Marc-Antoine Girard of Saint-Lover

Marc-Antoine Girard, sior of Saint-Lover , born with the Grand-Quevilly the September 30th 1594 and died in Paris the December 29th 1661, is a poet Libertin French.

Its life

Sons of a naval officer, resulting from a family from Protestant merchants, which ordered during twenty-two years an English squadron, Saint-Lover did not learn the old languages but, by a natural curiosity, it formed its intelligence in the company of some educated men and learned the Spanish , the Italian and the English.

Large traveller, it visited several countries of Europe, the North America, the Senegal, the the Indies, spoke several living languages, was interested in the Musique, the Peinture, the Science S, attending as well the Jansenists as the Libertin S, the living room of the Hôtel of Rambouillet, where it endeavoured, under the name of Sapurnius, to deserve his entries by clever delicacies, that Hôtel of Liancourt.

During its youth and its ripe age, it haunted the cabarets with merry companions such as, Faret, Colletet, Vion d' Alibray, etc and it is in the noise, the good expensive one and the wine where it sought the merriest inspiration which it wrote its bacchic parts, like the Cabarets , the Room of discharged , Crevaille , the Cheese , the Vine , Goinfres , of a so merry liveliness and a so colourful style.

It was dependant with the duke of Retz, the marshal of Créqui and the count d' Harcourt, which it accompanied in his forwardings and its embassies. It is close to the latter that there bound of a friendship remained famous with Faret, secretary of the commands of the count.

Named ordinary gentleman of its house by the queen of Poland, Marie-Louise de Gonzague, it went to reside two years at Warsaw. It spent its last years in calm modest and even, if one believes of it Boileau ( Satire I ), in a great embarrassment and died in misery.

Its work

Saint-lover passed, near the experts, for the first MUSE of his time. Always carried by its ardor and its whim, this very original, odd and capricious writer touched as a Master all the cords of the poetic quadrant. Saint-lover had with the more high degree the feeling of poetry, not only in the satires but by odes, sonnets, and even by his Moïse saved (1653, in-4°), long heroic Idylle, quoted wrongly like a epopee, and that Boileau so highly attacked in its poetic Art . The combat of Brace and the Egyptian, the bath of the Rermuth princess, the comparison of the grass snake and the bird, etc, are remarkable pieces. After criticizehaving hard criticized it in the Satires , Boileau finishes by him returning more justice in the Réflexions of Longin .

In addition to the Brace and the poetic Works (Paris; 1629 - 1643 - 1649, 3 parts in-4°), Saint-Lover published: ridiculous Rome , small burlesque poem (1643, in-4°); Stanzas on the pregnancy of the queen of Poland (1650, in-4°); Stanzas with Mr. Corneille on his Imitation of Jesus-Christ (1656, in-4°); the Generation (1658, in-4°).

Refusing to yield with the rules enacted by Malherbe, it sank in the lapse of memory, after 1650, with the triumph of the traditional taste, before being redécouvert with, this original poet, since, is regarded as one of the most modern spirits of its century. It inaugurated the style described as “burlesque”. The success obtained by its ode on the Solitude written in 1619 was such as she was imitated, printed and translated. The remainder of its work dissociates academic tradition clearly. The vocabulary, the rate/rhythm and the images of its poetries baroques like the Seasons and the Visions , burlesques like the Passage of Gibraltar and the comic Rome , or epic as the Moïse saved shine of a glare baroque.

Elected official, as of his creation in 1634, elected member of the French Academy and, although this one was founded under the impulse of Richelieu only one year later, it worked with the “comic” part of the dictionary.

The complete edition of its Œuvres given by Livet in the Library elzévirienne (Paris, 1855,2 vol. in-16) was reprinted by Kraus Reprint (Nendeln, 1972).

Works

Works , Paris, Didier, 1967-71

References

Jacques Bailbé, Saint-Lover and literary Normandy , Paris, Champion, 1995
Paul Durand-Lapie, an Academician of: Saint-lover, his time, his life, its poetries, 1594-1661 , Geneva, Slatkine Reprints, 1970
Jean Lagny, the Poet Saint-Lover, 1594-1661; test on its life and its works , Paris, A.G. Nizet, 1964
Timorous Guillaume, the Appointment of the enfans without soucy: the poetic one of Saint-Lover , Paris, Champion, 2002 ISBN 9782745305299

External bonds

Its works on the site gallica
'' Dernier collection of various poetries of the sior of héroï-comic Saint-Lover ''
'' Epistre, with Monseigneur the duke of Orleans: at the time its Royal Highness estoit with the head office of Gravelines ''
'' ridiculous Rome: whim ''
'' works of the sior of Saint-Lover: reveuës, corrected, and of increased much in this last edition ''
'' saved Moyse: idylle heroic of the sior of Saint-Lover… ''
'' saved Moyse: idile heroic of the sior of St Lover: with the serenissime queen of Poland and Sweden ''
'' complete Œuvres of Saint-Lover. Volume I ''
'' complete Œuvres of Saint-Lover. Volume II ''
'' Poème makes the year 1659, on the suspension of fighting… ''

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