He was born at
Bissy-sur-Fley in
Burgundy, of which he was
seigneur, but the exact year of his birth is uncertain. He became a friend of
Antoine Héroet and
Maurice Scève. His first published work,
Erreurs amoureuses 1549, was augmented with other poems in successive editions till 1573. His work anticipated that of
Pierre de Ronsard and
Joachim du Bellay. He was one of the first to write sonnets in the
French language (preceded by
Clément Marot and
Mellin de Saint-Gelais). He is also said to have introduced the
sestina, originally a
Provençal invention, into
French poetry. Tyard contributed to the poetic and metaphysical program of La Pléiade by elaborating, in his
Solitaire Premier, ou Prose des Muses, et de la fureur poétique (1552), a full theory of
divine fury, derived in large part from the Latin translations and commentaries by the neo-platonic author
Marsilio Ficino of
Plato's dialogues
Ion and (especially)
Phaedrus at the end of the 15th century. Tyard distinguished divine inspiration from madness or "alienation" brought on by other causes, and subdivided divine inspiration into four kinds: (1) poetic fury, gift of the Muses; (2) knowledge of religious mysteries, through
Bacchus; (3) prophecy and divination through
Apollo; (4) inspiration brought on by
Venus/Eros. In his later years he devoted himself to the study of
mathematics and
philosophy. He became
bishop of Chalon-sur-Saône in 1578, and in 1587 published his
Discours philosophiques. He was a zealous defender of King
Henry III of France against the claims of the
House of Guise. This attitude led to his persecution; he was driven from Chalon and his château at Bissy-sur-Fley was plundered. Nevertheless, he survived all the other members of the Pléiade and lived to see the onslaught made on their doctrines by
François de Malherbe. Pontus resigned his bishopric in 1594, and retired to the
Château de Bragny, where he died. ==References==