Antoine Girard, sieur de Saint-Amant (September 30, 1594December 29, 1661) 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 ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
.
Saint-Amant was born near
Rouen. His father was a merchant who had, according to his son's account, been a sailor and had commanded for 22 years "''une escadre de la reine Elizabeth''" – a vague statement that lacks confirmation. The son obtained a
patent of nobility
Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...
, and attached himself to different great noblemen – the
duc de Retz Seigneurs and Dukes of Retz owned the district of Retz or Rais, is in South Brittany.
History
Rais belonged in early times to a house which bore its name, and of which the eldest branch became extinct in the 13th century in the .
From the Chabot ...
and the
comte d'Harcourt among others. He saw military service and sojourned at different times in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
– a sojourn which provoked from him a violent poetical attack on the country, ''Albion'' (1643) – in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, where he held a court appointment for two years, and elsewhere. Saint-Amant's later years were spent in France; and he died at
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
.
Saint-Amant has left a considerable body of poetry. His ''Albion'' and ''Rome ridicule'' set the fashion of the
burlesque poem. In his later years he devoted himself to serious subjects and produced an epic, ''Moyse sauvé'' (1653). His other work consists of
Bacchanalia
The Bacchanalia were unofficial, privately funded popular Roman festivals of Bacchus, based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. They were almost certainly associated with Rome's native cult of Liber, and probably arrived in Rome ...
n songs, his ''Débauche'' being one of the most remarkable convivial poems of its kind.
References
* ''Oeuvres'', edited by Jean Lagny, 4 volumes (1967–71). The standard critical edition.
* Robert T. Corum, ''Other Worlds and Other Seas'' (1979). Close formal analysis.
* Edwin M. Duval, ''Poesis and Poetic Tradition in the Early Works of Saint-Amant'' (1981). Intertextual synthesis.
* David Lee Rubin, "Le Mauvais Logement", Chapter 2 of ''The Knot of Artifice'' (1981).
* Catherine Ingold, "Order and Affinity in the Seasonal Sonnets of Saint-Amant" in ''The Ladder of High Designs: Structure and Interpretation of French Lyric Sequences'', edited by Doranne Fenoaltea and David Lee Rubin (1991).
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint-Amant, Antoine Girard De
French poets
Members of the Académie Française
1594 births
1661 deaths
17th-century French writers
17th-century French male writers
French male poets