French literature of the 17th century—the so-called
Grand Siècle—spans the reigns of
Henry IV of FranceHenry IV was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France. His parents were Queen Jeanne III and King Antoine of Navarre.As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before...
, the Regency of Marie de Medici,
Louis XIII of FranceLouis XIII reigned as King of France and Navarre from 1610 to 1643.-Early life, 1601—1610:Born at the Château de Fontainebleau, Louis XIII was the eldest child of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici . As son of the king, he was a Fils de France, and as the eldest son, the Dauphin...
, the Regency of
Anne of AustriaAnne of Austria was Queen Consort of France and Navarre and regent for her son, Louis XIV of France. During her regency Cardinal Mazarin served as France's chief minister...
(and the civil war called the
FrondeThe Fronde was a civil war in France, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisians mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin....
) and the reign of
Louis XIV of FranceLouis XIV , popularly known as the Sun King , was King of France and of Navarre His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch.Louis began personally governing France after the death...
. The literature of this period is often equated with the
ClassicismClassicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
of Louis XIV's long reign, during which France led Europe in political and cultural development, and its authors expounded 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 RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
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, modelled on the Italian Renaissance courts and their
concept of the perfect courtierThe Book of the Courtier was written by Baldassare Castiglione over the course of many years beginning in 1508 and published in 1528 just before his death. The Courtier addresses the subject of what constitutes a perfect courtier, and in its last installment, a perfect lady.To this day, The Book...
, was also beginning to form and evolve through French literature. This new image would, throughout the century, transform the image of a rude noble into the ideal of "
honnête homme" ("the upright man") or the "
bel esprit" {"beautiful spirit"), whose chief virtues included eloquent speech, skill at dance, refined manners, appreciation of the arts, intellectual curiosity, wit, a spiritual or platonic attitude in love, and the ability to write poetry.
Central to this transformation of literature and writers were the salons and literary academies that began to flourish in the first decades of the century. The expanded role of noble patronage was also significant. Production of literary works such as poems, plays, works of criticism or moral reflection was increasingly considered a necessary practice by nobles, and the creation or patronage of the arts served as a means of social advancement for both non-nobles and marginalized nobles. In the mid-seventeenth century, there were an estimated number of authors in France: 2,200 (half of whom were one half
clergyClergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. The term ultimately comes from the Greek κλῆρος - klēros, "a lot", "that which is assigned by lot" or metaphorically, "inheritence"....
and one fourth, noble) writing for a reading public of just a few tens of thousands.
Beginning under Cardinal Richelieu, both patronage of the arts and literary academies increasingly came under the control of the monarchy.
Salons and Academies
Henri IV's court was considered by contemporaries as a rude one, lacking the Italianate sophistication of the court of the
ValoisValois is a district, in the city of Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada. It was once a separate village, many years ago, but was then merged with Pointe-Claire....
kings. The court also lacked a queen, who traditionally served as a focus or patron of a nation's authors and poets. Henri's literary tastes were largely limited to the chivalric novel Amadis of Gaul. In the absence of a national literary culture, private
salonsA salon is a gathering of intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation...
formed around upper-class women such as Marie de Medici and
Marguerite de ValoisMargaret of Valois was Queen of France and of Navarre during the late sixteenth century.-Early life:...
and devoted themselves to the discussion of literature and society. In the 1620s, the most famous salon was held at the
Hôtel de RambouilletThe Hôtel de Rambouillet was the Paris residence of Madame de Rambouillet, who ran a renowned literary salon there from about 1607 until her death in 1665...
by Madame de Rambouillet, while a rival gathering was organized by
Madeleine de ScudéryMadeleine de Scudéry , often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer. She was the younger sister of author Georges de Scudéry, but is generally regarded as his superior in skill.-Biography:...
.
The word
salon first appeared in French in 1664 from the Italian word
sala, the large reception hall of a mansion. Before 1664, literary gatherings were often called by the name of the room in which they occurred --
cabinet,
réduit,
alcôve, and
ruelle. For instance, the term
ruelle derives from literary gatherings held in the bedroom, a practice popular even with
Louis XIVLouis XIV , popularly known as the Sun King , was King of France and of Navarre His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch.Louis began personally governing France after the death...
. Nobles, lying on their beds, would receive close friends, and offer them seats on chairs or stools surrounding the bed.
Ruelle, literally "little street" refers to the space between a bed and the wall in a bedroom, and became a name for these gatherings, and the intellectual and literary circles that evolved from them, often under the wing of formed educated women in the first half of the 17th century.
In the context of French scholastica,
academiesAn academy is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership.The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, north of Athens, Greece.-The original Academy:Before the Akademia was a...
were scholarly societies which monitored, fostered, and critiqued French culture. Academies first appeared in France during the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
, when
Jean-Antoine de BaïfJean Antoine de Baïf was a French poet and member of the Pléiade.-Life:He was born in Venice, the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baïf, who was at that time French ambassador at Venice...
created one devoted to poetry and music, inspired by the academy of Italian
Marsilio FicinoMarsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
. The first half of the seventeenth century was marked by a phenomenal growth in private academies, organised around a half-dozen or a dozen individuals meeting regularly. Academies were more generally formal and focused on criticism and analysis than
salonsA salon is a gathering of intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation...
, which encouraged pleasurable discourse in society. However, certain salons such that of
Marguerite de ValoisMargaret of Valois was Queen of France and of Navarre during the late sixteenth century.-Early life:...
were close to the academic spirit.
In the mid-century, academies gradually came under government control and sponsorship and the number of private academies decreased The first private academy to fall under governmental control was
L'Académie françaiseL'Académie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution, it was...
, which remains the most prestigious governmental academy in France. Founded in 1634 by Cardinal Richelieu, L'Académie française focuses on the
French languageFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
.
Aristocratic codes
In certain instances, the values of 17th century nobility played a major part in literature of the time. Most notable of these values are the aristocratic obsession with glory ("la gloire") and majesty ("la grandeur"). The spectacle of power, prestige and luxury found in 17th century literature may be distasteful or even offensive.
Corneille'sPierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
heroes, for example, have been labeled by modern critics as vain-glorious, extravagant, or prideful; contemporaries aristocratic readers would have these same characters and their actions as representative of a noble station.
The château of
VersaillesVersailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial center...
, court ballets, noble portraits,
triumphal archA triumphal arch is a structure in the shape of a monumental archway, in theory built to celebrate a victory in war, but often used to celebrate a ruler....
es --- all of these were representations of glory and prestige. The notion of glory, be it artistic or military, was not vanity or boastfulness or hubris, rather a moral imperative for the aristocratic class. Nobles were required to be "generous" and "magnanamous" and to perform great deeds disinterestedly (i.e. because their status demanded it and without expecting financial or political gain), and to master their own emotions (especially fear, jealousy and the desire for vengeance).
One's status in the world demanded appropriate externalisation ( or "
conspicuous consumptionConspicuous consumption is a term used to describe the lavish spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status...
"). Nobles indebted themselves to build prestigious urban mansions ("hôtels particuliers") and to buy clothes, paintings, silverware, dishes and other furnishings befitting their rank. They were also required to show liberality by hosting sumptuous parties and by funding the arts. Conversely, social parvenues who took on the external trappings of the noble classes (such as the wearing of a sword) were severely criticised, sometimes by legal action (laws on sumptuous clothing worn by bourgeois existed since the Middle Ages).
These aristocratic values began to be criticised in the mid 17th century:
Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a civil servant...
for example offered a ferocious analysis of the spectacle of power and
François de la RochefoucauldFrançois de La Rochefoucauld may be:* François de La Rochefoucauld , French author* François de La Rochefoucauld , French cardinal of the Catholic Church...
posited that no human act -- however generous is pretended to be -- could be considered disinterested.
Classicism
In an attempt to restrict the proliferation of private centers of intellectual or literary life, so as to impose the royal court as the artistic center of France, Cardinal Richelieu took an existing literary gathering (around
Valentin ConrartValentin Conrart was a French author, and as a founder of the Académie française, the first occupant of seat 2.-Biography:...
) and designated it as the official
Académie françaiseL'Académie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution, it was...
in 1634 (other original members included Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin,
Jean Ogier de GombauldJean Ogier de Gombauld was a French playwright and poet. He was one of the original members of the Académie française. He also wrote novels, but has been described as a mediocre novelist.Gombauld was a Huguenot....
,
Jean ChapelainJean Chapelain was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Chapelain, the son of a notary with whom Colbert may have once been employed, was born in Paris. His father wanted him to become a notary; but his mother, who had known Pierre de Ronsard, had decided otherwise...
,
François le Métel de BoisrobertFrançois le Métel de Boisrobert , was a French poet.-Biography:He was born at Caen, and trained as a lawyer, practising for some time at the bar at Rouen. About 1622 he went to Paris, and by the next year had established a footing at court, for he had a share in the ballet of the Bacchanales...
,
François MaynardFrançois Maynard, sometimes seen as "de Maynard" was a French poet who spent much of his life in Toulouse.-Life and works:...
,
Marin le Roy de GombervilleMarin le Roy, sieur du Parc et de Gomberville , was a French poet and novelist.He was born at Paris, 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...
and
Nicolas FaretNicolas Faret was a French statesman, writer, scholar and translator.He translated Eutropius's Roman History .-Source:...
; members added at the time of its official creation included
Jean-Louis Guez de BalzacJean-Louis Guez de Balzac was a French author.-Biography:Guez de Balzac was born at Angoulême. Originally thought to have been born in 1595, the date was revised in 1848 upon the discovery of a baptismal certificate dated June 1, 1597.In 1612 at the age of fifteen he met Théophile de Viau, also in...
,
Claude Favre de VaugelasClaude Favre de Vaugelas was a French grammarian and man of letters. Although a life-long courtier, Claude Favre was widely known by the name of one of the landed estates he owned as seigneur of Vaugelas and baron of Peroges.Born at Meximieux, in the Ain département of France, he became...
and
Vincent VoitureVincent Voiture , French poet, was the son of a rich merchant of Amiens. He was introduced by a schoolfellow, the count Claude d'Avaux, to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and accompanied him to Brussels and Lorraine on diplomatic missions.Although a follower of Gaston, he won the favour of Cardinal...
). This process of state control of the arts and literature would be expanded even more during the reign of Louis XIV.
The expression
classicism as it applies to literature implies notions of order, clarity, moral purpose and good taste. Many of these notions are directly inspired by the works of
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
and
HoraceThis article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania...
and by classical Greek and Roman masterpieces.
In theater, a play should follow the
Three Unities:
- Unity of place : the setting should not change. In practice, this lead to the frequent "Castle, interior". Battles take place off stage.
- Unity of time: ideally the entire play should take place in 24 hours.
- Unity of action: there should be one central story and all secondary plots should be linked to it.
Although based on classical examples, the unities of place and time were seen as essential for the spectator's complete absorption into the dramatic action; wildly dispersed scenes in China or Africa, or over many years would -- critics maintained -- break the theatrical illusion. Sometimes grouped with the unity of action is the notion that no character should appear unexpectedly late in the drama.
Linked with the theatrical unities are the following concepts:
- "Les bienséances" (decorum
Decorum was a principle of classical rhetoric, poetry and theatrical theory. The term is also applied to prescribed limits of appropriate social behavior within set situations.-In rhetoric and poetry:...
) : literature should respect moral codes and good taste; nothing should be presented that flouts these codes, even if they are historical events.
