The struggle for cultural memory in Ronsard's discours des misères de ce temps

Pierre de Ronsard’s Discours, a series of pamphlets written during the first and second year of France’s protracted civil war (1562-98), were the court poet’s first and only interventions into a religious, political, and cultural conflict that would deeply transform the French kingdom and its population. Ronsard revised the poems numerous times and included them in his collected works. There were 41 editions between 1562 and 1572.1 These facts indicate that the Discours were intended to be more than just a topical reaction to and fleeting commentary on the rapidly evolving confrontation between Protestants and Catholics, and indeed they were widely read for years. Carefully crafted, they unfold a polemic against Huguenots, reformed theology, and Protestant politics while indirectly broaching such profound issues as the representation of history or the construction of a national community in spite of a deep spiritual divide.