With David Georgi (translator, François Villon’s Poems, Northwestern University Press, 2013); Nancy Regalado (Professor Emerita of French, NYU), Richard Sieburth (Professor of French and Comparative Literature, NYU; translator).

One of the most original and important voices of the Middle Ages, François Villon took his inspiration from the streets, taverns, and bordellos of Paris. A rare instance of a medieval poet who lived on the margins of society, Villon wrote about love and sex, money trouble, bent cops, lewd monks, “the thieving rich,” and the consolations of good food and wine.

With David Georgi’s ingenious translation, English-speaking audiences finally have a text that captures the riotous energy, humor, and wordplay of the original. This bilingual edition presents Villon’s French side-by-side with the translation, in a newly revised text that reflects the latest scholarship. Addressing everything from gambler’s slang to the ingredients of 15th-century flan to the presence of prostitutes in the graveyard, Georgi’s notes provide an inviting and informative guide to the poems and to the colorful, chaotic world of medieval Paris.

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