- "La vraisemblance" : actions should be believable. When historical events contradict believability, some critics counselled the latter. The criterion of believability was sometimes also used to criticize soliloquy, and in late classical plays characters are almost invariably supplied with confidants (valets, friends, nurses) to whom they reveal their emotions.
These rules precluded many elements common in the baroque "tragi-comedy": flying horses, chivalric battles, magical trips to foreign lands and the
deus ex machinaA deus ex machina is a plot device in which a person or thing appears "out of the blue" to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty...
. The mauling of Hippolyte by a monster in
PhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
could only take place offstage.
- Finally, literature and art should consciously follow Horace's precept "to please and educate" .
These "rules" or "codes" were seldom completely followed, and many of the centuries masterpieces broke these rules intentionally to heighten emotional effect:
- Corneille's "Le Cid" was criticised for having Rodrigue appear before Chimène after having killed her father, a violation of moral codes.
- "La Princesse de Clèves"'s revelation to her husband of her adulterous feelings for the Duc de Nemours was criticized for being unbelievable.
In 1674 there erupted an intellectual debate -- "
la querelle des Anciens et des ModernesThe quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns was a literary and artistic quarrel that heated up in the early 1690s and shook the Académie française. It opposed two sides:...
" -- on whether the arts and literature of the modern era had achieved more than the illustrious writers and artists of antiquity. The Académy was dominated by the "Moderns" (
Charles PerraultCharles Perrault was a French author who laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, and whose best known tales, often derived from pre-existing folk tales, include Le Petit Chaperon rouge , La Belle au bois dormant , Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté ,...
,
Jean Desmarets de Saint-SorlinJean Desmarets, Sieur de Saint-Sorlin was a French writer and dramatist. He was a founding member, and the first to occupy seat 4 of the Académie française in 1634.-Biography:...
) and Perrault's poem "Le Siècle de Louis le Grand" ("The Century of Louis the Great") (1687) was the strongest expression of their conviction that the reign of Louis XIV was the equal of
AugustusGaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.
[These are the contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC...]
. As a great lover of the classics,
Nicolas Boileau-DespréauxNicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...
found himself pushed into the role of champion of the "Anciens" (his severe criticisms of Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin's poems did not help), and
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
,
Jean de La FontaineJean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century....
and
Jean de La BruyèreJean de La Bruyère , was a French essayist and moralist.-Ancestry:He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan in 1645...
took his defense. Meanwhile,
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, also referred to as Bernard le Bouyer de Fontenelle was a French author....
and the gazette "Mercure galant" joined the "Moderns". The debate would last until the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The expression "classicism" is also linked to the visual arts and architecture of the period, and most specifically to the construction of the château of
VersaillesVersailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial center...
, the crowning achievement of an official program of propaganda and royal glory. Although originally just a country retreat used for special festivities -- and known more for
André Le NôtreAndré Le Nôtre was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France...
's gardens and fountains -- Versailles eventually became the permanent home of the king. By relocating to Versailles, Louis effectively avoided the dangers of
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(in his youth, Louis XIV had suffered during the civil and parliamentary insurrection known as the
FrondeThe Fronde was a civil war in France, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisians mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin....
) and could also keep his eye very closely on the affairs of the nobles and play them off against each other and against the newer "noblesse de robe". Versailles became a gilded cage: to leave spelled disaster for a noble, for all official charges and appointments were made there. A strict etiquette was imposed: a word or glance from the king could make or destroy a career. The king himself followed a strict daily program, and there was little privacy. Through his wars and the glory of Versailles, Louis became, to a certain degree, the arbiter of taste and power in Europe and both his château and the etiquette in Versailles were copied by the other European courts. Yet the difficult wars at the end of his long reign and the religious problems created by the revocation of the
Edict of NantesThe Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598. by Henry IV of France to grant the Calvinist Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic...
made the last years dark ones.
"Les Amours" and "Les histoires tragiques"
In France, the period following the
Wars of ReligionThe French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants...
saw the appearance of a new form of narrative fiction – that some critics have since termed the "sentimental novel" – which very quickly became a literary sensation thanks to the enthusiasm of a reading public searching for delight after so many years of conflict.
These relatively short (and often realistic) novels of love (or "amours" as they are frequently called in the titles) included extensive examples of gallant letters and polite discourse, amorous dialogues, letters and poems inserted in the story; gallant conceits and other rhetorical figures. These texts played an important role in the elaboration of new modes of civility and discourse of the upper classes (leading to the notion of the noble "honnête homme"). None of these novels have been republished since the early part of the seventeenth century and they remain largely unknown today. Authors associated with "les Amours":
Antoine de NervèzeAntoine de Nervèze was a French nobleman and writer of novels, translations, letters and moral works at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries.-Biography:...
,
Nicolas des EscuteauxNicolas des Escuteaux was a French novelist from the early 17th century.-Life:He was born into a noble family in the region around Loudun...
and
François du SouhaitFrançois du Souhait was a French language author of the late 16th and early 17th century from the Duchy of Lorraine .- Life :François du Souhait was born to a noble family in the Champagne region...
.
Meanwhile, the tradition of the dark tale - coming from the tragic short story ("histoire tragique") associated with Bandello and frequently ending in suicide or murder - continued in the works of
Jean-Pierre CamusJean-Pierre Camus was a French bishop and writer of works of fiction and spirituality.-Biography:Jean-Pierre Camus was the son of Jean Camus, seigneur de Saint Bonnet, who was governor of Étampes...
and François de Rosset.
The Baroque adventure novel
By 1610, the short novel of love had largely disappeared as tastes returned to longer adventure novels (
"romans d'aventures") and their clichés (pirates, storms, kidnapped maidens) that had been popular since the Valois court (Amadis of Gaul was the favorite reading matter of Henri IV;
Béroalde de VervilleFrançois Béroalde de Verville was a French Renaissance novelist, poet and intellectual. He was the son of Matthieu Brouard , called "Béroalde", a professor of Agrippa d'Aubigné and Pierre de l'Estoile and a Huguenot; his mother, Marie Bletz, was the niece of the humanist and Hebrew scholar...
was still writing and
Nicolas de MontreuxNicolas de Montreux was a French nobleman, novelist, poet, translator and dramatist.Born in province of Maine, he was the son of a maître des requêtes and may have become a priest around 1585. In 1591 he came under the protection of the Duke of Mercoeur and participated in the civil wars on the...
had just died in 1608). Both Nervèze and Des Escuteaux, in their later works, attempted multi-volume adventure novels, and over the next twenty years the priest
Jean-Pierre CamusJean-Pierre Camus was a French bishop and writer of works of fiction and spirituality.-Biography:Jean-Pierre Camus was the son of Jean Camus, seigneur de Saint Bonnet, who was governor of Étampes...
adapted the form to tell harrowing moral tales heavily influenced by the "histoire tragique". But the best known of these long adventure novels is perhaps
Polexandre (1629-49) by the young author
Marin le Roy de GombervilleMarin le Roy, sieur du Parc et de Gomberville , was a French poet and novelist.He was born at Paris, 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...
.
All of these authors were eclipsed however by the international success of
Honoré d'UrféHonoré d'Urfé, marquis de Valromey, comte de Châteauneuf was a French novelist and miscellaneous writer.- Life :...
's immense novel
l'Astrée (1607-1633) -- centered around the shepherd Céladon and his love Astrée -- which combined a frame tale device of shepherds and maidens meeting each other and telling their stories and philosophizing on love (a form derived from the ancient Greek novel "the Aethiopica" by
Heliodorus of EmesaHeliodorus of Emesa, from Emesa, Syria, was a Greek writer generally dated to the third century AD who is known for the ancient Greek romance or novel called the Aethiopica or sometimes "Theagenes and Chariclea"....
) and a
pastoralPastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food. "Pastoral" also describes literature, art and music which depicts the life of shepherds, often in a highly...
setting (derived from the Spanish and Italian pastoral tradition from such writers as
Jacopo SannazaroJacopo Sannazaro or Sannazzaro was an Italian poet, humanist and epigrammist from Naples.He wrote easily in Latin, in Italian and in Neapolitan, but is best remembered for his humanist classic Arcadia, a masterwork that illustrated the possibilities of poetical prose in Italian, and instituted...
,
Jorge de MontemayorJorge de Montemayor was a Portuguese novelist and poet, who wrote almost exclusively in Spanish.-Biography:...
,
Torquato TassoTorquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
and Giambattista Guarini) of noble and idealized shepherds and maidens tending their sheep and falling in and out of love.
The influence of d'Urfé's novel was immense, especially in its discursive structure which permitted an infinite number of separate stories and characters to be introduced and their resolution to be constantly delayed for thousands of pages. D'Urfé's novel also promoted a rarefied neo-Platonism which differed profoundly with the frequent physicality of the knights in the Renaissance novel (such as Amadis of Gaul). The only element of d'Urfé's work which did not produce countless imitations was in its "roman pastoral" setting.
In theorizing the origins of the novel, the early seventeenth century conceived of the novel as "an epic in prose", and in truth the epic poem at the end of the Renaissance had few thematic differences from the novel: novelistic love had spilled into the epic and adventurous knights had become the subject of novels. The novels from 1640 to 1660 would make this melding complete. These novels extended to multiple volumes and were structurally complicated, using the same techniques of inserted stories and tale-within-a-tale dialogues as d'Urfé. Often called "romans de longue haleine" (or "deep-breath books"), they usually took place in an ancient historical period like Rome, Egypt or ancient Persia, used historical characters (for this reason they are called
"romans héroiques" heroic romancesHeroic romances refers to a distinguished class of imaginative literature that flourished in the 17th century, principally in France.-Characteristics:Today, heroic romances are more often grouped into the larger romance genre than discussed individually...
) and told the adventures of a series of perfect lovers separated by accident or misfortune to the four corners of the world. Unlike the chivalric romance, magical elements and creatures were relatively rare. Furthermore, there was a concentration in these works on psychological analysis and on moral and sentimental questions that the Renaissance novel lacked. Many of these novels were actually "romans à clé" which described actual contemporary relationships under disguised novelistic names and characters. The most famous of these authors and novels are:
- Madeleine de Scudéry
Madeleine de Scudéry , often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer. She was the younger sister of author Georges de Scudéry, but is generally regarded as his superior in skill.-Biography:...
(1607-1701)
- Ibrahim, ou l'illustre Bassa (4 vols. 1641)
- Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus (10 vols. 1648-1653)
- Clélie, histoire romaine (10 vols. 1654-1661)
- Almahide, ou l'esclave reine (8 vols. 1661-1663)
- Roland Le Vayer de Boutigny
- Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède
Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède was a French novelist and dramatist. He was born at the Château of Tolgou, near Sarlat . After studying at Toulouse, he came to Paris and entered the regiment of the guards, becoming in 1650 gentleman-in-ordinary of the royal household...
- Cassandre (10 vols. 1642-1645)
- Cleopatre (1646-57)
- Faramond (1661)
Baroque comic fiction
Not all fiction from the first half of the century was a wild flight of fancy in far-flung lands and rarefied adventurous love stories. Influenced by the international success of the picaresque novel from Spain (such as the novel
Lazarillo de TormesThe Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities is a Spanish novella, published anonymously, because of its heretical content...
), and by
Miguel de CervantesMiguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature and is regularly regarded among the best novels ever written. His work is considered among the most important in all...
