Antoine Houdar of the Mound

Antoine Houdar (or Houdart) of the Mound , born the January 17th 1672 with Paris where he died the December 26th 1731, is a writer and Dramaturge French. He held an important place in the literary life of his time in his writings and his designs.

Biography

Wire of a hatter, Houdar of the Mound was pupil at the Jésuites, then made studies of right before being devoted to the literature.

In 1693, its first part, the Comédie the Originals , joke in prose interfered worms given to the Theater-Italian, was such a fiasco that Houdar, depressed, thought one moment to be made monk. It entered to the Trappe without taking the dress of it and left there at the end of two months noviciate.

Four years later, he was success with a booklet of opera, gallant Europe (1697). Encouraged by this beginning, it gave back-to-back of many booklets of opera ballets, for type-setters such as André Campra, Destouches and Marin Marais. It made with the opera three innovations: ballet, the pastoral one and comedy-ballet. It also gave six Comédie S which succeeded less better, though Splendid the and the difficult Lover had a certain success, and four Tragédie S of which one, Ines of Castro (1723), according to a subject drawn from Camoëns, triumphed with the Th3e4atre Fran1cais.

In living room marchioness Lambert, whose La Motte was one of the pillars, with his/her friend Fontenelle, with whom it shared absence of prejudice and spirit of investigation, one discussed the question of knowing if versification were essential to poetry. One estimated ultimately that the worms returned the poet slave of superfluous rules, complicated and harmful, which supported the ankles and the periphrases and blocked the true expression of poetry. One recommended to return to the clearness and the firmness of prose, especially with the theater for reasons of naturalness. Houdar of the Mound wanted to show that prose could extremely well serve poetry. It gave the Adventures of Télémaque of Fénelon like an example in this direction and put in prose a scene of Mithridate of Racine of which it ensured that it gained with this treatment.

Houdar of the Mound also discussed the validity of conventions of the traditional theater, and in particular of the rule of the three units:

“I do not claim to destroy these rules, wrote it in his Discours on the tragedy ; I want to say only that one would not have to stick to it with enough superstition, not to sacrifice them in the need to more essential beauties. ”

It versified, in 1714, without knowing the Greek , the translation of Iliade published by Anne Dacier in 1699. The foreword of this translation contains a Discours on Homère in which, after being itself delivered to a criticism in rule of the original in which it stigmatizes the coarseness with the characters, the prolixity of their speeches, the repetitions, the enumerations, etc, it affirms: “I took freedom to change there what I found the unpleasant one there”. In its Reflections on criticism , it specifies:

“ Iliade of Homère, that many people know more reputation than by itself, appeared me to deserve to be put in French worms, to amuse the curiosity of those which do not know the original language. For that I question Homère; i.e. I read his work with attention; and persuaded by reading it that nothing is perfect, and that the faults are inseparable from humanity, I am in guard against the prevention, in order not to confuse the beauties and the faults. I believe to feel then that the gods and the heroes, such as they are in the Greek poem, would not be our taste; that many episodes would appear too long; that the harangues of the combatants would be judged out of work, and that the shield of Achilles appears confused, and unreasonably marvellous. The more I contemplate these feelings, the more I am confirmed there; and after thinkhaving thought as far as the respect requires it which one owes there with the public, I propose to change, cut off, invent even in the need; to finally make according to my range, all that I think that Homère had made, if it had dealt with my century. ”

In fact, La Motte had not only shortened half the work of Homère, reduced from 24 to 12 songs, but it had enjolivé it and put at the last style. Anne Dacier appreciated the process little and retorted with brutality in a Traité causes of the corruption of the taste in which she believed to take the tone and the language of a scholar of the 16th century and only managed to show itself coarsely abusive. La Motte answered in its turn in its Réflexions on the criticism (1716), in which, reviving the Querelle of Old and Modern the launched by Charles Perrault at the 17th century, it took the party of the Modern ones resolutely. Independently of the merits of this controversy, it always preserved at it a spirit and a courtesy which contrasted very favorably with the methods of its rivals.

