ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some aspects of the development of funereal poetry in France at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It attempts to draw some general conclusions, and looks at three precise examples. Firstly, two poems by Octovien de Saint-Gelais, his laments on the death of Charles Comte d'Angoulême (1496) and on Charles VIII (1498); and then Clément Marot's eclogue on the death of Louise de Savoie (1531). As Thiry and Scattergood point out, there is a remarkable continuity in funereal poetry throughout the Middle Ages and even beyond. Certain deep structures are perhaps inevitable in any lament for the dead: despite the classical bucolic input, there are structures and elements that Marot has in common with Octovien de Saint-Gelais and the older tradition. It is observed that old-style allegory disappears, to give way to graceful classical myth.