's short story collection
Exemplary Tales (French translations started to appear in 1614) and
Don Quixote de la Mancha (French translation 1614-1618), the French novelists of the first half of the century also chose to describe and satirize their own era and its excesses. Other important models of satire were provided by
Fernando de RojasFernando de Rojas was a Castilian author about whom little information is known. He possibly attended the University of Salamanca. Although his family was of Jewish ancestry, they were conversos, or Jews who had converted to Christianity under pressure from the Spanish crown...
's
Celestina and
John BarclayJohn Barclay was a Scottish satirist and neo-Latin poet.-Life:He was born in Pont-à-Mousson, Lorraine, France, where his father, William Barclay, held the chair of civil law. His mother was a Frenchwoman. His early education was obtained at the Jesuit College...
's (1582-1621) two satirical works in Latin
Euphormio sive Satiricon (1602) and
ArgenisArgenis is a book by John Barclay . It is a work of historical allegory which tells the story of the religious conflict in France under Henry III of France and Henry IV of France, and also touches on more contemporary English events, such as the Overbury scandal...
(1621).
Agrippa d'AubignéThéodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné was a French poet, soldier, propagandist and chronicler. His epic poem Les Tragiques is widely regarded as his masterpiece.-Life:...
's
Les Aventures du baron de Faeneste portrays the rude manners and comic adventures of a Gascon in the royal court.
Charles Sorel's
L'histoire comique de Francion is a picaresque inspired story of the ruses and amorous dealings of a young gentleman, and his
Le Berger extravagant is a satire of the d'Urfé-inspired pastoral, which (taking a clue from the end of
Don Quixote) has a young man take on the life of a shepherd. Despite its "realism", Sorel's works remain, nonetheless, highly baroque with dream sequences and inserted narrations (for example, when Francion tells of his years at school) typical of the adventure novel. This use of inserted stories also follows Cervantes who inserted a number of nearly autonomous stories into his
Quixote.
Paul ScarronPaul Scarron , French poet, dramatist, novelist and first husband of Madame de Maintenon, was baptized on July 4 1610.His father, of the same name, was a member of the parlement of Paris...
's most famous work,
Le Roman comique, uses the narrative frame of a group of ambulant actors in the provinces to present both scenes of farcical comedy and sophisticated inserted tales.
Cyrano de BergeracHector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac was a French dramatist and duellist who is now best remembered for the many works of fiction which have been woven around his life story...
-- made famous by the 19th century play by
Edmond RostandEdmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...
-- wrote two novels that, sixty years before
Gulliver's TravelsGulliver's Travels , officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships, is a novel by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers'...
or Voltaire (not to mention science-fiction), use a journey to magical lands (the moon and the sun) as pretexts for satirizing contemporary philosophy and morals. By the end of the century, Cyrano's works would inspire a number of philosophical novels in which Frenchmen travel to foreign lands and strange utopias.
The early half of the century also saw the continued popularity of the comic short story and collections of humorous discussions, such as in the
Histoires comiques of
François du SouhaitFrançois du Souhait was a French language author of the late 16th and early 17th century from the Duchy of Lorraine .- Life :François du Souhait was born to a noble family in the Champagne region...
; the playful, chaotic, sometimes obscene and almost unreadable
Moyen de parvenir by
Béroalde de VervilleFrançois Béroalde de Verville was a French Renaissance novelist, poet and intellectual. He was the son of Matthieu Brouard , called "Béroalde", a professor of Agrippa d'Aubigné and Pierre de l'Estoile and a Huguenot; his mother, Marie Bletz, was the niece of the humanist and Hebrew scholar...
(a parody of books of "table talk", of Rabelais and of
Michel de MontaigneMichel Eyquem de Montaigne was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre...
's
The EssaysEssays is the title given to a collection of 107 essays written by Michel de Montaigne that was first published in 1580. Montaigne essentially invented the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, of which the book contains a large number...
); the anonymous
Caquets de l'accouchée (1622); and Molière d'Essertine's
Semaine amoureuse (a collection of short stories).
Select list of baroque comique writers and works:
- Agrippa d'Aubigné
Théodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné was a French poet, soldier, propagandist and chronicler. His epic poem Les Tragiques is widely regarded as his masterpiece.-Life:...
(1552-1630)
- Les Aventures du baron de Faeneste (1617, 1619, 1630)
- Béroalde de Verville
François Béroalde de Verville was a French Renaissance novelist, poet and intellectual. He was the son of Matthieu Brouard , called "Béroalde", a professor of Agrippa d'Aubigné and Pierre de l'Estoile and a Huguenot; his mother, Marie Bletz, was the niece of the humanist and Hebrew scholar...
(1556-1626)
- Le Moyen de parvenir (c.1610)
- François du Souhait
François du Souhait was a French language author of the late 16th and early 17th century from the Duchy of Lorraine .- Life :François du Souhait was born to a noble family in the Champagne region...
(c.1570/80 - 1617)
- Histoires comiques (1612)
- Molière d'Essertine (c.1600 - 1624)
- Charles Sorel (1602-1674)
- L'histoire comique de Francion (1622)
- Nouvelles françoises (1623)
- Le Berger extravagant (1627)
- Jean de Lannel (dates?)
- Le Roman satyrique (1624)
- Antoine-André Mareschal (dates?)
- Paul Scarron
Paul Scarron , French poet, dramatist, novelist and first husband of Madame de Maintenon, was baptized on July 4 1610.His father, of the same name, was a member of the parlement of Paris...
(1610-1660)
- Virgile travesti (1648-53)
- Le Roman comique (1651-57)
- Cyrano de Bergerac
Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac was a French dramatist and duellist who is now best remembered for the many works of fiction which have been woven around his life story...
(Hector Savinien) (1619-1655)
- Histoire comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune (1657)
- Histoire comique des Etats et Empires du Soleil (1662)
In the latter half of the century, a contemporary setting would be also used in many classical "nouvelles" (or short novels), especially as a form of moral critique of contemporary society.
The "Nouvelle classique"
By 1660, the multi-volume baroque historical novel had largely fallen out of fashion. The tendency was for much shorter works ("nouvelles" or "petits romans") without the complex structure or adventurous elements (pirates, shipwrecks, kidnappings). This movement away from the baroque novel was supported by theoretical discussions on the novel that sought to apply the same Aristotelian and Horacian concepts of the three unities, decorum and verisimilitude that writers had imposed on the theater. For example,
Georges de ScudéryGeorges de Scudéry , the elder brother of Madeleine de Scudéry, was a French novelist, dramatist and poet.Georges de Scudéry was born in Le Havre, in Normandy, whither his father had moved from Provence...
, in his preface to
Ibrahim (1641), suggested that a "reasonable limit" for a novel's plot (a form of "unity of time") would be one year. Similarly, in his discussion on
La Princesse de Clèves, the chevalier de Valincourt criticized the inclusion of ancillary stories within the main plot (a form of "unity of action").
An interest in love, psychological analysis, moral dilemmas and social constraints permeates these novels. When the action was placed in an historical setting, this was increasingly a setting in the recent past, and although still filled with anachronisms, these novels showed an interest in historical detail; these are generally called "nouvelles historiques". A number of these short novels recounted the "secret history" of a famous event (like Villedieu's "Annales galantes"), linking the action generally to an amorous intrigue; these were called "histoires galantes". Some of these short novels told stories of the contemporary world (like Préchac's "L'Illustre Parisienne").
Important "nouvelles classiques":
- Jean Renaud de Segrais
Jean Renaud de Segrais was a French poet and novelist born in Caen.In 1662, he was elected a member of the Académie française....
Nouvelles françoises (1658)
- Madame de Lafayette La princesse de Montpensier (1662)
- Madame de Villedieu Journal amoureux (1669)
- Jean Donneau de Visé
Jean Donneau de Visé was a French journalist, royal historian , playwright and publicist. He was founder of the literary, arts and society gazette "le Mercure galant" and was associated with the "Moderns" in the "Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns".Donneau de Visé was among the detractors...
Nouvelles galantes et comiques (1669)
- Madame de Villedieu Annales galantes (1670)
- Madame de Lafayette Zaïde (1671)
- Madame de Villedieu Amour des grands hommes (1671)
- César Vichard de Saint-Réal
César Vichard de Saint-Réal , was a French polygraph.He was born in Chambery, Savoy, but educated in Lyon by the Jesuits. He used to work in the royal library with Antoine Varillas. This French historiographer influenced the way Saint-Réal wrote history...
Don Carlos (1672)
- Madame de Villedieu Les Désordres de l'amour (1675)
- Jean de Préchac L'Héroïne mousquetaire (1677)
- Jean de Préchac Le voyage de Fontainebleau (1678)
- Madame de Lafayette La Princesse de Clèves (1678)
- Jean de Préchac L'Illustre Parisienne, histoire galante et véritable (1679)
The most famous of all of these is clearly Madame de Lafayette's
La Princesse de Clèves. Reduced to essentially three characters, the short novel tells the story of a married noble woman in the time of Henri II who falls in love with another man, but who reveals her passion to her husband. Although the novel includes a couple of inserted stories, on the whole the narration concentrates on the unspoken doubts and fears of the two individuals living in a social setting dominated by etiquette and moral correctness; despite the historical setting, Lafayette was clearly describing her contemporary world. The psychological analysis is close to the pessimism of
La RochefoucauldLa Rochefoucauld can refer to:People:* Antoine de La Rochefoucauld* Count Antoine de La Rochefoucauld , 19th century Rosicrucian* François de La Rochefoucauld , French author...
, and the abnegation of the main character leads ultimately to a refusal of a conventional happy ending. For all of its force however, Madame de Lafayette's novel is not the first to have a recent historical setting or psychological depth, as some critics state; these elements can be found in novels of the decade before, and in fact are already present in certain of the "Amours" at the beginning of the century.
Other novelistic forms after 1660
The obsessions of the "nouvelle classique" (an interest in love, psychological analysis, moral dilemmas and social constraints) are also apparent in the anonymous
epistolary novelAn epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs and e-mails have also come into use...
Lettres d'une religieuse portugaise (
Letters of a Portuguese NunThe Letters of a Portuguese Nun , first published anonymously by Claude Barbin in Paris in 1669, is a work believed by most scholars to be epistolary fiction in the form of five letters written by Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues , a minor peer, diplomat, secretary to the Prince...
) (1668), attributed to Guilleragues, which were a major sensation when they were published, in part because of their perceived authenticity. These letters written by a scorned woman to her absent lover were a powerful representation of amorous passion with many similarities to the language of Racine. Other epistolary novels followed, written by Claude Barbin,
Vincent VoitureVincent Voiture , French poet, was the son of a rich merchant of Amiens. He was introduced by a schoolfellow, the count Claude d'Avaux, to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and accompanied him to Brussels and Lorraine on diplomatic missions.Although a follower of Gaston, he won the favour of Cardinal...
,
Edmé BoursaultEdmé Boursault was a French dramatist and miscellaneous writer, born at Mussy l'Evéque, now Mussy-sur-Seine ....
,
FontenelleFontenelle may refer to:* Fontenelle, Wyoming, a census-designated place in the US state of Wyoming* Fontanelle, Nebraska, a former town in the US state of Nebraska* Fontanelle, Iowa* Fontenelle , a crater on the moon...
(who used the form to introduce discussion of philosophical and moral matters, prefiguring Montesquieu's
Lettres persanes in the 18th century) and others; actual love letters written by noble ladies (Madame de Bussy-Lameth, Madame de Coligny) were also published.
