|
Chapelain
Jean Chapelain (4 December 1595 – 22 February 1674) was a French poet and critic during the ''Grand Siècle'', best known for his role as an organizer and founding member of the . Chapelain acquired considerable prestige as a literary critic, but his own major work, an epic poem about Joan of Arc called "La Pucelle," (1656) was lampooned by his contemporary Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Background Chapelain was born in Paris. His father wanted him to become a notary, but his mother, who had known Pierre de Ronsard, had decided otherwise. Early education At an early age Chapelain began to qualify himself for literature, learning, under Nicolas Bourbon, Greek and Latin, and teaching himself Italian and Spanish. Tutor Having finished his studies, Chapelain taught Spanish to a young nobleman for a short time, before being appointed tutor to the two sons of Sébastien Le Hardy, lord of la Trousse, ''grand-prévôt de France'', Gouye de Longuemarre, ""Eclaircissemens sur un officie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
17th-century French Literature
17th-century French literature was written throughout the '' Grand Siècle'' of France, spanning the reigns of Henry IV of France, the Regency of Marie de' Medici, Louis XIII of France, the Regency of Anne of Austria (and the civil war called the Fronde) and the reign of Louis XIV of France. The literature of this period is often equated with the Classicism of Louis XIV's long reign, during which France led Europe in political and cultural development; its authors expounded the classical ideals of order, clarity, proportion and good taste. In reality, 17th-century French literature encompasses far more than just the classicist masterpieces of Jean Racine and Madame de La Fayette. Society and literature in 17th-century France In Renaissance France, literature (in the broadest sense of the term) was largely the product of encyclopaedic humanism, and included works produced by an educated class of writers from religious and legal backgrounds. A new conception of nobility, modell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Hédelin, Abbé D'Aubignac
François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac (4 August 1604 in Paris – 27 July 1676) was a French author and cleric. The father of François Hédelin was Claude Hédelin, a lawyer at the Parliament, and his mother Catherine Paré, the daughter of the famous surgeon Ambroise Paré. After practising some time at Nemours, he abandoned law, took holy orders, and was appointed tutor to one of Richelieu's nephews, the duc de Fronsac. This patronage secured for him the abbeys of Aubignac and of Mainac. The death of the duc de Fronsac in 1646 put an end to hopes of further preferment, and Ambroise Paréd'Aubignac retired to Nemours, occupying himself with literature till his death. He energetically participated in the literary controversies of his time. Against Gilles Ménage he wrote ''Térence justifié'' (1656); he laid claim to having originated the idea of the ''Carte de tendre'' of Mlle de Scudéry's ''Clélié''; and after being a professed admirer of Corneille, he turned against ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1595 Births
Events January–March * January 16 – Mehmed III succeeds Murad III, as List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and begins a reign of almost nine years. Upon ascending the throne, Mehmed orders that all 19 of the other sons of Murad III are to be strangled to death. * January 17 – During the French Wars of Religion, King Henry IV of France declares war on Spain, ordering Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, Henry, Duke of Bouillon to lead armies Luxemburg campaigns, through Luxembourg for an attack on the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium). * January 24 – Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor, Matthias of Habsburg is appointed by his brother Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, to become the Archduke of ''Further Austria, die Vorlande'', the possessions of the Austrian Habsburgs in Southern Germany outside of Austria, also called Further Austria (''Vorderösterreich''). The appointment follows the death of their uncle, Ferdinan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Daniel Huet
P. D. Huetius Pierre Daniel Huet (; ; 8 February 1630 – 26 January 1721) was a French churchman and scholar, editor of the Delphin Classics, founder of the Académie de Physique in Caen (1662–1672) and Bishop of Soissons from 1685 to 1689 and afterwards of Avranches. Life He was born in Caen in 1630, and educated at the Jesuit school there. He also received lessons from a Protestant pastor, Samuel Bochart. By the age of twenty he was recognized as one of the most promising scholars of his time. In 1651 he went to Paris, where he formed a friendship with Gabriel Naudé, conservator of the Mazarin Library. In the following year Samuel Bochart, being invited by Queen Christina of Sweden to her court at Stockholm, took his friend Huet with him. This journey, in which he saw Leiden, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, as well as Stockholm, resulted chiefly in the discovery, in the Swedish royal library, of some fragments of Origen's ''Commentary on St Matthew'', which gave Huet the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guirlande De Julie
The ''Guirlande de Julie'' (, ''Julie's Garland'') is a unique French manuscript of sixty-one madrigal (poetry), ''madrigaux'', illustrated with painted flowers, and composed by several poets ''habitués'' of the Hôtel de Rambouillet for Julie d'Angennes and given to her on her name day in May 1641. The 1641 manuscript was bought by the ''Bibliothèque nationale de France'' in 1989 and is now kept in the ''Département des Manuscrits'' of the BnF. Context The salon of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet (1588–1665), wife of Charles d'Angennes, marquis de Rambouillet (1577–1652), was the first and most brilliant Parisian literary salon of the first half of the 17th century, at its height between 1620 and 1645. The Hôtel de Rambouillet, as it was called, was frequented by renowned ''précieuses'', writers, nobles and "robins". One of its ''habitués'', Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier, Charles de Sainte-Maure, marquis de Montausier (1610–1690), had been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gédéon Tallemant Des Réaux
