rhétoriqueur, any of the principal poets of the school that flourished in 15th- and early 16th-century France (particularly in Burgundy), whose poetry, based on historical and moral themes, employed allegory, dreams, symbols, and mythology for didactic effect.
Guillaume de Machaut, who popularized the new lyric genres such as the rondeau, ballade, lai, and virelai in the 14th century, is considered to have been the leader of the new rhétorique, or poetic art. This tradition was continued by Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pisan, Charles d’Orléans, and François Villon, as well as by Jean Froissart, the historian, and the political orator Alain Chartier. In his role as chronicler, Froissart was followed by Georges Chastellain, Olivier de La Marche, and Jean Molinet, historiographers of the Burgundian court who became known as the grands rhétoriqueurs. Like Chartier they favoured a didactic, elegant, and Latinate style in prose and verse, and they brought the long didactic poem of Deschamps and Christine de Pisan to new prominence. Their short poems exhibited astonishing verbal ingenuity and acrobatics and were often dependent on the pun, riddle, or acrostic for effects. Pretentious and erudite, they enhanced their poetry through mythological inventions and attempted to enrich the French language by multiplying compound words, derivatives, and scholarly diminutives.
Other rhétoriqueurs were Jean Bouchet, Jean Marot, Guillaume Crétin, and Pierre Gringore. Crétin composed patriotic poems on current events, as did Gringore, whose sotie-moralité (satirical play) entitled Le Jeu du prince des sots (“Play of the Prince of Fools”) supported the policy of Louis XII through a forceful attack on Pope Julius II.
The last and one of the best rhétoriqueurs was Jean Lemaire de Belges, whose works reveal the influence of Dante and Petrarch. Inspired by his travels through Italy, he attempted new metres, such as the terza rima, and expressed some of his views in the Concorde des deux langages (“Harmony Between Two Languages”), an allegory encouraging a spiritual harmony between French and Italian.