Antoine FuretièreAntoine Furetière French scholar and writer, was born in Paris.-Biography:He studied law and practised for a time as an advocate, but eventually took orders and after various promotions became abbé of Chalivoy in the diocese of Bourges in 1662...
(1619-1688) is responsible for a longer comic novel which pokes fun at a bourgeois family:
Le Roman bourgeois (1666). The choice of the bourgeois "arriviste" or "parvenu" (a "social climber" trying to ape the manners and style of the noble classes) as a source of mockery appears in a number of short stories and in theater of the period (such as
MolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's
Bourgeois Gentihomme).
The long adventurous novel of love continued to exist after 1660, albeit in a far shorter form than the novels of the 1640s. Influenced as much by the "nouvelles historiques" and the "nouvelles galantes" as by the "roman d'aventures" and the "roman historique", these galant and historical novels -- whose settings range from ancient Rome to Renaissance Castille or France -- were published in to the first decades of the 18th century. Authors include:
Madame Marie Catherine d'AulnoyMarie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d'Aulnoy was a French writer known for her fairy tales. When she termed her works contes de fée , she originated the term that is now generally used for the genre.-Biography:Born in Barneville-la-Bertran near Bourg-Achard as a member of the noble...
, Mlle
Charlotte-Rose de Caumont La ForceCharlotte-Rose de Caumont La Force or Mademoiselle de La Force was a French novelist and poet.She was the daughter of François de Caumont La Force , marquis of Castelmoron and of Marguerite de Viçose. Raised as a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism in 1686 and received a pension of 1000 écus...
, Mlle Anne de La Roche-Guilhem,
Catherine BernardCatherine Bernard was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. She composed three historical novels, two verse tragedies, several poems, and was awarded several poetry prizes by the Académie française...
, Catherine Bédacier-Durand.
An important history of the novel was written by
Pierre Daniel HuetPierre Daniel Huet was a French churchman and scholar, editor of the Delphin Classics and Bishop of Soissons from 1685 to 1689 and afterwards of Avranches.-Life:...
,
Traitté de l'origine des romansPierre Daniel Huet's Trai[t]té de l'origine des Romans can claim to be the first history of fiction. It was originally published in 1670 as preface to Marie de la Fayette's novel Zayde...
(1670), which (much like theoretical discussions on theatrical "vraisemblance", "bienséance" and the nature of tragedy and comedy) stressed the need for moral utility and made important distinctions between history and the novel, and between the epic (which treats of politics and war) and the novel (which treats of love).
The first half of the century had seen the development of the biographical
mémoire (see below), and by the 1670s this form began to be used in novels. Madame de Villedieu (her real name was Marie-Catherine Desjardins), author of a number of "nouvelles", was also the author of a longer realistic work that represented (and satirized) the contemporary world via the fictionalized "mémoires" of young woman telling her amorous and economic hardships:
Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette Sylvie de Molière (1672-1674).
The fictional "mémoire" form was used by other novelists as well. Courtilz de Sandras's novels --
Mémoires de M.L.C.D.R. (1687),
Mémoires de M. d'Artagnan (1700),
Mémoires de M. de B. (1711) -- describe the world of Richelieu and Mazarin without gallant clichés: spies, kidnappings, political machinations predominate. Among the other "mémoires" of the period, the most famous was the work of an Englishman Anthony Hamilton, whose
Mémoires de la vie du comte de Grammont... was published in France in 1713 and tells of his years in the French court from 1643-1663. Many of these works were published anonymously; in some cases it is difficult to tell whether they are fictionlized or biographical. Other authors include: abbé Cavard, abbé de Villiers, abbé Olivier, le sieur de Grandchamp. The realism and occasional irony of these novels would lead directly to the novels of
Alain-René LesageAlain-René Lesage , also spelled Le Sage was a French novelist and playwright born at Sarzeau, in the peninsula of Rhuys, between the Morbihan and the sea, Brittany.-Youth and education:...
,
Pierre de MarivauxPierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, commonly referred to as Marivaux , was a French novelist and dramatist....
and Abbé Prévost in the 18th century.
In the 1690s, the
fairy taleA fairy tale is a fictional story that may feature folkloric characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, gnomes, and talking animals, and usually enchantments, often involving a far-fetched sequence of events...
began to appear in French literature. The most famous collection of traditional tales (liberally adapted) was by
Charles PerraultCharles Perrault was a French author who laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, and whose best known tales, often derived from pre-existing folk tales, include Le Petit Chaperon rouge , La Belle au bois dormant , Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté ,...
(1697), although many others were published (such as those by
Henriette-Julie de MuratHenriette-Julie de Murat was an aristocratic French writer of the late 17th century.She published fairy tales and slightly scandalous faux memoirs, one of which got her exiled to the provincial town of Loches for several years...
and
Madame d'AulnoyMarie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d'Aulnoy was a French writer known for her fairy tales. When she termed her works contes de fée , she originated the term that is now generally used for the genre.-Biography:Born in Barneville-la-Bertran near Bourg-Achard as a member of the noble...
). A major revolution would occur however with the appearance of
Antoine GallandAntoine Galland was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of The Thousand and One Nights...
's first French (and indeed modern) translation of the
Thousand and One Nights (or
Arabian Nights) (from 1704; another translation appeared in 1710-12), which would influence the 18th century short stories of
VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosopher known for his wit and his defense of civil liberties, including both freedom of religion and free trade.Voltaire was a prolific writer and produced works in almost every...
, Diderot and countless others.
The period also saw several novels with voyages and utopian descriptions of foreign cultures (in imitation of Cyrano de Bergerac, Thomas More and Francis Bacon):
- Denis Veiras - Histoire de Sévarambes (1677)
- Gabriel de Foigny
Gabriel de Foigny is the author of an important utopia, La Terre Australe connue, 1676.-Life:All we know about Foigny, including his identity , is based exclusively on the second edition of Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique .-In English:* Gabriel de Foigny...
- Les Avantures de Jacques Sadeur dans la découverte et le voyage de la Terre australe (or la Terre australe connue (1676)
- Tyssot de Patot - Voyages et Aventures de Jacques Massé (1710)
Of similar didactic aims was Fénelon's
Les Aventures de Télémaque (1694-6), which represents a classicist's attempt to overcome the excesses of the baroque novel: using a structure of travels and adventures (grafted onto
TelemachusTelemachus is a figure in Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and a central character in Homer's Odyssey...
the son of Ulysses) Fénelon exposes his moral philosophy. This novel would be copied by numerous didactic novels in the 18th century.poo
Poetry
Because of the new conception of "l'honnête homme" or "the honest or upright man", poetry became one of the principle modes of literary production of noble gentlemen and of non-noble professional writers in their patronage in the 17th century.
Poetry was used for all purposes. A great deal of 17th and 18th century poetry was "occasional", meaning that it was written to celebrate a particular event (a marriage, birth, military victory) or to solemnize a tragic occurrence (a death, military defeat), and this kind of poetry was frequent with gentlemen in the service of a noble or the king. Poetry was the chief form of seventeenth century theater: the vast majority of scripted plays were written in verse (see "Theater" below). Poetry was used in satires (
Nicolas Boileau-DespréauxNicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...
is famous for his
Satires (1666)) and in epics (inspired by the Renaissance epic tradition and by
Tasso-People:*Torquato Tasso, the famous Italian 16th-century poet, author of Gerusalemme liberata*Bernardo Tasso, his father, also a poet-Places:*Tasso, Corse-du-Sud, a commune on Corsica, France*Tasso River, a river in Mumbai, India...
) like
Jean ChapelainJean Chapelain was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Chapelain, the son of a notary with whom Colbert may have once been employed, was born in Paris. His father wanted him to become a notary; but his mother, who had known Pierre de Ronsard, had decided otherwise...
's
La Pucelle.
Although French poetry during the reign of Henri IV and Louis XIII was still largely inspired by the poets of the late
Valois courtThe House of Valois The House of Valois The House of Valois ( was a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty, succeeding the House of Capet (or 'Direct Capetians') as kings of France from 1328 to 1589...
, some of their excesses and poetic liberties found censure, especially in the work of
François de MalherbeFrançois de Malherbe was a French poet, critic, and translator.-Life:Born in Le-Locheur , his family was of some position, though it seems not to have been able to establish to the satisfaction of heralds the claims which it made to nobility older than the 16th century.He was the eldest son of...
who criticized
La PléiadeThe Pléiade is the name given to a group of 16th-century French Renaissance poets whose principal members were Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Jean-Antoine de Baïf. The name was a reference to another literary group, the original Alexandrian Pleiad of seven Alexandrian poets and...
's and
Philippe DesportesPhilippe Desportes was a French poet.-Biography:Philippe Desportes was born in Chartres. While serving as secretary to the bishop of Le Puy he visited Italy, where he learned Italian poetry. This experience became a good account. On his return to France he attached himself to the duke of Anjou,...
's irregularities of meter or form (the suppression of the cesura by a
hiatusHiatus in linguistics is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, sometimes with an intervening glottal stop. In poetic metre , hiatus can also refer to the failure of two vowels straddling a word boundary to coalesce, for example by elision of the first vowel.In written English it was...
, sentences clauses spilling over into the next line "enjambement",
neologismA neologism ; from Greek νές is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event...
s constructed from Greek words, etc.). The later 17th century would see Malherbe as the grandfather of poetic classicism.
The Pléiade poems of the natural world (fields and streams) were continued in the first half of the century -- but the tone was often elegiac or melancholy (an "ode to solitude"), and the natural world presented was sometimes the wild sea coast or some other rugged environment -- by poets who have been grouped by later critics with the "baroque" label (notably
Théophile de ViauThéophile de Viau was a French baroque poet and dramatist.In 1612the twenty two year old Viau joined up with Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, around fifteen at the time, whom he met in Angoulême...
and
Antoine Gérard de Saint-AmantAntoine Girard, sieur de Saint-Amant , French poet, 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...
).
Poetry came to be a part of the social games in noble salons (see "salons" above), where epigrams, satirical verse, and poetic descriptions were all common (the most famous example is "La Guirlande de Julie" (1641) at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, a collection of floral poems written by the salon members for the birthday of the host's daughter). The linguistic aspects of the phenomenon associated with the "
précieusesThe French literary style called préciosité arose in the 17th century from the lively conversations and playful word games of les précieuses, the witty and educated intellectual ladies who frequented the salon of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet; her Chambre bleue offered a Parisian...
" (similar to
EuphuismEuphuism is a mannered style of English prose, taking its name from works by John Lyly who, however, did not invent the term. It took the form of a preciously ornate and sophisticated style that employed a wide range of literary devices such as antitheses, alliterations, repetitions, rhetorical...
in England,
GongorismLuis de Góngora y Argote was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, were the most prominent Spanish poets of their age. His style is characterized by what was called culteranismo, also known as Gongorism...
in Spain and Marinism in Italy) -- the use of highly metaphorical (sometimes obscure) language, the purification of socially unacceptable vocabulary -- was tied to this poetic salon spirit and would have an enormous impact on French poetic and courtly language. Although "préciosité" was often mocked (especially in the later 1660s when the phenomenon had spread to the provinces) for its linguistic and romantic excesses (often linked to a misogynistic disdain for intellectual women), the French language and social manners of the seventeenth century were permanently changed by it.
From the 1660s, three poets stand out.
