Marin le Roy, sieur du Parc et de Gomberville (1600 – 14 June 1674) was a French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

. He was born at

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and at fourteen he produced a volume of poetry. At twenty he wrote a ''Discours sur l'histoire'' and at twenty-two a pastoral, ''La Charité'', which is really a novel. The characters, though disguised as shepherds and shepherdesses, represent real people for whose identification the author himself provides a key. This was followed by a more ambitious work, ''Polexandre'' (5 vols. 1632–1637). The hero wanders through the world in search of the island home of the princess Alcidiane. It contains much history and geography; the travels of Polexandre extending to such unexpected places as

Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

, the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and the

Antilles The Antilles is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and east. The Antillean islands are divided into two smaller groupings: the Greater An ...

, and incidentally we learn all that was then known of Mexican history. ''Cythérée'' (4 vols.) appeared in 1630–1642, and in 1651 the ''Jeune Alcidiane'', intended to undo any harm the earlier novels may have done, for Gomberville became a

Jansenist Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of free will and divine grace in response to certain development ...

and spent the last twenty-five years of his life in pious retirement. He was one of the earliest and most energetic members of the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

. In 1646, Gomberville published the first edition of his

emblem book An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. Emblem books are collection ...

, La Doctrine des Moeurs ("The Doctrine of Morals") based on

Otto van Veen Otto van Veen (also known by his Latinized names Otto Venius or Octavius Vaenius; 1556 – 6 May 1629), was a Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, and Humanism, humanist active primarily in Antwerp and City of Brussels, Brussels in the late ...

's "Quinti Horatii Flacci Emblemata" 607The Invention of the Emblem Book and the Transmission of Knowledge, ca. 1510–1610, Karl A.E. Enenkel, 2019 Later editions appeared in 1681, 1682, 1683, 1684, 1685, and 1688 (all Paris). The illustrations in the first edition, mirror images of van Veen's, were engraved by Pierre Daret.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gomberville, Marin le Roy de 1600 births 1674 deaths Writers from Paris French poets French nobility 17th-century French male writers 17th-century French novelists Members of the Académie Française French male poets French male novelists