SOURCE: "Ronsard's Death: From Desportes to the Derniers Vers," in Invention, Death and Self-Definitions in the Poetry of Pierre de Ronsard, ANMA LIBRI, 1986, pp. 89-107.

In the following excerpt, Langer traces Ronsard's treatment of death in "A Philippes des-Portes Chartrain," "Hymne de la mort," and the poems of Les derniers vers de Pierre de Ronsard, gentilhomme vandomois.

 A la fin je me trouve en un estrange esmoy,
Car ces divers effaicts ne sont que contre moy,
C'est mourir que de vivre en ceste peine extreme.
(Jean de Sponde, 1588) 

I have isolated three aspects of Ronsard's representation of death: the elegy to Philippe Desportes, the "Hymne de la mort," and his Derniers Vers. The first and third of these works were composed very late, possibly on the poet's deathbed. The "Hymne de la mort" is a much earlier composition, but is interesting in its connection of invention with the...