The business made great noise. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, which did not forgive with the Mound to be elected against him with the French Academy, stripped poisonous epigrams to him. One made on the subject of small parts where the protagonists were easy to recognize under supposed names. Ultimately, Fénelon, selected for judge of the quarrel, put everyone of agreement by declaring “that one cannot rent the modern ones too much which makes main efforts to exceed the old ones. A so noble emulation promises much; it appears dangerous to me if it went until scorning and to cease studying these great originals. ”

La Motte one of was also accustomed philosophical coffees, attending the establishments of the Laurent Widow, Graudot or the Procope Coffee. Elected with the French Academy the February 8th 1710, it became blind shortly after and supported its infirmity with stoicism. To an young man who had souffleté it because it had gone to him on the foot, it says as follows: “You will be well annoyed, Sir, I am blind. ”

In 1726, it maintained a correspondence with the duchess Maine in which - though blind man and anchylosed of his members - it played in love one and it ingenuous shepherdess. One has a table which represents it, with Fontenelle and Saurin, in the living room of the sister of Mrs. de Tencin, the latter bringing the chocolate to them.

Works

Literary posterity

Houdar of the Mound composed of the Odes , generally rather tedious, among which one can quote those on the Emulation , on the death of Louis XIV or With the Peace , but whose one estimates more that on the Man :

Impatient all to know

And flattering itself to reach that point,

the spirit wants to penetrate its being,

Its principle and its future;

Unceasingly it makes an effort, it becomes animated;

to probe this deep abyss

It exhausts all its capacity;

It is vainly that it worries;

It feels that a secret force

defends to Him to be conceived.

It published in 1719 new Fables , this qualifier wanting to mark that the subjects are of its invention, unlike those of the Fountain which had taken as a starting point the former fabulists. These fables generally miss poetry and develop with the dryness of a demonstration of mathematics which seems to have of another goal to only arrive at the moral conclusion. Some of them contain however happy worms, for example:

It is a great approval which diversity:

We are well as we are.

the same spirit to the men,

You Give remove all the salt of the company.

the trouble was born one day from the uniformity.

(friends too much agreement)

I speak little, but I say well:

It is the character of the wise one.

(the watch and the sundial)

He also wrote the texts of the crowned cantatas that Elisabeth Jacquet of the War put in music (in 1708: Esther, the Passage of the Red Sea, Jacob and Rachel, Jonas, Suzanne, Judith ; in 1711: Adam, the rebuilt Temple, the Flood, Joseph, Jephté and Samson ).

Its reputation rests today on the excellent prose in which it expressed its sights, much better than its worms, hard and without color. One also remembers that he abstained from replying to a letter of Jean-Philippe Rameau which would have wished to put in music one of its booklets: probably a beautiful occasion missed by Houdar of the Mound. But, more than by its productions, it is by its role in the evolution of ideas and by the important place that it occupied in the literary life of its time that the name of Houdar of the Mound arrived to us. “It proved, according to Voltaire, that in art to write one can be still something with the second rank. ”

Poetic works

the First book of Iliade , translated into French worms, 1701
Eclogue on the birth of Mgr the duke of Brittany , 1707

Odes

Odes with a Speech on poetry in general, and the ode in particular , 1707 (several later editions)
the Mourning of France , ode, 1712
the Sovereign , ode, 1712
Ode on the death of Louis Large the , ode, 1716
criticism , ode, 1720

Fables

new Fables , Paris, 1719 (several later editions)
the Swan , allegorical fable, 1714
the Indian and the sun , 1720

Critical works

Speech on Homère , 1714
Reflections on criticism , Paris, G. Then, 1715
Speech on poetry , Paris, Prault the elder one, 1754
Speech on the tragedy , Paris, Prault the elder one, 1754
Continuation of the Reflections on the tragedy , 1730

