THE EUROPEAN ANCESTRY OF VILLON'S SATIRICAL TESTAMENTS

byWinthrop H. Rice '25, The CorporatePress, N. Y., 1941, 244 pp..

WINTHROP H. RICE, Dartmouth '25, now teaching at Syracuse University, has just published a monograph on "The European Ancestry of Villon's Satirical Testaments". It is a study of the possible sources of inspiration of the great French poet. The literary Will or Testament is a "genre" which had been used for moralizing and satirical purposes in the various languages of Europe for several centuries before Villon. The author first tries to determine the degree of erudition of Villon and the probabilities of his acquaintance with his predecessors in that "genre". He then proceeds to analyze the existing Testaments in various languages: the Latin, (the popular mock testaments of the Pig and of the Ass), the Italian, the Spanish, the German, the English, and, much more numerous, the French.

While basing himself primarily, from a critical standpoint, on the studies of Thuasne, Perrow, Siciliano, Champion and others, he completes them by the results of his own research and remains remarkably independent in the drawing of conclusions. In fact one of the outstanding and praiseworthy characteristics of Rice's study is his caution and wise unwillingness to draw too definite conclusions. "Even assuming that Villon knew all of these wills, he says, there is nothing to indicate any sort of slavish imitation

This is one more case where a great poet has caught up an age-old theme and revivified it through the force of his personality and genius."

Rice's monograph is a clear, scholarly piece of work. It is accompanied by an elaborate bibliography.