Horrifying Reality

Violence and death are all around us in our society today. Whether it is seen on the television in the news, in a film, or read about in the newspaper, the descriptiveness of these incidents is absolutely horrifying. The punishment of such crimes that we read about today are simply minute compared to the events that occurred during the fifteenth century. In the poem “La Ballade des pendus” written by François Villon, the gruesome description of the images are far from ordinary, but serves it’s purpose brilliantly.

In his poem Villon writes of men who were hung, still hanging out in a courtyard and describes what happens to their bodies once they are dead. His word choice in this poem makes the reality of what occurred back then that much more ghastly and repugnant. The punishments given today are much less severe and when they are written about in a newspaper, the incident is not described quite in the way that François Villon chose to write in his poem.

I feel that if Villon had used a different method of describing the events such as being metaphorical instead of straight-forward, the poem would not have the same effect on its audience. Although when I first read this poem I did not like it because I thought it was absolutely disgusting, after reading it several times I realized that with out the disgusting details the poem would not be the same. The words that he uses simply speak out in a way that makes the reader either love it or despise it, I feel that is what makes this poem so interesting.

I believe that François Villon did an excellent job writing this poem and if today’s stories were just as graphic or possibly a little bit less than that of Villon, it would be a lot more interesting to read.