Guillaume de Mauchaut

Introduction

 

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR

After delivering a manuscript containing, among his other works, The Taking of Alexandria (La Prise d'Alixandre) of Guillaume de Machaut to Count Louis de Male of Flanders (see Earp 1995, 57), Eustache Deschamps dedicated a poem to his literary master in which he affirms:

All your works are with great honor Received by all in many a far-off place, And there no one, to my knowledge, Speaks anything of them but praise. Guillaume, the great lords hold you very dear And take pleasure in what you write. (Text quoted in Hœpffner 1908–21,1: iv)

Elsewhere Deschamps observes that Machaut “nourished” him and “paid him many kindnesses,” so perhaps we should consider his opinion of the older poet's reputation somewhat ...