LE COQ-À-L’ÂNE THÉRAPEUTIQUE, OU LA GÉLODACRYE MAROTIQUE
THE THERAPEUTIC COOKING, OR MAROTIC GELODACRYE

Summary/Abstract: In Spring 1530, Clément Marot inaugurated a new poetic form with the coq-à-l’âne epistle. Initially imagined as a mere amusing pastime to share with his best friend Lyon Jamet, this imagined exchange of non-linear and satirical missives on the latest news of the day would grow in importance – particularly after the Affair of the Placards in October 1534 would send both friends into exile. A year later, now banished from Ferrara and once again separated outside of the kingdom, Marot would take up the pen anew in Venice to compose more coq-à-l’âne epistles. However, these epistles, written over the summer and autumn of 1535, bear record to sadness, to homesickness, to anger and to a lack of friendship that are mitigated by the very act of writing. In this way, the coq-à-l’âne becomes a form of therapy for Marot, in which he adopts the pathos of gelodacria (or joco-seriosus), the paradoxical posture of the poet who laughs as he cries or who suffers joyously (which would make Marot a type of Triboulet in exile – another figure who appears in the coq-à-l’âne). This essay analyses the five coq-à-l’âne epistles attributed to Marot in order to demonstrate to what degree this poetic form allows the poet to minimize his suffering mimetically and offer himself solace through a friendly exchange.

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