Abstract: Surprisingly, the actual works of François Villon are not as widely known as the persona he forged for himself. How is it, then, that he is perceived as the epitome of both modern poetry and that of the shadowy poetics of the Middle Ages? Le Testament foregrounds an imaginary character, a generous rogue who becomes a new moral compass. The lyrical vision of being an outcast is what drove the Renaissance, and later on Theophile Gautier or Arthur Rimbaud to rediscover these long-forgotten works. Thus the text’s continuing success stems from the paradoxical character that François Villon delineated.