Jean de La FontaineJean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century....
gained enormous celebrity through his
AesopAesop , known only for the genre of fables ascribed to him, was by tradition a slave who was a contemporary of Croesus and Peisistratus in the mid-sixth century BC in ancient Greece.-Fables:The various collections that go under the rubric "Aesop's Fables" are still taught as moral...
and
PhaedrusPhaedrus , Roman fabulist, was probably a Thracian slave, born in Pydna of Macedonia and lived in the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius...
inspired "Fables" (1668-1693) which were written in an irregular verse form (different meter lengths are used in a poem).
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
was seen as the greatest tragedy writer of his age. Finally,
Nicolas Boileau-DespréauxNicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...
became the theorizer of poetic classicism: his "Art poétique" (1674) praised reason and logic (Boileau elevated Malherbe as the first of the rational poets), believability, moral usefulness and moral correctness; it elevated tragedy and the poetic epic as the great genres and recommended imitation of the poets of antiquity.
"Classicism" in poetry would dominate until the pre-romantics and the French Revolution.
Select list of French poets of the 17th century:
- François de Malherbe
François de Malherbe was a French poet, critic, and translator.-Life:Born in Le-Locheur , his family was of some position, though it seems not to have been able to establish to the satisfaction of heralds the claims which it made to nobility older than the 16th century.He was the eldest son of...
(1555-1628)
- Honoré d'Urfé
Honoré d'Urfé, marquis de Valromey, comte de Châteauneuf was a French novelist and miscellaneous writer.- Life :...
(1567-1625)
- Jean Ogier de Gombaud (1570?-1666)
- Mathurin Régnier
Mathurin Régnier was a French satirist.-Life:Régnier was born in Chartres, current region of Centre....
(1573-1613) - nephew of Philippe DesportesPhilippe Desportes was a French poet.-Biography:Philippe Desportes was born in Chartres. While serving as secretary to the bishop of Le Puy he visited Italy, where he learned Italian poetry. This experience became a good account. On his return to France he attached himself to the duke of Anjou,...
- François de Maynard (1582-1646)
- Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan (1589-1670)
- Théophile de Viau
Théophile de Viau was a French baroque poet and dramatist.In 1612the twenty two year old Viau joined up with Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, around fifteen at the time, whom he met in Angoulême...
(1590-1626)
- François le Métel de Boisrobert
François le Métel de Boisrobert , was a French poet.-Biography:He was born at Caen, and trained as a lawyer, practising for some time at the bar at Rouen. About 1622 he went to Paris, and by the next year had established a footing at court, for he had a share in the ballet of the Bacchanales...
(1592-1662)
- Antoine Gérard de Saint-Amant
Antoine Girard, sieur de Saint-Amant , French poet, 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...
(1594-1661)
- Jean Chapelain
Jean Chapelain was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Chapelain, the son of a notary with whom Colbert may have once been employed, was born in Paris. His father wanted him to become a notary; but his mother, who had known Pierre de Ronsard, had decided otherwise...
(1595-1674)
- Vincent Voiture
Vincent Voiture , French poet, was the son of a rich merchant of Amiens. He was introduced by a schoolfellow, the count Claude d'Avaux, to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and accompanied him to Brussels and Lorraine on diplomatic missions.Although a follower of Gaston, he won the favour of Cardinal...
(1597-1648)
- Jacques Vallee, Sieur Des Barreaux
Jacques Vallée, Sieur Des Barreaux , French poet, was born in Chateauneuf-sur-Loire on December 16, 1599. His great-uncle, Geoffroy-Valle, had been hanged in 1574 for the authorship of a book called Le Flau de la Joy. His nephew appears to have inherited his scepticism, which on one occasion nearly...
(1599-1673)
- Tristan L'Hermite
See also François Tristan l'HermiteTristan l'Hermite was a French political and military figure of the late Middle Ages.He was provost of the marshals of the King's household under Louis XI of France, which gave him enormous power in the Intrigues and plots that characterized that king's 22-year...
(1601?-1655)
- Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
(1606-1684)
- Paul Scarron
Paul Scarron , French poet, dramatist, novelist and first husband of Madame de Maintenon, was baptized on July 4 1610.His father, of the same name, was a member of the parlement of Paris...
(1610-1660)
- Isaac de Benserade
Isaac de Benserade was a French poet.Born in Lyons-la-Forêt in the Province of Normandy, his family appears to have been connected with Richelieu, who bestowed on him a pension of 600 livres. He began his literary career with the tragedy of Cléopâtre , which was followed by four other pieces...
(1613-1691)
- Georges de Brébeuf
Georges de Brébeuf was a French poet and translator most well-known for his verse translation of Lucan's Pharsalia which was warmly received by Pierre Corneille, but which was ridiculed by Nicolas Boileau in his Art poétique....
(1618-1661)
- Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century....
(1621-1695)
- Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...
(1636-1711)
- Jean Racine
Jean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
(1639-1699)
- Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu
Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu , French poet and wit, was born at Fontenay, Normandy.His father, maître des comptes of Rouen, sent him to study at the Collège de Navarre. Guillaume early showed the wit that was to distinguish him, and gained the favor of the duke of Vendôme, who procured for him the...
(1639-1720)
- Jean-François Regnard
Jean-François Regnard was "the most distinguished, after Molière, of the comic poets of the seventeenth century", was a dramatist, born in Paris, who is equally famous now for the travel diary he kept of a voyage in 1681....
(1655-1709)
Theaters and theatrical companies
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, public theatrical representations in Paris were under the control of guilds, but in the last decades of the sixteenth century only one of these continued to exist: although "les Confrères de la Passion" no longer had the right to perform mystery plays (1548), they were given exclusive rights to oversee all theatrical productions in the capital and rented out their theater (the Hôtel de Bourgogne) to theatrical troupes at a high price. In 1599, this guild abandoned its privilege which permitted other theaters and theatrical companies to eventually open in the capital.
In addition to public theaters, plays were produced in private residences, before the court and in the university. In the first half of the century, the public, the humanist theater of the colleges and the theater performed at court showed extremely divergent tastes. For example, while the tragicomedy was fashionable at the court in the first decade, the public was more interested in tragedy.
The early theaters in Paris were often placed in existing structures like
tennis courtA tennis court is where the game of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles.-Dimensions:...
s; their stages were extremely narrow, and facilities for sets and scene changes were often non-existent (this would encourage the development of the unity of place). Eventually, theaters would develop systems of elaborate machines and decors, fashionable for the chevaleresque flights of knights found in the
tragicomediesTragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
of the first half of the century.
In the early part of the century, the theater performances took place twice a week starting at two or three o'clock. Theatrical representations often encompassed several works, beginning with a comic prologue, then a tragedy or tragicomedy, then a farce and finally a song. Nobles sometimes sat on the side of the stage during the performance. Given that it was impossible to lower the house lights, the audience was always aware of each other and spectators were notably vocal during performances. The place directly in front of the stage, without seats -- the "parterre" -- was reserved for men, but being the cheapest tickets, the parterre was usually a mix of social groups. Elegant people watched the show from the galleries. Princes,
musketeerA musketeer was an early modern type of infantry soldier equipped with a musket. Musketeers were an important part of early modern armies, particularly in Europe.-Musketeers in China:Muskets were used in China at least from the 14th Century....
s and royal pages were given free entry. Before 1630, an honest woman did not go to the theater.
Unlike England, France placed no restrictions on women performing on stage, but the career of actors of either sex was seen as morally wrong by the Catholic Church (actors were
excommunicatedExcommunication is a religious censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. The word literally means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
) and by the ascetic religious Janseanist movement. Actors typically had fantastic stage names that described typical roles or stereotypical characters.
In addition to scripted comedies and tragedies, Parisians were also great fans of the Italian acting troupe who performed their
Commedia dell'arteCommedia dell'arte is a form of improvisational theatre that began in Italy in the 16th century, maintained its popularity through the 17th century, and is still performed today. Performances were mostly unscripted, held outside and used few props...
, a kind of improvised theater based on types. The characters from the Commedia dell'arte would have a profound effect on French theater, and one finds echoes of them in the braggarts, fools, lovers, old men and wily servants that populate French theater.
Finally,
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
came to France in the second half of the century.
The most important theaters and troupes in Paris:
- Hôtel de Bourgogne
Until the 16th century, the Hôtel de Bourgogne was the name of the Paris residence of the Dukes of Burgundy.In 1548, the society of the Confrères de la Passion et de la Résurrection de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ built a theatre here, on rue Mauconseil to put on their mystery plays...
- until 1629, this theater was occupied by various troupes, including the ("Comédiens du Roi") directed by Vallerin Lecomte and, at his death, by Bellerose (Pierre Le Messier). The troupe became the official "Troupe Royale" in 1629. Actors included: Turlupin, Gros-Guillaume, Gautier-Gargouille, Floridor, Monfleury, la Champmeslé.
- Théâtre du Marais
The Théâtre du Marais has been the name of several theatres and theatrical troupes in Paris, France. The original and most famous theatre of the name operated in the 17th century. The name was briefly revived for a revolutionary theatre in 1791, and revived again in 1976...
(1600-1673) - this rival theater of the Hôtel de Bourgogne housed the troupe "Vieux Comédiens du Roi" around Claude Deschamps and the troupe of Jodelet.
- 'La troupe de Monsieur" - under the protection of Louis XIV's brother, this was Molière's first Paris troupe. They moved to several theaters in Paris (the Petit-Bourbon, the Palais-Royal) before combining in 1673 with the troupe of the Théâtre du Marais and becoming the troupe of the Hôtel Guénégaud.
- La Comédie française - in 1689 Louis XIV united the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Hôtel Guénégaud into one official troupe.
Outside of Paris, in the suburbs and in the provinces, there were many wandering theatrical troupes. Molière got his start in a such a troupe.
The royal court and other noble houses were also important organizers of theatrical representations,
ballets de courBallets de cour is the name given to ballets performed in the 16th and 17th centuries at court. Jean-Baptiste Lully is considered the most important composer of music for ballets de cour and was instrumental to the development of the form...
, mock battles and other sorts of "divertissement" for their festivities, and in the some cases the roles of dancers and actors were held by the nobles themselves. The early years at Versailles -- before the massive expansion of the residence -- were entirely consecrated to such pleasures, and similar spectacles continued throughout the reign. Engravings show Louis XIV and the court seating outside before the "Cour du marbre" of Versailles watching the performance of a play.
The great majority of scripted plays in the seventeenth century were written in verse (notable exceptions include some of Molière's comedies.
Samuel ChappuzeauSamuel Chappuzeau was a French scholar, author, poet and playwright whose best-known work today is Le Théâtre François, a description of French Theatre in the 17th century....
, author of
Le Théâtre FrançoisThis book, in three volumes, by Samuel Chappuzeau is the main source of information on French Theatre in the 17th Century.Its full title is Le Théâtre françois divisé en trois Livres, où il est traité I. De L’Usage de la Comédie. II. Des Auteurs qui soutiennent le Theatre. III...
printed one comedy play in both prose and verse at different times). Except for lyric passages in these plays, the meter used was a twelve-syllable line (the "
alexandrineAn alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...
") with a regular pause or "cesura" after the sixth syllable; these lines were put into rhymed
coupletA couplet is a pair of lines of verse. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic couplets....
s; couplets alternated between "feminine" (i.e. ending in a mute e) and "masculine" (i.e. ending in a vowel other than a mute e, or in a consonant or a nasal) rhymes.
Baroque theater
French theater from the seventeenth century is often reduced to three great names --
Pierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
, Molière and
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
-- and to the triumph of "classicism"; the truth is however far more complicated.