Gédéon Tallemant, Sieur des Réaux (7 November 1619 – 6 November 1692) was a French writer known for his ''Historiettes'', a collection of short biographies. Biography Born at La Rochelle, he belonged to a wealthy middle-class Huguenot family; the name des Réaux was derived from a small property he purchased in 1650. When he was about eighteen, he was sent to Italy with his brother François, abbé Tallemant. On his return to Paris, Tallemant took his degrees in civil law and Canon law, and his father obtained for him the position of ''conseiller au parlement''. Disliking his profession, he decided to seek an alternative income by marriage with his cousin Elisabeth de Rambouillet. His half-brother had married a d'Angennes, and this connection secured for Tallemant an introduction to the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Madame de Rambouillet was no admirer of King Louis XIII, and she gratified Tallemant's curiosity with stories of the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIII that were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilles Ménage
Gilles Ménage (; 15 August 1613 – 23 July 1692) was a French scholar. Biography He was born at Angers, the son of Guillaume Ménage, king's advocate at Angers. A good memory and enthusiasm for learning carried him quickly through his literary and professional studies, and he practised at the bar at Angers before he was twenty. In 1632, he pleaded several causes before the ''parlement'' of Paris. Illness caused him to abandon the legal profession for the church. He became prior of Montdidier without taking holy orders, and lived for some years in the household of Cardinal de Retz (then coadjutor to the Archbishop of Paris), where he had leisure for literary pursuits. Some time after 1648, he quarrelled with his patron and withdrew to a house in the cloister of Notre-Dame de Paris, where he gathered round him on Wednesday evenings those literary assemblies which he called "Mercuriales." Jean Chapelain, Paul Pellisson, Valentin Conrart, Jean François Sarrazin and Du B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1674 Deaths
Events January–March * January 2 – The French West India Company is dissolved after less than 10 years. * January 7 – In the Chinese Empire, General Wu Sangui leads troops into the Giuzhou province, and soon takes control of the entire territory without a loss. * January 15 – Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, The Earl of Arlington, a member of the English House of Commons, is impeached on charges of popery, but the Commons rejects the motion to remove him from office, 127 votes for and 166 against. * January 19 – The tragic opera ''Alceste (Lully), Alceste'', by Jean-Baptiste Lully, is performed for the first time, presented by the Paris Opera company at the Theatre du Palais-Royal in Paris. * February 19 – Kingdom of England, England and the Dutch Republic, Netherlands sign the Treaty of Westminster (1674), Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Its provisions come into effect gradually (''see'' November 10). * Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (; 1 November 1636 – 13 March 1711), often known simply as Boileau (, ), was a French poet and critic. He did much to reform the prevailing form of French poetry, in the same way that Blaise Pascal did to reform the prose. He was greatly influenced by Horace. Family and education Boileau was the fifteenth child of Gilles Boileau, a clerk in the Parlement of Paris. Two of his brothers attained some distinction: Gilles Boileau, the author of a translation of Epictetus; and Jacques Boileau, who became a canon of the Sainte-Chapelle, and made valuable contributions to church history. The surname " Despréaux" was derived from a small property at Crosne near Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. His mother died when he was two years old; and Nicolas Boileau, who had a delicate constitution, seems to have suffered something from want of care. Sainte-Beuve puts down his somewhat hard and unsympathetic outlook quite as much to the uninspiring circumstances of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julius Caesar Scaliger
Julius Caesar Scaliger (; 23 April or August 1484 – 21 October 1558), or Giulio Cesare della Scala, was an Italian scholar and physician, who spent a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the New Learning. In spite of his contentious disposition, his contemporary reputation was high. Jacques Auguste de Thou claimed that none of the ancients could be placed above him and that he had no equal in his own time. Biography Scaliger's father, Benedetto Bordone, was a miniaturist and illuminator. Scaliger himself was known in his youth by the family name Bordone, but later insisted that he was a scion of the house of La Scala, for a hundred and fifty years lords of Verona. He was born in Padua on 23 April or August 1484, though his son later claimed that he was born at the Rocca di Riva, on Lake Garda. There are two accounts of his life, his own and that of his critics. His own acc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 tradition, oral or literature, written), or they may also performance, perform their art to an audience. The work of a poet is essentially one of communication, expressing ideas either in a literal sense (such as communicating about a specific event or place) or metaphorically. Poets have existed since prehistory, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and periods. Throughout each civilization and language, poets have used various styles that have changed over time, resulting in countless poets as diverse as the literature that (since the advent of writing systems) they have produced. History Ancient poets The civilization of Sumer figures prominently in the history of early poetry, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fashion journalism, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social policy, social or government policy. Critical judgments, whether derived from critical thinking or not, weigh up a range of factors, including an assessment of the extent to which the item under review achieves its purpose and its creator's intention and a knowledge of its context. They may also include a positive or negative personal response. Characteristics of a good critic are articulateness, preferably having the ability to use language with a high level of appeal and skill. Sympathy, sensitivity (physiology), sensitivity and insight are also important. Substantial_form, Form, Style_(sociolinguistics), style and Media_(communication), mediu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
