Philippe Desportes , born with Chartres in 1546 and died in the Abbey Notre-Dame de Bonport the October 5th 1606, is a poet Baroque French. Called the Tibulle French for the softness and the facility of its worms, he was abbot of Tiron, reader of the room of the King and to advise State.

Its life

Of a family of rich person traders of Chartres, Philippe Desportes, enters the orders after traditional solids studies. He follows the bishop of the Puy of which he became the secretary with Rome where he discovers the poetry of Pétrarque, which influenced its work deeply. He was the uncle of the poet Mathurin Régnier.

On its return in France in 1567, it gains the good graces of characters placed high, of which the duke of Anjou, the future Henri III, that it follows in Poland. When this one returns to occupy the throne of France, it receives from them several abbeys which get an income of 10  to him; 000 ecus. Preferring its poetry maniérée, more conventional, more formal and less inspired than that of the poets of the Pleiad, Pierre de Ronsard or Joachim of Bellay, it makes its official poet and society man of it.

When it succeeds his brother in 1573, Charles IX admits Philippe Desportes in his councils and grants important ecclesiastical benefit to him. With died of Henri III, it adopts the Ligue initially and collaborates in the defense of Rouen against Henri IV before negotiating the rendering of the refractory places Normans. Under the reign of Henri IV, it is withdrawn in its native province, leaving the place to the court with other authors such as François de Malherbe to deliver itself to religious poetry.

It was a time owner of a manor, located in the suburbs of Rouen, called “manor of Hauteville”, “Closed of the Three Pigs” or “Enclosed of the Three Horned Houses” and “Manor of St-Yon”, where Jean-Baptiste of the Room installed later the head office of the Frères of the Christian Schools.

Its work

Nourished Homère and of Virgile, Desportes pushed less far than Ronsard the imitation from antiquity. It polishes the language, gave more care to the regularity of the rhymes, with the harmony of the sentence; the inversions at his place are less frequent and clearer than at Ronsard; the hiatuses and the crossing-overs start to disappear in its worms. The grace of its sonnets, the liveliness of its songs would be enough to ensure the fame to him. It is necessary to read its Villanelle de Rosette and some worms on the happiness of the countryside which inspired the Fountain.

It is reproduced with Jean Bertaut in the verse scornful of Nicolas Boileau in the poetic Art on Pierre de Ronsard:

“This proud poet, stumbled of so high,

Returned more retained Desportes and Bertaut. ”

Its Poetries , partly gallant, partly excessively pious women, had a great success: it imitates there with happiness Clément Marot and the Italian poets.

Works

• Loves of Diane (1573)
• the first works of Philips Desportes. Reveuës, corrected & increased in addition to the preceding impressions (1578). Re-examined and increased edition: Robert Estienne, 1587.
• Loves of Cléonice (1583)
• Elegies (1583)
• 150 psalms of David (1603-1605)
• Sheep-folds