dark humor, and formal mastery. Indispensable for students of French poetry in translation and the Pre-Raphaelite literary circle.

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