Philippe Quinault , born the June 3rd 1635 with Paris where he died the November 26th 1688, is a Poète, Dramatic author and Librettiste French.

Wire of a baker, it was taken in affection by Tristan the Hermit, who gave him same education as with his own son. It was only eighteen years old when one played Hôtel of Burgundy his first Comédie, the Rivals , in five acts (1653). Tristan lute, like him, with the actors, who offered hundred ecus of them to him. When they knew the age of the author, they withdrew their proposal, but they agree to grant the ninth of the receipt, all deduced expenses. It was the origin of the “share of author”. The part succeeds, and Quinault gave the following year two comedies and a Tragi-comédie.

However, guided by the spirit of prudence of which it is never separated, Quinault considered it wise not to be not reduced for the hazardous benefits of the dramatic career, and studied the right, in order to be able to give the title of lawyer to the Parliament, at the time of its marriage, in 1660, with a widowed rich person. The dowry of his wife was used to him to buy a load of listener to the Court of Auditors.

The success of the tragedy of Clutched or the forgery Tibérinus (1660), and especially that of the tragedy of Astrate (1663), as well as comedy entitled the vain Mother (1665), established her reputation. The king made him a pension of two thousand books. The French Academy admitted it in 1670. He became also member of the Académie of the inscriptions in 1674.

It is only into 1671 that Quinault began in the kind which was to illustrate it, by the Intermède S from Psyché . As from this time until in 1686, he was the collaborator of Lully at the request of which he wrote several booklet S of opera creating with this one the specifically French kind of the lyric Tragédie. It is exaggerated to say only Quinault, arrived at the exact moment where the opera became with the mode out of Italy, little did not contribute definitively to establish it like European artistic kind. Lully paid him four thousand books for each part, saying that Quinault was “the only one which could adapt it, and which could as well vary measurements and the rhymes in poetry, that it could itself vary the turns and rates in music. ” The poet could undoubtedly fold his worms with the whims of the musician and transform them according to the needs for the melody, it with what the Fountain referred, when, being decided to write an opera for Lully, he says of the latter: “In short, it me enquinauda . ”

After the death of Lully in 1687, Quinault, taken religious scruples, renonça with the theater and was delivered to the composition of a poem entitled the destroyed Heresy , which it did not have the time to complete, and which started with these worms:

I sang only too much the plays and the loves;

On a more sublime tone it is necessary to make us hear:
I tell you good-bye, tender MUSE,
And tell you good-bye for always.

Disputed by Boileau, the Fountain and Root, only Charles Perrault supported it. When Boileau launched its features against Quinault, this one had not done any of its operas yet. It is with the tragic author that addresses the famous worms of the second satire:

the reason says Virgile, and the Quinault rhyme.

By repeating it in the satire of the ridiculous Meal , which is of 1665, Boileau makes fun of Astrate which is characterized by the weakness of the characters and the languor of the dialog. This tragedy which is not the best of the author however had an extraordinary success. Its comedies were also of a great weakness until the vain Mother , which, without rising much, offers pleasant details, a natural key, and was supported a long time with the theater. Remainder, Boileau, in the foreword of several editions of its works (1683, 1694), reconsidered its attacks while saying: “I was extremely young when I wrote against Mr. Quinault, and it had done any the works which made him since a right reputation. ” A written letter with Racine in 1687 indicates that it put it at the row those whose it estimated more the heart and the spirit. It is not thus any more in Quinault, but with the opera, kind little tasted of Boileau, that refer themselves, in 1693, severities of the tenth satire against

… these commonplaces of lustful morals.

That Lully heated sounds of its music.

Of all the poets who composed of the operas, without excluding Métastase, Quinault of it is perhaps that whose genius was the best gifted one for this kind and its parts remain the models of a kind. “Quinault undoubtedly, said the Toothing-stone, neither this happy audacity of the figures, neither this eloquence of passion, neither this erudite and varied harmony, nor this major knowledge of all the effects of the rate/rhythm and all the secrecies of the poetic language: they are the first order beauties there, and not only they were not necessary for him, but, if it had had them, it had not made of opera, because it would not have left anything make the musician; but it often has an easy elegance and a turn many; its expression, is also pure and as just as its thought is clear and clever. Its running worms, its round sentences, have the approval which is born from an easy turning and a continual mixture of spirit and feeling. It is not number of the writers who added to the richness and the energy of our language; it is one of those which best showed how much one could make it flexible and flexible. ” If the worms of Quinault are always harmonious, it has many weak of it and of prosaic and that if it finds dramatic situations, it hardly makes but the effleurer.

