to have borrowed from his Latin to provide the first known occurrence of the word patrie
in this work, as well as the concept of a socially and politically unified France.
While the Quadrilogue remains Chartier’s best-known prose work in French, the
complexity of his concern for the political and spiritual welfare of his compatriots is best
seen in the Livre de l’esperance ou Le livre des trois vertus, a work begun in 1428 and
left unfinished. Interspersing with lyric interludes extensive prose dialogue between the
author’s personified faculty of Understanding and personifications representing Hope and
Faith, Chartier explores many seemingly unanswerable questions about the turmoil and
moral decline in France. Having chased away the specters of Melancholy, Indignation,
Mistrust, and Despair, whose cumulative influence had brought Understanding to the
brink of suicide, Faith and Hope, chiefly the latter, provide extensive lessons to aid in
Understanding’s recovery. His memory is reawakened to allow him to apply the lessons
of secular and biblical history, recounted through numerous exempla, to the current state
of affairs in France and to his own spiritual state. Even in its unfinished form,
L’esperance is a summa of Chartier’s own erudition, put to the task of resolving the
political turmoil of his time or, at least, of finding an appropriate spiritual context in
which to understand it.
Numerous other works, in Latin and French, also bear witness to Chartier’s versatility
as a writer. Life as a courtier is criticized in the Curial (De vita curiale), written after
- The Epistola ad regem (1418), Epistola ad Universitatem Parisiensem (1420), and
Epistola ad detestacionem belli gallici et suasione pacis (ca. 1422–24) display strongly
held political convictions. A number of his diplomatic orations survive, no doubt because
of their eloquence: Oratio ad imperatorem (1425), Oratio ad regem Romanorum (1425),
Persuasio ad Pragenses in fide deviantes (1425), and the Discours au roi d’Ecosse
(1428). A number of shorter, more personal Latin prose works bear the clear influence of
Cicero: Invectiva contra ingratum amicum (ca. 1425), Invectiva contra invidium et
detractorem (ca. 1425), and Epistola ad fratrem suum iuvenem (uncertain date).
The large number of manuscripts, early printed editions, and imitations of Chartier’s
works attests to his continuing popularity as an author well into the 16th century and
beyond.
Janice C.Zinser
[See also: ABUZÉ EN COURT; AUVERGNE, MARTIAL D’; CARON, FIRMINUS;
CHARLES D’ORLÉANS; HERENC, BAUDET; JARDIN DE PLAISANCE ET FLEUR
DE RÉTHORIQUE; LE FRANC, MARTIN; QUARREL OF THE BELLE DAME SANS
MERCI; RÉGNIER, JEAN]
Chartier, Alain. Les œuvres latines d’Alain Chartier, ed. Pascale Bourgain-Hemeryck. Paris:
CNRS, 1977.
——. Le quadrilogue invectif, ed. Eugénie Droz. 2nd ed. Paris: Champion, 1950.
——. The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, ed. J.C.Laidlaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1974.
——. Poèmes par Alain Chartier, ed. J.C.Laidlaw. Paris: Union Générale d’Éditions, 1988.
——. Le livre de l’esperance, ed. François Rouy. Diss. Université de Paris, 1967.
Champion, Pierre. Histoire poétique du XVe siècle. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1923, Vol. 1, pp. 1–
Hoffman, E.J. Alain Chartier: His Work and Reputation. New York: Wittes, 1942.
Rouy, François, ed. L’esthétique du traité moral d’après les œuvres d’Alain Chartier. Geneva:
Droz, 1980.
The Encyclopedia 393