Theater at the beginning of the century was dominated by the genres and dramatists of the previous generation. Most influential in this respect was
Robert GarnierRobert Garnier , was a French tragic poet. He published his first work while still a law-student at Toulouse, where he won a prize in the Académie des Jeux Floraux. It was a collection of lyrical pieces, now lost, entitled Plaintes amoureuses de Robert Garnier...
. Although the royal court had grown tired of the
tragedyTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...
(preferring the more escapist
tragicomedyTragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
), the theater going public preferred the former. This would change in the 1630s and 1640s when, influenced by the long baroque novels of the period, the tragicomedy -- a heroic and magical adventure of knights and maidens -- became the dominant genre. The amazing success of Corneille's
Le Cid in 1637 and
Horace in 1640 would bring the tragedy back into fashion, where it would remain for the rest of the century.
The most important source for tragic theater was
SenecaLucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
and the precepts of
HoraceThis article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania...
and
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
(and modern commentaries by
Julius Caesar ScaligerJulius Caesar Scaliger or Giulio Cesare della Scala , was an Italian scholar and physician spending a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the new learning...
and
Lodovico CastelvetroLodovico Castelvetro was an important figure in the development of neo-classicism, especially in drama. It was his reading of Aristotle that led to a widespread adoption of a tight version of the Three Unities, as a dramatic standard....
), although plots were taken from classical authors such as
PlutarchPlutarch, born Plutarchos then, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 – 120, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
,
SuetoniusDe vita Caesarum commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.The work, written in 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius, at...
, etc. and from short story collections (Italian, French and Spanish). The Greek tragic authors (Sophocles,
EuripidesEuripides was the lastof the three great tragedians of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias...
) would become increasingly important by the middle of the century. Important models for both comedy, tragedy and tragicomedy of the century were also supplied by the Spanish playwrights
Pedro Calderón de la BarcaPedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age.-Biography:...
,
Tirso de MolinaTirso de Molina was a Spanish Baroque dramatist and poet.Originally Gabriel Téllez, he was born in Madrid. He studied at Alcalá de Henares, joined the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy on November 4 1600, and entered the Monastery of San Antolín at Guadalajara, Spain on January 21 1601...
and
Lope de VegaFélix Lope de Vega y Carpio was one of the most important playwright and poets of the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...
, many of whose works were translated and adapted for the French stage. Important theatrical models were also supplied by the Italian stage (including the
pastoralPastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food. "Pastoral" also describes literature, art and music which depicts the life of shepherds, often in a highly...
), and Italy was also an important source for theoretical discussions on theater, especially with regards to decorum (see for example the debates on
Sperone SperoniSperone Speroni degli Alvarotti was an Italian Renaissance humanist, scholar, and dramatist. He was one of the central members of Padua's literary academy, Accademia degli Infiammati, and wrote on both moral and literary matters.-Biography:...
's play
CanaceCanace is verse tragedy by Italian playwright Sperone Speroni . It is based on the Greek legend of Canace, the daughter of Aeolus, who was forced by her father to commit suicide for having fallen in love with her brother, Macar....
and
Giovanni Battista GiraldiGiovanni Battista Giraldi was an Italian novelist and poet. He appended the nickname Cinthio to his name and is commonly referred to by that name .Born at Ferrara, he was educated at the university there, and in 1525 became its professor of natural philosophy...
's play
OrbeccheOrbecche is a tragedy written by Giovanni Battista Giraldi in 1541. The play was responsible for a sixteenth-century theoretical debate on theater, especially with regards to decorum.-Plot:...
).
Regular comedies (i.e. comedies in five acts modeled on
PlautusTitus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are among the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
or
TerencePublius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC, and he died young probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome...
and the precepts of
Aelius DonatusAelius Donatus was a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. The only fact known regarding his life is that he was the tutor of St...
) were less frequent on the stage than tragedies and tragicomedies at the turn of the century, as the comedic element of the early stage was dominated by the
farceA farce is a comedy written for the stage or film which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play, and a fast-paced...
, the satirical monologue and by the Italian
commedia dell'arteCommedia dell'arte is a form of improvisational theatre that began in Italy in the 16th century, maintained its popularity through the 17th century, and is still performed today. Performances were mostly unscripted, held outside and used few props...
.
Jean RotrouJean Rotrou was a French poet and tragedian.Rotrou was born at Dreux in Normandy. He studied at Dreux and at Paris, and, though three years younger than Pierre Corneille, began writing before him. In 1632 he became playwright to the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne...
and
Pierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
would return to the regular comedy shortly before 1630.
Corneille's tragedies were strangely un-tragic (his first version of "Le Cid" was even listed as a tragicomedy), for they had happy endings. In his theoretical works on theater, Corneille redefined both comedy and tragedy around the following suppositions:
- The stage -- in both comedy and tragedy -- should feature noble characters (this would eliminate many low-characters, typical of the farce, from Corneille's comedies). Noble characters should not be depicted as vile (reprehensible actions are generally due to non-noble characters in Corneille's plays).
- Tragedy deals with affairs of the state (wars, dynastic marriages); comedy deals with love. For a work to be tragic, it need not have a tragic ending.
- Although Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
says that catharsisCatharsis is a Greek word meaning "purification","purging", "cleansing" or "clarification." It is derived from the infinitive verb of transliterated as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean."-Dramaturgical uses:...
(purgation of emotion) should be the goal of tragedy, this is only an ideal. In conformity with the moral codes of the period, plays should not show evil being rewarded or nobility being degraded.
The history of the public and critical reaction to Corneille's "Le Cid" can be found in other articles (he was criticized for his use of sources, for his violation of good taste, and for other irregularities that did not conform to Aristotian or Horacian rules), but its impact was stunning. Cardinal Richelieu asked the newly formed
Académie françaiseL'Académie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution, it was...
to investigate and pronounce on the criticisms (it was the Academy's first official judgement), and the controversy reveals a growing attempt to control and regulate theater and theatrical forms. This would be the beginning of seventeenth century "classicism".
Corneille continued to write plays through 1674 (mainly tragedies, but also something he called "heroic comedies") and many continued to be successes, although the "irregularities" of his theatrical methods were increasingly criticized (notably by
François Hédelin, abbé d'AubignacFrançois Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac was a French author who was born in Paris.His father practised at the Paris bar, and his mother was a daughter of the great surgeon Ambroise Paré...
) and the success of
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
from the late 1660s signaled the end of his preeminence.
Select list of dramatists and plays, with indication of genre (dates are often approximate, as date of publication was usually long after the date of first performance):
- Antoine de Montchrestien
Antoine de Montchrestien was a French soldier, dramatist, adventurer and economist...
(c.1575-1621)
- Sophonisbe a/k/a La Cathaginoise a/k/a La Liberté
La Liberté or Freedom is a Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada newspaper founded in 1913 by Archbishop Langevin of Saint-Boniface. In 1970, the publication was taken over by Press-West Limited which is owned by the cultural organization Franco-Manitoban....
(tragedy) - 1596
- La Reine d'Ecosse a/k/a L'Ecossaise (tragedy) - 1601
- Aman (tragedy) - 1601
- La Bergerie (pastoral) - 1601
- Hector (tragedy) - 1604
- Jean de Schelandre
Jean de Schelandre , Seigneur de Saumaznes, French poet, was born about 1585 near Verdun of a Calvinist family.He studied at the university of Paris and then joined Turenne's army in the Netherlands, where he gained rapid advancement...
(c. 1585-1635)
- Tyr et Sidon, ou les funestes amours de Belcar et Méliane (1608)
- Alexandre Hardy
Alexandre Hardy was a French dramatist, one of the most prolific of all time. He claimed to have written some six hundred plays, but only thirty-four are extant....
(1572-c.1632) - Hardy reputedly wrote 600 plays; only 34 have come down to us.
- Scédase, ou l'hospitalité violée (tragedy) - 1624
- La Force du sang (tragicomedy) - 1625 (the plot is taken from a Cervantes short story)
- Lucrèce, ou l'Adultère puni (tragedy) - 1628
- Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan (1589-1670)
- Les Bergeries (pastoral) - 1625
- Théophile de Viau
Théophile de Viau was a French baroque poet and dramatist.In 1612the twenty two year old Viau joined up with Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, around fifteen at the time, whom he met in Angoulême...
(1590-1626)
- Les Amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbé (tragedy) - 1621
- François le Métel de Boisrobert
François le Métel de Boisrobert , was a French poet.-Biography:He was born at Caen, and trained as a lawyer, practising for some time at the bar at Rouen. About 1622 he went to Paris, and by the next year had established a footing at court, for he had a share in the ballet of the Bacchanales...
(1592-1662)
- Didon la chaste ou Les Amours de Hiarbas (tragedy) - 1642
- Jean Mairet
Jean Mairet was a classical French dramatist who wrote both tragedies and comedies.- Life :He was born at Besançon, and went to Paris to study at the Collège des Grassins about 1625. In that year he produced his first piece Chryséide et Arimand...
(1604-1686)
- La Sylve (pastoral tragicomedy) - c.1626
- La Silvanire, ou La Morte vive (pastoral tragicomedy) - 1630
- Les Galanteries du Duc d'Ossonne Vice-Roi de Naples (comedy) - 1632
- La Sophonisbe (tragedy) - 1634
- La Virginie (tragicomedy) - 1636
- Tristan L'Hermite
See also François Tristan l'HermiteTristan l'Hermite was a French political and military figure of the late Middle Ages.He was provost of the marshals of the King's household under Louis XI of France, which gave him enormous power in the Intrigues and plots that characterized that king's 22-year...
(1601-1655)
- Mariamne (tragedy) - 1636
- Penthée (tragedy) - 1637
- La Mort de Seneque (tragedy) - 1644
- La Mort de Crispe (tragedy) - 1645
- The Parasite - 1653
- Jean Rotrou
Jean Rotrou was a French poet and tragedian.Rotrou was born at Dreux in Normandy. He studied at Dreux and at Paris, and, though three years younger than Pierre Corneille, began writing before him. In 1632 he became playwright to the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne...
(1609-1650)
- La Bague de l'oubli (comedy) - 1629
- La Belle Alphrède (comedy) - 1639
- Laure persécutée (tragicomedy) - 1637
- Le Véritable saint Genest (tragedy) - 1645
- Venceslas (tragicomedy) - 1647
- Cosroès (tragedy) - 1648
- Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
(1606-1684)
- Mélite (comedy) - 1629
- Clitandre (tragicomedy, later changed to tragedy) - 1631
- La Veuve (comedy) - 1631
- La Place Royale (comedy) - 1633
- Médée (tragedy) - 1635
- L'Illusion comique (comedy) - 1636
- Le Cid
Le Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...
(tragicomedy, later changed to tragedy) - 1637
- Horace (tragedy) - 1640
- Cinna (tragedy) - 1640
- Polyeucte ("Christian" tragedy) - c.1641
- La Mort de Pompée (tragedy) - 1642
- Le Menteur (comedy) - 1643
- Rodogune, princesse des Parthes (tragedy) - 1644
- Héraclius, empereur d'Orient (tragedy) - 1647
- Don Sanche d'Aragon ("heroic" comedy) - 1649
- Nicomède (tragedy) - 1650
- Sertorius (tragedy) - 1662
- Sophonisbe (tragedy) - 1663
- Othon (tragedy) - 1664
- Tite et Bérénice ("heroic" comedy) - 1670
- Suréna, général des Parthes (tragedy) - 1674
- Pierre du Ryer
Pierre du Ryer , was a French dramatist.He was born in Paris. His early comedies are loosely modelled on those of Alexandre Hardy, but after the production of the Cid he became an imitator of Pierre Corneille; this was the period when he produced his masterpiece Scévole, probably in 1644...
