Ver-Vert ou Les voyages du perroquet de Nevers. Poème héroique - Gresset, Jean-Baptiste 1709-1777 (Amsterdam s.n., 1735)
the Visitandines of Nevers take in a parrot they name Vert-Vert. They give him all their attention and teach him some pious songs. Proud of their parrot, they decided to send it to the Visitation in Nantes. But on the journey, Vert-vert learns the coarse language of the boatmen and, when he arrives at the convent in Nantes, he scandalizes the nuns who immediately send him away. Back in Nevers, Vert-vert is so pampered that he dies of indigestion.
Underneath its light-hearted appearance, Vert-vert reflects a reality, the possession of pets in convents, and certain preoccupations of the Enlightenment. Thus Gresset chose a parrot as the main character at a time when these birds were the object of a real craze in France. Sources of prestige for their masters, parrots also interest scholars because, through their ability to speak, they blur the line between man and animal. This new interest led to lively debates on the existence of suffering in animals: while some admitted it, others restricted it to physical pain. Others still consider it non-existent, such as the Cartesians, who believe that God can make an animal suffer, an innocent creature untouched by original sin, is to think that God is unjust.Finally, while Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset tells this story with humour, others use it to criticise an excessive attachment to animals, an attachment that is all the more dangerous because it is likely to divert man from his duties towards his fellow human beings and towards God. This is the case of La Critique de Vairvert, an anonymous satirical play published in 1748.
Originally published in 1734
heroic-comic poem in four songs about a parrot
Although domestication has existed for a very long time, the attachment of humans to animals, a feeling that seems natural to us today, has not always existed. It is estimated that it was in the 18th century that a deep attachment to animals emerged among the elites. At that time, the figure of the animal became an important subject of study and a fashionable theme, as illustrated by the poem Vert-vert, written in 1734 by the Jesuit Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset. This story, whose eponymous hero is a parrot, is indicative of the interest in domestic animals in the 18th century.
The story is pleasant, and Vert-vert was a considerable success, as numerous 18th and 19th century editions prove. However, the poem did not please the sisters of the Visitation, who had Gresset sanctioned. Relegated to the college of La Flèche, he finally left the orders in 1735. He continued to write, however, and became an academician in 1748.
La Pupille / Règlement pour l'Opéra de Paris / Le Caresme In-promptu et Le lutrin vivant.
https://bibulyon.hypotheses.org/1539
Keywords: 18th Century (1701-1800); Poetry; Humor; Blavet; opera =; opera in Parijs; operareglement; theater in oudheid; kerktoonsoort; zuiverheid; Camargo; Le Maure; Pelissier; Sallé [Demoiselle Sallé]; tribunal