Villon has a gift for understanding human nature. Great compassion

Wow! This is one marvelous work by a Pulitzer Prize winner and famed French translator. Simpson has translated Francois Villon's epis masterpiece. Villon is generally considered to be one of France's greatest poets and this work has been described as "one of the most enduring epics ever." This bilingual edition means, of course, that you get the benefit of both the French and English translation side by side. This belongs on the book shelf of any discerning reader, regardless of whether you like poetry or not. This is quality work both by the translator and the Story Line Press.

That man had a cancerous heart for his diseased people

Before Rousseau, Sade, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Celine, Artaud, and Genet there was Francois Villon, medieval poet, thief, and murderer who disappeared from history's radar altogether in 1463 and was never heard from again. This short, intimate biography discusses Villon's life with an eye to the wider context of his times. One problem I had is that the book spent so much time examining the historical circumstances of medieval Paris that it often lost sight of Villon's life. Which is fine: medieval Paris was a dark and fascinating place, and the book includes intriguing glimpses of contemporaries like Gilles de Rais, an aristocrat infamous for sodomizing and killing hundreds of lower class French boys lured to his estates with promises of food and jobs. However, at only 225 pages (and several pictures) this doesn't leave much room to discuss the very full life of Villon himself--it left me wanting more. Contrary to a previous admirable review, "Danse Macabre" does include healthy doses of Villon's poetry accompanied with text in the original French.

As a poet living in Paris during 15th century, Francois Villon did not leave a large literary legacy (about 3300 lines). His work rarely appears in anthologies. Perhaps because of the graphic sexual subject matter of some poems, few risked faithful translation of his work until the past twenty years. Not that Villon was a hack. After all, this is the author of one of the widely quoted lines in French poetry: (trans) "But where are the snows of years gone by?" In Danse Macabre, Aubrey Burl fashions a thoroughly engrossing depiction of the life and times of a talent poet whose work was overshadowed by frequent scandal.

Had Villon lived in the present, the mixture of art and misbehavior would raise few eyebrows. We have grown accustomed to musicians and writers as poster children for depravity. None the less, few can rival Villon's criminal record (murderer, thief, pimp, corruptor of innocence). He left few laws and social mores unscathed.

First, and foremost, Danse Macabre is a lively biography of Villon. Burl tells the tale of a complex and fascinating character, often using Villon's poetry to buttress inferences and to give him a "voice." The historical context is carefully drawn. We see a Paris with streets of mud, rife with disease, and roamed by packs of wolves. Torture and executions were elevated to art forms, presumably all in the name of justice. Add to that mix a man of limited means, struggling to survive, consumed by a substantial sexual appetite, but with a gift for poetry. Not surprisingly, his poems were sympathetic to human foibles and frailty. It all makes for lively reading. However, this is not historical figure being used as an embryo for a fanciful, sensational story. Aubrey Burl interprets history, based on extensive research, rather than re-writing it. Scholarship is evident on every page.

The poetry of Francois Villon constitutes a small fraction of Danse Macabre. When I purchased the book, I was hoping for a healthy dose of poetry with the history. I came away with a detailed portrait of the poet, but left hungry for his poetry. Burl cannot be faulted for my preconceived notions. Even a talented writer of fiction would be challenged to create a more interesting and complicated a character as Villon. Enjoy.

I have always found Villon to be one of the most overlooked poets in history. In fact, it is likely that the casual reader would have heard only one line of his: "But where are the snows of yester-year?" There is more to Villon, however, than that. I have yet to decide if his life or his writings is more interesting. Breaking many rules of poetry, such as in "III - Ballade (of Small Talk)" in which all but one line starts with "I know," Villon broke as many rules in life. In 1455 he killed a priest and fled the country, where he was charged in multiple robberies, imprisoned, and condemned to be hanged. Mostly because the charges of murder were dropped in the name of self-defense, he was merely banished, whereafter history never sees him again. His way of living was his way of writing: he held nothing back. This earned him the title of "the Vagabond King," while inspiring such lines as "I know all, save myself." The lines I find most striking are from "The Testament" in which Villon is looking for "those laughing comrades that I was with in former days," only to find that "Some are dead and stiff--/nothing now remains of them;/may they find peace in Paradise,/and may God save the rest."