François Villon  

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François Villon (1431 - 1463) was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Le quatrain que feit Villon quand il fut jugé à mourir, written when condemned to death. The question "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?," taken from the Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis and translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti as "Where are the snows of yesteryear?," is one of the most famous lines of translated poetry in the English-speaking world.

In popular culture

Stage

• Justin Huntly McCarthy's 1901 play and novel, If I Were King, presented a romanticized view of Villon, using the “King for a Day” theme and giving the poet a happy ending with a beautiful noblewoman.
• The Vagabond King is a 1925 operetta by Rudolf Friml. Based on McCarthy's play, it was eventually made into two films. (See below.)
• Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), from 1928, by Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht, contains several songs that are loosely based on poems by Villon. These poems include "Les Contredits de Franc Gontier", "La Ballade de la Grosse Margot", and "L'Epitaphe Villon". Brecht used German translations of Villon's poems that had been prepared by Template:Visible anchor (Template:Ill), although Klammer was uncredited.

Film and television

• McCarthy's play served as the basis for If I Were King, a 1920 silent film starring William Farnum, and for the 1938 version, adapted by Preston Sturges, directed by Frank Lloyd, and starring Ronald Colman as François Villon, Basil Rathbone as Louis XI and Frances Dee as Katherine.
• Rudolf Friml's operetta, The Vagabond King, was adapted to film in 1930 in a two-strip Technicolor film starring Dennis King and Jeanette MacDonald, and in 1956, to a film starring Oreste Kirkop and Kathryn Grayson.
• McCarthy's play was adapted again in 1945 for François Villon, a French historical drama film directed by André Zwoboda and starring Serge Reggiani, Jean-Roger Caussimon, and Henri Crémieux.
• The television biography François Villon was made in 1981 in West Germany, with Jörg Pleva in the title role.
• On the big screen there was a large co-production France-Germany-Romania made in 1987, a 195 minutes movie Francois Villon - poetul vagabond, directed by renowned Romanian director Sergiu Nicolaescu.
• The Beloved Rogue is a 1927 American silent romantic adventure film starring John Barrymore, Conrad Veidt and Marceline Day, loosely based on Villon's life.
• Villon's work figures in the 1936 movie The Petrified Forest. The main character, Gabby, a roadside diner waitress played by Bette Davis, longs for expanded horizons; she reads Villon and also recites one of his poems to a wandering hobo "intellectual" played by Leslie Howard.

Publications

• Villon's poem "Tout aux tavernes et aux filles" was translated into English by 19th-century poet William Ernest Henley as "Villon’s Straight Tip To All Cross Coves".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Another of Henley's attributed poems – written in thieves' slang – is "Villon’s Good-Night".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Archy and Mehitabel poems of Don Marquis include a poem by a cat who is Villon reincarnated. <Ref>Next Stage</Ref> <Ref>George Herriman archy and mehitabel Illustration</Ref>
• In Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story “April in Paris” (published in 1962), an American professor of medieval French is in Paris researching the unsolved question of how Villon died when he unexpectedly travels in time back to the late 1400s and gets his answer.<ref>Le Guin, Ursula K., The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (Stories), Harper & Row (1976)</ref>
• The author Doris Leslie wrote an historical novel, I Return: The Story of François Villon published in 1962.
• In Antonio Skármeta's novel, El cartero de Neruda, Villon is mentioned as having been hanged for crimes much less serious than seducing the daughter of the local bar owner.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Template:Ill's poem "The night in the city of cherries or Waiting for François" reflects François Villon's life. It takes the form of a person's memories who knew the poet and whose name one can find in the lines of The Testament.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
• Italian author Template:Ill wrote and illustrated a graphic novel based on Villon's life and works. The 2017 book was entitled Je, François Villon [I, François Villon].<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Robert Louis Stevenson's short story "A Lodging for the Night: A Story of Francis Villon" follows the poet into a web of crime and desperation on a snowy November night.<ref>Unabridged audio book narrated by A. Lane, [1]</ref>
• Hunter Thompson's book on American motorcycle gangs, Hell's Angels (1966) starts with a quote: "I am strong but have no power. I win all yet remain a loser. At break of day I say goodnight. When I lie down I have great fear of falling," which he attributes to Villon.

Music

• His poem Der Erdbeermund was an 1989 single for Culture Beat
• The Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe composed Poème No. 5, "Les neiges d'antan", Op.23, for violin and orchestra, in 1911.
• Claude Debussy set three of Villon's poems to music for solo voice and piano<ref>List of compositions by Claude Debussy#Solo voice with piano</ref>Template:Circular reference
• French singer Georges Brassens included his own setting of Ballade des dames du temps jadis in his album Le Mauvaise Reputation.
• The Swiss composer Frank Martin's Poèmes de la Mort [Poems of Death] (1969-71) is based on three Villon poems.<ref name=Martin /> The work is for the unusual combination of three tenors and three electric guitars.<ref name=Martin>{{

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• Villon was an influence on American musician Bob Dylan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Russian singer and songwriter Bulat Okudzhava, composed Prayer for Francois Villon, a very popular song.
• Bulgarian metal band Epizod were inspired by Francois Villon, and based their lyrics on his poems during their early career. <ref>https://dariknews.bg/regioni/dobrich/rok-grupa-epizod-gostuva-v-dobrich-652723</ref>

Illustrations

• La femme aux deux âges : jeunesse et vieillesse. Illustrations de Joseph Hémard, in François Villon, Les regrets de la belle heaulmière jà parvenue à la vieillesse. Librairie Lutezia, Paris, 1921
• The Old Courtesan, a bronze cast in Auguste Rodin's The Gates of Hell from 1910 of an aged, naked female body.

Bibliography

• Complete works of Villon (French text)
• The poems of Master Francis Villon of Paris : now first done into English verse in the original forms, by John Payne

See also

• Medieval poetry
• jobelin