(1606-1658)
- Lucrèce (tragedy) - 1636
- Alcione - 1638
- Scévola (tragedy) - 1644
- Jean Desmarets
Jean Desmarets, Sieur de Saint-Sorlin was a French writer and dramatist. He was a founding member, and the first to occupy seat 4 of the Académie française in 1634.-Biography:...
(1595-1676)
- Les Visionnaires (comedy) - 1637
- Erigone (prose tragedy) - 1638
- Scipion (verse tragedy) - 1639
- François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac
François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac was a French author who was born in Paris.His father practised at the Paris bar, and his mother was a daughter of the great surgeon Ambroise Paré...
(1604-1676)
- La Cyminde - 1642
- La Pucelle d'Orléans - 1642
- Zénobie (tragedy) - 1647, written with the intention of affording a model in which the strict rules of the drama were served.
- Le Martyre de Sainte Catherine (tragedy) - 1650
- Paul Scarron
Paul Scarron , French poet, dramatist, novelist and first husband of Madame de Maintenon, was baptized on July 4 1610.His father, of the same name, was a member of the parlement of Paris...
(1610-1660)
- Jodelet - 1645
- Don Japhel d'Arménie - 1653
- Isaac de Benserade
Isaac de Benserade was a French poet.Born in Lyons-la-Forêt in the Province of Normandy, his family appears to have been connected with Richelieu, who bestowed on him a pension of 600 livres. He began his literary career with the tragedy of Cléopâtre , which was followed by four other pieces...
(c.1613-1691)
- Cléopâtre (tragedy) - 1635
Theater under Louis XIV
By the 1660s, classicism had finally imposed itself on French theater. The key theoretical work on theater from this period was
François Hedelin, abbé d'AubignacFrançois Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac was a French author who was born in Paris.His father practised at the Paris bar, and his mother was a daughter of the great surgeon Ambroise Paré...
's Pratique du théâtre (1657), and the dictates of this work reveal to what degre "French classicism" was willing to modify the rules of classical tragedy to maintain the unities and decorum (d'Aubignac for example saw the tragedies of
OedipusOedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
and
AntigoneAntigone is the name of two different women in Greek mythology. The name may be taken to mean "unbending", coming from "anti-" and "-gon / -gony" , but has also been suggested to mean "opposed to motherhood" or "in place of a mother" based from the root gonē, "that which generates" Antigone .
Although
Pierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
continued to produce tragedies to the end of his life, the works of
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
from the late 1660s on totally ecplised the late plays of the elder dramatist. Racine's tragedies -- inspired by Greek myths,
EuripidesEuripides was the lastof the three great tragedians of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias...
,
SophoclesSophocles was the second of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides...
and
SenecaLucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
-- condensed their plot into a tight set of passionate and duty-bound conflicts between a small group of noble characters, and concentrated on these characters' double-binds and the geometry of their unfulfilled desires and hatreds. Racine's poetic skill was in the representation of
pathosPathos is one of the three modes of persuasion in rhetoric . Pathos appeals to the audience's emotions. It is a part of Aristotle's philosophies in rhetoric...
and amorous passion (like
PhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
's love for her stepson) and his impact was such that emotional crisis would be the dominant mode of tragedy to the end of the century. Racine's two late plays (Esther
and Athalie) opened new doors to biblical subject matter and to the use of theater in the education of young women.
Tragedy in the last two decades of the century and the first years of the eighteenth century was dominated by productions of classics from Pierre Corneille and Racine, but on the whole the public's enthusiasm for tragedy had greatly diminished: theatrical tragedy paled beside the dark economic and demographic problems at the end of the century and the "comedy of manners" (see below) had incorporated many of the moral goals of tragedy. Other later century tragedians include:
Claude BoyerClaude Boyer was a French clergyman, playwright, apologist and poet....
,
Michel Le Clerc-Life:Studying under the Jesuits, he then set up home in Paris, where he became a lawyer to the parliament of Paris. Like his co-student Claude Boyer, he wrote tragedies and "pièces des circonstance" - in 1645 he produced his Virginie romaine the same year as Boyer produced his Porcie romaine. He...
,
Jacques PradonJacques Pradon, often called Nicolas Pradon, was a French playwright. Early in his career he was helped by Pierre Corneille and was introduced to the salons at the Hôtel de Nevers and the Hôtel de Bouillon by Madame Deshoulières.Pradon is the author of eight tragedies: Pyrame et Thisbé ,...
,
Jean Galbert de CampistronJean Galbert de Campistron was a French dramatist-Biography:Campistron was born in Toulouse, France to a noble family.At the age of seventeen he was wounded in a duel and sent to Paris...
,
Jean de la ChapelleJean de La Chapelle was a French writer and dramatist. He was elected to the Académie Française en 1688,-Work:* Cléopâtre * Zaïde * Téléphonte * Ajax...
, Antoine d'Aubigny de la Fosse, l'abbé Charles-Claude Geneste,
Prosper Jolyot de CrébillonProsper Jolyot de Crébillon , was a French poet and tragedian.-Life and works:He was born in Dijon, where his father, Melchior Jolyot, was notary-royal. Having been educated at the Jesuit school in the town, and afterwards at the Collège Mazarin. He became an advocate, and was placed in the office...
. At the end of the century, in the plays of Crébillon in particular, there occasionally appeared a return to the theatricality of the beginning of the century: multiple episodes, extravagant fear and pity, and the representation of gruesome actions on the stage.
Early French opera was particularly popular with the royal court in this period, and the composer
Jean-Baptiste LullyJean-Baptiste de Lully , was a French composer of Italian birth, who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He became a French subject in 1661.-Biography:...
was extremely prolific (see the composer's article for more on court ballets and opera in this period). These musical works carried on in the tradition of tragicomedy (especially the "pièces à machines") and court ballet, and also occasionally presented tragic plots (or "tragédies en musique"). The dramatists that worked with Lully included
Pierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
and
MolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, but the most important of these librettists was
Philippe QuinaultPhilippe Quinault , French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris.He was educated by the liberality of Tristan L'Hermite, the author of Marianne. Quinault's first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen...
, a writer of comedies, tragedies, and tragicomedies.
Comedy in the second half of the century was dominated by Molière. A veteran actor, master of farce, slapstick, the Italian and Spanish theater (see above), and "regular" theater modeled on
PlautusTitus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are among the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
and
TerencePublius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC, and he died young probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome...
, Molière's output was large and varied. He is credited with giving the French "
comedy of mannersThe comedy of manners satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters, such as the miles gloriosus in ancient times, the fop and the rake during the Restoration, or an old person pretending to be young...
" ("comédie de mœurs") and the "comedy of character ("comédie de caractère") their modern form. His hilarious satires of avaricious fathers, "
précieusesThe French literary style called préciosité arose in the 17th century from the lively conversations and playful word games of les précieuses, the witty and educated intellectual ladies who frequented the salon of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet; her Chambre bleue offered a Parisian...
", social parvenues, doctors and pompous literary types were extremely successful, but his comedies on religious hypocrisy (Tartuffe
) and libertinage (Dom JuanDom Juan or The Feast with the Statue is a French play by Molière, based on the legend of Don Juan. Molière's characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterpart to the Spanish Don Juan and Sancho. This play is the last part in Molière's hypocrisy trilogy, which also includes The School...
) brought him much criticism from the church, and Tartuffe
was only performed through the intervention of the king. Many of Molière's comedies, like Tartuffe
, Dom Juan
and the Le MisanthropeLe Misanthrope ou l'Atrabilaire amoureux is a 17th century comedy of manners written by French playwright Molière.This play, like Molière's Tartuffe and others, is a comedy. It satirizes the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but it also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the...
could veer between farce and the darkest of dramas, and their endings are far from being purely comic. Molière's Les précieuses ridicules
was certainly based on an earlier play by Samuel Chappuzeau, who is best known for his work Le Theatre Francois
(1674) which contains the most detailed description of French theatre in this period.
Comedy to the end of the century would continue on the paths traced by Molière: the satire of contemporary morals and manners and the "regular" comedy would dominate, and the last great "comedy" of Louis XIV's reign, Alain-René LesageAlain-René Lesage , also spelled Le Sage was a French novelist and playwright born at Sarzeau, in the peninsula of Rhuys, between the Morbihan and the sea, Brittany.-Youth and education:...
's Turcaret
, is an immensely dark play in which almost no character shows redeaming traits.
Select list of French theater after 1659:
- Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
(pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) (1622-1673)
Les précieuses ridiculesLes Précieuses ridicules is a one-act satire by Molière in prose. It takes aim at the précieuses, the ultra-witty ladies who indulged in lively conversations, word games and, in a word, préciosité ....
(comedy) - 1659
L'Ecole des femmesThe School for Wives is a theatrical comedy written by the 17th century French playwright Molière and considered by some critics to be one of his finest achievements. It was first staged at the Palais Royal theatre on December 26, 1662 for the brother of the King...
' (comedy) - 1662
TartuffeTartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is his most famous play.As the play begins, the well-off Orgon is convinced that Tartuffe is a man of great religious zeal and fervor. In fact, Tartuffe is a scheming hypocrite...
ou L'Imposteur (comedy) - 1664
Dom JuanDom Juan or The Feast with the Statue is a French play by Molière, based on the legend of Don Juan. Molière's characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterpart to the Spanish Don Juan and Sancho. This play is the last part in Molière's hypocrisy trilogy, which also includes The School...
ou Le festin de pierre (comedy) - 1665
Le MisanthropeLe Misanthrope ou l'Atrabilaire amoureux is a 17th century comedy of manners written by French playwright Molière.This play, like Molière's Tartuffe and others, is a comedy. It satirizes the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but it also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the...
(comedy) - 1666
L'AvareL'Avare is a 1668 five-act satirical comedy by French playwright Molière. Its title is usually translated as The Miser when the play is performed in English....
(comedy) - 1668
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (comedy) - 1670
Les Fourberies de Scapin (comedy) - 1671
Les Femmes savantes (comedy) - 1672
Le Malade imaginaire (comedy) - 1673
Thomas CorneilleThomas Corneille was a French dramatist. He was the brother of Pierre Corneille.Born in Rouen nearly twenty years after his brother, the "great Corneille", Thomas's skill as a poet seems to have shown itself early. At the age of fifteen he composed a play in Latin which was performed by his...
(1625-1709) - brother of Pierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
- Timocrate (tragedy) - 1659, the longest run (80 nights) recorded of any play in the century
- Ariane (tragedy) - 1672
- Circée (tragicomedy) - 1675 (cowritten with Donneau de Visé)
- La Devineresse (comedy) - 1679 (cowritten with Donneau de Visé)
- Bellérophon (opéra) - 1679
Philippe QuinaultPhilippe Quinault , French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris.He was educated by the liberality of Tristan L'Hermite, the author of Marianne. Quinault's first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen...
(1635-1688).
- Alceste (musical tragedy) - 1674
- Proserpine (musical tragedy) - 1680
- Amadis de Gaule
Amadis or Amadis de Gaule is a tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a libretto by Philippe Quinault based on Nicolas Herberay des Essarts' adaptation of Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula. It was premiered at the Paris Opéra January 18 1684...
