A nineteenth-century composer-reader Théodore Gouvy and the poetry of Ronsard

Composed between 1865 and 1867, the 40 Poésies de Ronsard by the Lorrainian composer Théodore Gouvy (1819–1898) are a monument of nineteenth-century French melody. Their number suggests a first-hand reading of the poet in the Œuvres complètes of Blanchemain (1857) or in A. Noël’s Choix de poésies (1862). This study attempts to identify the literary source of the musical corpus and brings to light the surprising complexity of a composition process that draws on varied poetic material.