Antoine Furetière (28 December 161914 May 1688) was a French scholar, writer, and lexicographer, known best for his satirical novel ''Scarron's City Romance''. He was expelled from the

Académie Française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

for seeking to publish his own French language dictionary.

Biography

Furetière was born in Paris, the son of an employee of the royal household. He studied law and worked for a time as an attorney and tax assessor. Later he became a Catholic clergyman and, after various promotions, the

abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin ''abbas'', in turn from Greek , ''abbas'', from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is the title for low ...

of Chalivoy in the

diocese of Bourges The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bourges (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Bituricensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Bourges'') is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The Archdiocese comprises the departements of C ...

in 1662. Thanks to the leisure he enjoyed as a clergyman, he was able to devote himself to writing. He was admitted to the

in 1662 by virtue of his

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

''Nouvelle allégorique, ou histoire des derniers troubles arrivés au royaume d'éloquence'' (1658), among other works. One of Furetière's most important literary works was ''Le Roman bourgeois'' (1666). This satirical novel described everyday life, especially within the legal profession, and ridiculed the fashionable romances of

Madeleine de Scudéry Madeleine de Scudéry (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701), often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer. Her works also demonstrate such comprehensive knowledge of ancient history that it is suspected she had received inst ...

and of Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède. Because of its similarity to Paul Scarron's ''Le Roman comique'' (1651, 1657), it was translated into English as ''Scarron's City Romance'' in 1671. With a self-conscious narrator who comments on his techniques and disregards the conventions of the novel, it anticipates Laurence Sterne's '' Tristram Shandy'' (1759–67). At its founding, the Académie Française had been entrusted with the task of producing a complete dictionary of the French language. Furetière initially participated in the collaborative project with enthusiasm, but eventually grew frustrated with his colleagues' approach and slow progress and began work on his own dictionary, probably around 1676–78.Alain Rey, "Antoine Furetière, imagier de la culture classique," vol. 1 of ''Le Dictionnaire universel d'Antoine Furetière'', facsimile edition (Paris: SNL – Le Robert, 1978), 54. When members of the academy heard that Furetière was about to publish his dictionary, they interfered, alleging that he had stolen their material and violated the monopoly they had held on French dictionaries since 1672. In 1685, after fierce recrimination on both sides, Furetière was expelled from the academy, and the French government revoked his permission to publish the dictionary. In 1690, Furetière's '' Dictionaire universel'' was published posthumously in the Netherlands with a ''Preface'' prepared by his friend Pierre Bayle.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Furetiere, Antoine 1619 births 1688 deaths Writers from Paris People of the Ancien Régime French fabulists Expelled members of the Académie Française French lexicographers 17th-century French male writers 17th-century French novelists