Dramatic works

Originals or the Italian , comedy in music in 3 acts, music of Mr. de Masse, represented over the Theater of the Hotel of Burgundy, on August 13rd 1693
Issé , pastoral heroic in 3 acts with prolog, represented with the Castle of Fontainebleau on October 7th 1697
gallant Europe , opera ballet in 4 acts and a prolog, music of Andre Campra, represented with the Theater of the Palais Royal on October 24th 1697
Amadis of Greece , lyric tragedy in 5 acts and a prolog, music of Andre Cardinal Destouches, represented on March 25th 1699
Marthésie, first queen of Amazones , lyric tragedy in 5 acts and a prolog, music of Andre Cardinal Destouches, represented with the Castle of Fontainebleau on October 11th 1699
the Triumph of arts , opera ballets in 5 acts, music of Michel of the Bar, represented to the Theater of the Palais Royal on May 16th 1700
Canente , lyric tragedy in 5 acts and a prolog, music of Pascal Stuck and Antoine Dauvergne, represented with the Theater of the Palais Royal on November 4th 1700
the Three Gascons , comedy with entertainments in 1 act, Nicolas Boindin, music of Giuseppe-Maria Cambini and Nicolas Racot de Grandval, known as Grandval the Father , represented with the Comédie-Française on June 4th 1701
Omphale , lyric tragedy in 5 acts and a prolog, music of Andre Cardinal Destouches, represented with the Theater of the Palais Royal on November 10th 1701
the Matron of Éphèse , comedy into 1 act and prose, represented with the Comédie-Française on September 23rd 1702
the Carnival and the madness , comedy-ballet in 4 acts and a prolog, music of Andre Cardinal Destouches, represented with the Castle of Fontainebleau on January 3rd 1703
the Seaport , comedy into 1 act and prose, with Nicolas Boindin, music of Nicolas Racot de Grandval, told to Grandval the Father , represented to the Comédie-Française on May 27th 1704
Venetian the , opera ballet in 3 acts, music of Antoine Dauvergne and Michel of the Bar, represented with the Theater of the Palais Royal on May 26th 1705
Sole , lyric tragedy in 5 acts, music of Marin Marais, represented with the Theater of the Palais Royal on April 9th 1709
the Venus Belt, table dramatic, music of Jean-Joseph Mouret, represented with the Castle of Seals on April 19th 1715
Alcione , lyric tragedy in 5 acts and a prolog, music of Marin Marais, represented with the Theater of the Palais Royal, on February 18th 1706
Apollo and the Muses , dramatic table, music of Jean-Joseph Mouret, represented with the Castle of Seals on April 19th, 1715
difficult Amante or itconstant lover , comedy in 5 acts and prose, with Pierre Rémond of Holy-White, represented with the Theater of the Hotel of Burgundy on October 17th 1716
the Stiffs , tragedy in 5 acts and worms, represented with the Comédie-Française on March 6th 1721
Romulus , tragedy in 5 acts and worms, represented with the Comédie-Française on January 8th 1722
Ines of Castro , tragedy in 5 acts and worms, represented with the Comédie-Française on April 6th 1723
Oedipus , tragedy in 5 acts and worms, represented with the Comédie-Française on March 18th 1726
Dalcyone , opera, represented in September 1730
gallant Italy or the tales , comedy in a prolog and 3 parts ( the Talisman , Richard Minutolo , Splendid the ), represented with the Comédie-Française on May 11th 1731
difficult Amante , entertainment in 5 acts and prose, music of Jean-Joseph Mouret, represented with the Theater of the Hotel of Burgundy on August 23rd 1731
Scanderberg , lyric tragedy in 5 acts and a prolog, with Jean-Louis-Ignace of Tighten, music of François Francœur and François Rebel, represented with the Theater of the Palais Royal on October 25th 1735
Pygmalion , ballet, altered by Ballot of Sauvot, music of Jean-Philippe Rameau, represented with the Château of Fontainebleau on August 27th 1748
Prométhée , prolog in worms, represented in Paris on January 9th 1753
Titon and the Dawn , pastoral heroic in 3 acts, with Claude-Henri de Fusée of Voisenon and the Abbé of Enough the, music of Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville, represented with Theater of the Palais Royal on January 9th 1753
Splendid the , comedy in 2 acts and a Prolog with three interludes, represented with the Castle of Fontainebleau on November 15th 1753
Ballet of the fairies , ballet
the Calendar of the old men , comedy into 1 act and prose
Climène , pastoral into 1 act and worms
the Ages , opera ballet in 4 acts and a prolog

References

External bond

biographical Card of the French Academy
All its dramatic works and their representations on site CÉSAR
Card on the site http://baroquelibretto.free.fr
Iliade interpreted by Houdar of the Mound
Speech on Homère de Houdar of the Mound, version 1714 and in modern French

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