Jean Daurat (
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
: Joan Dorat;
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
: Auratus) (3 April 15081 November 1588) was a French poet,
scholar
A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...
and a member of a group known as ''
The Pléiade''.
Early life
He was born Joan Dinemandy in
Limoges
Limoges ( , , ; , locally ) is a city and Communes of France, commune, and the prefecture of the Haute-Vienne Departments of France, department in west-central France. It was the administrative capital of the former Limousin region. Situated o ...
and was a member of a noble family. After studying at the College of Limoges, he came to Paris to be presented to King
Francis I of France
Francis I (; ; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once removed and father-in-law Louis&nbs ...
, who made him tutor to his pages. He rapidly gained an immense reputation as a
classical scholar
Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
.
Career
As a private tutor in the house of
Lazare de Baif, he had
Jean-Antoine de Baif for his pupil. His son, Louis, showed great precocity and at the age of ten, translated into French verse one of his father's Latin pieces. His poems were published with his father's.
Daurat became director of the Collège de Coqueret, where he had among his pupils
Antoine de Baif,
Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard (; 11 September 1524 – 27 December 1585) was a French poet known in his generation as a "Prince des poètes, prince of poets". His works include ''Les Amours de Cassandre'' (1552)'','' ''Les Hymnes'' (1555-1556)'', Les Disco ...
,
Remy Belleau, and
Pontus de Tyard.
Joachim du Bellay
Joachim du Bellay (; – 1 January 1560) was a French poet, critic, and a founder of '' La Pléiade''. He notably wrote the manifesto of the group: '' Défense et illustration de la langue française'', which aimed at promoting French as a ...
was added by Ronsard to this group, and these five young poets, under the direction of Daurat, formed a society for the reformation of the French language and literature. They increased their number to seven by the initiation of the dramatist
Étienne Jodelle
Étienne Jodelle, seigneur de Limodin (; 1532July 1573), French dramatist and poet, was born and died in Paris of a noble family.
Member of La Pléiade, he will strive to revitalize the principles of ancient Greek and Roman theater during the R ...
, and thereupon they named themselves ''La Pléiade'', in emulation of the seven Greek poets of Alexandria. The election of Daurat as their leader proved his personal influence, and the value his pupils set on the learning to which he introduced them, but as a writer of French verse he is the least important of the seven. Meanwhile, he collected around him a sort of academy, and encouraged the students in a passionate study of Greek and Latin poetry. He himself wrote incessantly in both those languages, and was styled "the modern
Pindar
Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar i ...
". His influence extended beyond the bounds of his own country, and he was famous as a scholar in England, Italy, and Germany.
In 1556 he was appointed professor of Greek at the
Collège Royal. In 1567, he resigned the post in favour of his nephew, Nicolas Goulu. King
Charles IX gave him the title of ''poeta regius'' ("the king's poet"). His prolific output was the wonder of his time; he is said to have composed more than 15,000 Greek and Latin verses. The best of these he published at Paris in 1586. He died at Paris, having survived all his illustrious pupils of the ''Pléiade'', except Pontus de Tyard. The ''Œuvres poétiques'' in the vernacular of Jean Daurat were edited in 1875 with biographical notice and bibliography by
Charles Marty-Laveaux in his ''Pléiade française''.
Daurat has been credited with the development of the
claque in the French theatre, in which professional applauders are paid to ensure the success of (or in other cases, booed to ensure the failure of) certain plays, playwrights, and actors.
Scholarship
Daurat is described by
Eduard Fraenkel as "the true initiator of the study of Greek poetry in France". His pupils, including
Joseph Justus Scaliger, were responsible for circulating the numerous textual conjectures made by Daurat, especially in Aeschylus' ''Agamemnon'', which Daurat himself left unpublished.
[E. Fraenkel, ''Aeschylus: Agamemnon'', volume 1, pp. 34–35.]
He wrote an
allegory
As a List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...
for
Julián Íñiguez de Medrano, which was featured in Medrano's ''
La Silva Curiosa'', published in 1583 in Paris.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daurat, Jean
1508 births
1588 deaths
People from Limoges
French classical scholars
French poets
Academic staff of the Collège de France
French male poets