The first of its operas, the Festivals of the Love and Bacchus (1672), is only one mixture of insipidity and buffoonery. Cadmus (1674), the first part which one called “lyric tragedy” is a mythological comedy. In Alceste (1674) and in Thésée (1675), the intrigue is already higher, the worms neater, but with scenes of a comic cold and galanteries of maidservants. Atys (1676), that of the operas of the author whom preferred Francoise de Maintenon, is that where the love is most interesting and the most tragic outcome. In the opera of Isis (1677), where the majority of the details have much approval, the last two acts languish by the uniformity of a too prolonged situation. Proserpine (1680) is one of the poems of Quinault best cut. It is also that where it rose the most in its versification. Voltaire quotes with admiration the following worms of them:

These superb giants, armed against the gods,

do not give us any more terror.
They are buried under the heavy mass
mounts which they piled up to attack the skies;
I saw falling their daring chief
Under an extreme mountain.
Jupiter has constrained it to vomit in our eyes
the ignited remainders laughs its dying rage.
Jupiter is victorious,
And all yields to the effort of its striking down hand.

the Triumph of the Love (1681), Ballet makes for the court, is laid out so as to address compliments in worms to the princes and to the ladies. In Persée (1682) one quotes, like the most energetic piece, the monolog of Méduse :

I lost the beauty which returned so vain…

to me

Phaéton (1683) is one of the least interesting works of the author. The plan and the details of Amadis (1684) are clever and attaching. Roland (1685), whose subject is drawn from Arioste , would hold the first rank among works of Quinault, if it had not made Armide (1686), of which it borrowed the subject from the Tasse. This last poem, by the interest of the situations, the beauty of the feelings, elegance continues style, can be looked like the masterpiece of the opera. the Temple of Peace (1686) does not have an other only deserves to be a ballet laid out rather well. One still owes him to the indiscreet Lover or the thoughtless Master , comedy (1654), which has relationship with Thoughtless the of Molière; the Comedy without comedy (1654), which contains pastoral, a comedy, a tragedy and a tragi-comedy; Generous ingratitude , tragi-comedy (1654); the Death of Cyrus , tragedy (1656); the Marriage of Cambyse , tragi-comedy (1656); Stratonice , tragi-comedy (1657); Blows of the Love and Fortune , tragi-comedy (1657); Amalasonte , tragedy (1658); Pretends it Alcibiade , tragi-comedy (1658); the Phantom in love , comedy (1659); Bellérophon , tragedy (1665); Pausanias , tragedy (1666).

The Œuvres of Quinault were joined together (Paris, 1739, 1778, 5 vol. in-12). One published his selected Œuvres (Paris, 1842,2 vol. in-8).

Works

Comedies

  • the indiscreet Lover or the thoughtless Master , (1654)
  • the Comedy without comedy , (1654)
  • the Vain Mother or Lovers scrambled , (1665)
  • the Phantom in love , (1659

Tragi-comedies

  • Generous ingratitude , (1654
  • the Marriage of Cambyse , (1656
  • Stratonice , (1657
  • the Blows of the Love and Fortune , (1657
  • Pretends It Alcibiade , (1658
  • the Rivals (1653)

Tragedies

  • the Death of Cyrus , (1656)
  • Amalasonte , (1658)
  • Bellérophon , (1665)
  • Pausanias ,
  • Astrate king de Tyr , (1664)

Booklets

Sources

  • Gustave Vapereau, universal Dictionary of the literatures , Paris, Hatchet, 1876, p. 1674

External bonds

  • biographical Card of the French Academy
  • Biography on the site Lully
  • Its works of theater and their representations on site CÉSAR
  • Biography, '' Atys '', '' Bellérophon '', '' Proserpine '' and '' Thésée '' on the traditional site Theater

Random links:Cithéron mount | Microsoft Dynamics VOR | List bishops of Saint-Jean-of-Maurienne | Crockdur | Sharp

© 2007-2008 speedlook.com; article text available under the terms of GFDL, from fr.wikipedia.org