blason
Sign in to saveBlason is a form of poetry. The term originally comes from the heraldic term "blazon" in French heraldry, which means either the codified description of a coat of arms or the coat of arms itself. The Dutch term is , and in either Dutch or French, the term is often used to refer to the coat of arms of a chamber of rhetoric.
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Blazon | The Poetry Foundation
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poetryfoundation.org →Blazon: French for “coat-of-arms” or “shield.” A literary blazon (or blason) catalogues the physical attributes of a subject, usually female. The device was made popular by Petrarch and used extensively by Elizabethan poets. Spenser’s “Epithalamion ” includes examples of blazon: “Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright, / Her forehead ivory white …” Blazon compares parts of the female body to jewels, celestial bodies, natural phenomenon, and other beautiful or rare objects. See for example Thomas Campion’s “There Is a Garden in Her Face .” Contreblazon inverts the convention, describing “wrong” parts of the female body or negating them completely as in Shakespeare’s famous sonnet “My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun .” For a contemporary example, see “My Boyfriend ” by Camille Guthrie. Check out our Education area , where we have separate offerings for children, teens, adults, and educators.
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Blason is a form of poetry. The term originally comes from the heraldic term "blazon" in French heraldry, which means either the codified description of a coat of arms or the coat of arms itself. The Dutch term is , and in either Dutch or French, the term is often used to refer to the coat of arms of a chamber of rhetoric.
==History== thumb|Blason de Clovis The term forms the root of the modern words "emblazon", which means to celebrate or adorn with heraldic markings, and "blazoner", one who emblazons. This form of poetry was used extensively by Elizabethan-era poets. The terms "blason", "blasonner", "blasonneur" were used in 16th-century French literature by poets who, following Clément Marot in 1536, practised a genre of poems that praised a woman by singling out different parts of her body and finding appropriate metaphors to compare them with. It is still being used with that meaning in literature and especially in poetry. One famous example of such a celebratory poem, ironically rejecting each proposed stock metaphor, is William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130: ''My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damasked, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks,And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,That music hath a far more pleasing sound.I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rareAs any she belied with false compare.''