(musical tragicomedy) - 1684, based on the Renaissance chivalric novel
- Armide
Armide is an opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The libretto was written by Philippe Quinault, based on Torquato Tasso's La Gerusalemme liberata .Critics in the 18th century regarded Armide as Lully's masterpiece...
(musical tragicomedy) - 1686, based on Tasso-People:*Torquato Tasso, the famous Italian 16th-century poet, author of Gerusalemme liberata*Bernardo Tasso, his father, also a poet-Places:*Tasso, Corse-du-Sud, a commune on Corsica, France*Tasso River, a river in Mumbai, India...
's Jerusalem DeliveredJerusalem Delivered is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso first published in 1581, which tells a largely fictionalized version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to raise the siege of Jerusalem...
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
(1639-1699)
- Andromaque (tragedy) - 1667
- Les plaideurs (comedy) - 1668, Racine's only comedy
- Bérénice
Bérénice is a five-act tragedy by the French 17th-century playwright Jean Racine. Bérénice was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Today it is one of Racine's more popular plays, after Phèdre, Andromaque and Britannicus.It was first performed in 1670...
(tragedy) - 1670
- Bajazet (tragedy) - 1672
- Iphigénie en Aulide (tragedy) - 1674
- Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
(tragedy) - 1677
- Britannicus
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus was the son of the Roman emperor Claudius and his third wife Valeria Messalina. He became the heir-designate of the empire at his birth, less than a month into his father's reign. He was still a young boy at the time of his mother's downfall and Claudius'...
(tragedy) - 1689
- Esther (tragedy) - 1689
- Athalie (tragedy) - 1691
Jacques PradonJacques Pradon, often called Nicolas Pradon, was a French playwright. Early in his career he was helped by Pierre Corneille and was introduced to the salons at the Hôtel de Nevers and the Hôtel de Bouillon by Madame Deshoulières.Pradon is the author of eight tragedies: Pyrame et Thisbé ,...
(1632-1698)
- Pyrame et Thisbé (tragedy) - 1674
- Tamerlan, ou la mort de Bajazet (tragedy) - 1676
- Phèdre et Hippolyte (tragedy) - 1677, this play, released at the same time as Racine's, had a momentary success
Jean-François RegnardJean-François Regnard was "the most distinguished, after Molière, of the comic poets of the seventeenth century", was a dramatist, born in Paris, who is equally famous now for the travel diary he kept of a voyage in 1681....
(1655-1709)
- Le Joueur (comedy) - 1696
- Le Distrait (comedy) - 1697
Jean Galbert de CampistronJean Galbert de Campistron was a French dramatist-Biography:Campistron was born in Toulouse, France to a noble family.At the age of seventeen he was wounded in a duel and sent to Paris...
(1656-1723)
- Andronic (tragedy) - 1685
- Tiridate (tragedy) - 1691
Florent Carton DancourtFlorent Carton Dancourt , French dramatist and actor, was born at Fontainebleau. He belonged to a family of rank, and his parents entrusted his education to Pere de la Rue, a Jesuit, who made earnest efforts to induce him to join the order...
(1661-1725)
- Le Chevalier à la mode (comedy) - 1687
- Les Bourgeoises à la mode (comedy) - 1693
- Les Bourgeoises de qualité (comedy) - 1700
Alain-René LesageAlain-René Lesage , also spelled Le Sage was a French novelist and playwright born at Sarzeau, in the peninsula of Rhuys, between the Morbihan and the sea, Brittany.-Youth and education:...
(1668-1747)
Prosper Jolyot de CrébillonProsper Jolyot de Crébillon , was a French poet and tragedian.-Life and works:He was born in Dijon, where his father, Melchior Jolyot, was notary-royal. Having been educated at the Jesuit school in the town, and afterwards at the Collège Mazarin. He became an advocate, and was placed in the office...
(1674-1762)
- Idomnée (tragedy) - 1705
- Atrée et Thyeste (tragedy) - 1707
- Electre (tragedy) - 1709
- Rhadamiste et Zénobie (tragedy) - 1711
- Xerxes (tragedy) - 1714
- Sémiramis (tragedy) -1717
Other genres
Briefly, here are some of the other literary achievements of the period.
Moral and philosophical reflection
The seventeenth century was dominated by a profound moral and religious fervor unleashed by the
Counter-ReformationThe Counter-Reformation denotes the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648....
. Of all literary works, books of devotion were the number one best sellers of the century. New religious organisations swept the country (see for example the work of Saint Vincent de Paul and
Saint Francis de SalesSaint Francis de Sales was Bishop of Geneva and is a Roman Catholic saint. He worked to convert Protestants back to Catholicism, and was an accomplished preacher...
). The preacher
Louis BourdaloueLouis Bourdaloue , French Jesuit and preacher, was born in Bourges.At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus, and was appointed successively professor of rhetoric, philosophy and moral theology, in various Jesuit colleges...
(1632-1704) was famous for his sermons. The
theologianThe term "theology" literally means the study of God, deriving from the Greek word theos, meaning 'God', and the suffix -ology from the Greek word logos meaning "discourse", "theory", or "reasoning"...
and orator
Jacques-Benigne BossuetJacques-Bénigne Bossuet was a French bishop and theologian, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a masterly French stylist....
(1627-1704) composed a number of celebrated funeral orations.
Nevertheless, the century had a number of writers who were considered "
libertineA libertine is one devoid of any restraints, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals, and forms of behavior sanctioned by the larger society. The philosophy gained new-found adherents in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, particularly in France and Britain. Notable among these...
"; these writers (like
Théophile de ViauThéophile de Viau was a French baroque poet and dramatist.In 1612the twenty two year old Viau joined up with Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, around fifteen at the time, whom he met in Angoulême...
(1590-1626) and
Charles de Saint-EvremondCharles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Saint-Évremond , was a French soldier, hedonist, essayist and literary critic. After 1661, he lived in exile, mainly in England, as a consequence of his attack on French policy at the time of the peace of the Pyrenees . He is buried in Poets' Corner,...
(1610-1703)), inspired by
EpicurusEpicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
and the publication of
PetroniusGaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. He is speculated to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian age.-Life:...
, professed doubts on religious or moral matters in a period of increasingly reactionary religious fervor.
René DescartesRené Descartes , , also known as Renatus Cartesius , was a French philosopher, mathematician, physicist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic...
' (1596-1650)
Discours de la méthode (1637) and
Méditations marked a complete break with medieval philosophical reflection.
An outgrowth of counter reformation Catholicism,
JansenismJansenism was a branch of Catholic thought that arose in the frame of the Counter-Reformation and the aftermath of the Council of Trent . It emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination...
advocated a profound moral and spiritual interrogation of the soul. This movement would attract writers such as Blaise Pascal and
Jean RacineJean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
, but would eventually come under attack as being heretical (they maintained a doctrine bordering on predestination), and their monastery at
Port-RoyalPort-Royal-des-Champs was a Cistercian convent in Magny-les-Hameaux, in the Vallée de Chevreuse southwest of Paris that launched a number of culturally important institutions.-History:...
was suppressed.
Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a civil servant...
(1623-1662) was a great satirist for their cause (in his
Lettres provincialesThe Lettres provinciales are a series of eighteen letters written by French philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte...
(1656-57)), but his greatest moral and religious work was his unfinished and fragmentary collection of thoughts justifying the Chrisian religion called
PenséesThe Pensées represented a defense of the Christian religion by Blaise Pascal, the renowned 17th century philosopher and mathematician. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work."Pascal's Wager" is found here...
(
Thoughts) (the most famous section being his discussion of the "pari" or "
wagerPascal's Wager is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose...
" on the possible eternity of the soul).
Another outgrowth of the religious fervor of the period was "
QuietismQuietism is a Christian philosophy that swept through France, Italy and Spain during the 17th century, but it had much earlier origins. The mystics known as Quietists insist, with more or less emphasis, on intellectual stillness and interior passivity as essential conditions of perfection...
" which taught practitioners a kind of spiritual trance state.
François de la RochefoucauldFrançois de La Rochefoucauld may be:* François de La Rochefoucauld , French author* François de La Rochefoucauld , French cardinal of the Catholic Church...
(1613-1680) wrote a collection of prose "Maximes" ("maxims") (1665) that analyzed human actions with a severe moral pessimism.
Jean de La BruyèreJean de La Bruyère , was a French essayist and moralist.-Ancestry:He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan in 1645...
(1645-1696) -- inspired by
TheophrastusTheophrastus , a Greek native of Eressos in Lesbos, was the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. His interests were wide-ranging, extending from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving botanical works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, were an...
's characters, composed his own collection of
Characters (1688), describing contemporary moral types. François de La Mothe-Le-Vayer wrote numerous pedagogical works for the education of the royal prince.
Pierre BaylePierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer.Bayle was a self-pronounced Protestant and as a fideist he advocated a separation between the spheres of faith and reason, on the grounds of God being incomprehensible to man...
's
Dictionnaire historique et critique (1695-1697; enlarged 1702) with its multiplicity of
marginaliaMarginalia is the general term for notes, scribbles, and comments made by readers in the margin of a book. The term also covers marginal decoration, drolleries and drawings in medieval illuminated manuscripts, although many of these were planned parts of the book. True marginalia is not to be...
and interpretations offered a uniquely discursive and multifaceted view of knowledge (distinctly at odds with French classicism) and would be a major inspiration for the
EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment, or simply The Enlightenment, is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural life, centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority....
and Diderot's
EncyclopédieEncyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements and revisions in 1772, 1777 and 1780 and numerous foreign editions and later derivatives.Its introduction, the Preliminary...
.
Mémoires and Letters
The seventeenth century is the century of biographical "mémoires". The first great outpouring of these comes from the participants of the
FrondeThe Fronde was a civil war in France, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisians mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin....
(like the Cardinal de Retz) who used the genre as a form of political justification combined with novelistic adventure.
Roger de Rabutin, Comte de BussyRoger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy , commonly known as Bussy-Rabutin, was a French memoir-writer. He was the cousin and frequent correspondent of Madame de Sévigné....
(called "Bussy-Rabutin") is responsible for the scandalous
Histoire amoureuse des Gaules, a series of sketches of the amorous intrigues of the chief ladies of the court.
Paul Pellissonthumb|Paul Pellisson,Paul Pellisson was a French author.He was born in Béziers, of a distinguished Calvinist family. He studied law at Toulouse, and practised at the bar of Castres. Going to Paris with letters of introduction to Valentin Conrart, a fellow Calvinist, he was introduced to the...
, historian to the king, wrote a
Histoire de Louis XIV covering the years 1660 to 1670.
Gédéon Tallemant des RéauxGédéon Tallemant, Sieur Des Réaux , was a French writer known for his Historiettes, a collection of short biographies.-Biography:...
wrote
Les Historiettes, a collection of short biographical sketches of his contemporaries.
Jean-Louis Guez de BalzacJean-Louis Guez de Balzac was a French author.-Biography:Guez de Balzac was born at Angoulême. Originally thought to have been born in 1595, the date was revised in 1848 upon the discovery of a baptismal certificate dated June 1, 1597.In 1612 at the age of fifteen he met Théophile de Viau, also in...
's collected letters are credited with executing in French prose a reform parallel to Francois de Malherbe's in verse. Madame de Sévigné's (1626-1696) letters are considered an important document of society and literary happenings under Louis XIV. The most celebrated Mémoires of the century were not published until over a century later, those of
Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-SimonLouis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon , French soldier, diplomatist and writer of memoirs, was born in Paris...
(1675-1755).