author
François Villon
1431–1463
A brilliant and unruly voice from late medieval Paris, his poems mix dark humor, regret, street life, and sudden tenderness in a way that still feels startlingly alive. Best known for the Testament poems and the unforgettable refrain “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”, he helped shape the future of French lyric poetry.
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About the author
Little about his life is certain beyond scattered records and what can be inferred from his writing, but François Villon was born around 1431 in Paris and disappeared from the historical record after 1463. He studied at the University of Paris and became the best-known French poet of the late Middle Ages, though his life also included theft, prison, exile, and repeated trouble with the law.
That mix of learning and hard experience gives his work its special force. In poems such as Le Lais and Le Testament, he writes about poverty, fear, aging, desire, sin, and death with wit and emotional directness, moving easily between satire, prayer, and raw confession.
Villon's poems survived while much of his life remained a mystery, and that mystery became part of his legend. What endures most is the voice itself: sharp, human, funny, frightened, compassionate, and unmistakably modern even centuries later.