René Rapin (1621–1687) was a French Jesuit and writer. He was born at

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metr ...

and entered the

Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

in 1639. He taught

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...

, and wrote extensively both in verse and prose.

Works

His first production, ''Eclogæ Sacræ'' (Paris, 1659), won him the title of the Second

Theocritus Theocritus (; grc-gre, Θεόκριτος, ''Theokritos''; born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry. Life Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from h ...

, and his poem on gardens, ''Hortorum libri IV'' (Paris, 1665), twice translated into English (London, 1673;

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

, 1706), placed him among the foremost Latin versifiers. Of his critical essays, the best known are: ''Observations sur les poèmes d'Homère et de Virgile'' (Paris, 1669); ''Réflexions sur l'usage de l'éloquence de ce temps'' (Paris, 1672); ''Réflexions sur la poétique d'Aristote et sur les ouvrages des poétes anciens et modernes'' (Paris, 1674). He is also the author of several theological and ascetic treatises like ''De nova doctrina dissertatio seu Evangelium Jansenistarum'' (Paris, 1656); ''L'esprit du christianisme'' (Paris, 1672); ''La perfection du christianisme'' (Paris, 1673); ''La foi des derniers siècles'' (Paris, 1679). These books and many other pamphlets were collected in ''Oeuvres complétes'' published at

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, 1709–10. Rapin's best titles to celebrity are his two posthumous works: ''Histoire du jansenisme'', edited by Domenech (Paris, 1861), and ''Mémoires sur l'église, la société, la cour, la ville et le jansénisme'', edited by Aubineau (Paris, 1865). The latter book is the counterpart of the

Jansenistic Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by th ...

''Mémoires de Godefroi Hermant sur l'histoire ecclésiastique du XVIIe siècle'', edited by Gazier (Paris, 1905).

Ste-Beuve Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (; 23 December 1804 – 13 October 1869) was a French literary critic. Early life He was born in Boulogne, educated there, and studied medicine at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris (1824–27). In 1828, he s ...

in his own ''Port Royal'' tries on every occasion to find Rapin at fault, but more recent studies on Jansenism show that he is, in the main, reliable.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rapin, Rene French religious writers 1621 births 1687 deaths Clergy from Tours, France French literary critics French essayists 17th-century French Jesuits French male essayists Lycée Louis-le-Grand teachers Writers from Tours, France