Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian
Encyclopedia
Sauve
Sauve is a commune in the Gard department in southern France.-Population:-Personalities:In the mid-1990s American underground comic artist Robert Crumb traded six of his sketchbooks for a townhouse in Sauve...
, Gard
Gard
Gard is a département located in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.The department is named after the River Gard, although the formerly Occitan name of the River Gard, Gardon, has been replacing the traditional French name in recent decades, even among French speakers.- History...
– September 13, 1794) was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and romance writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
.
Life
His mother, a Spanish lady named Gilette de Salgues, died when he was a child. He was brought up by his grandfather and studied at St. Hippolyte. His uncle and guardian, the Marquis of Florian, who had married a niece of VoltaireVoltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, introduced him at the château de Ferney and in 1768 he became page at Anet
Anet
Anet is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is situated between the rivers Eure and Vègre, northeast of Dreux by rail....
in the household of the Duc de Penthièvre
Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre
Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon was the son of Louis Alexandre de Bourbon and his wife Marie Victoire de Noailles. He was also a grandson of Louis XIV of France and his mistress, Madame de Montespan. From birth he was known as the Duke of Penthièvre...
, who remained his friend throughout his life. Having studied for some time at the artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
school at Bapaume
Bapaume
Bapaume is a commune and the seat of a canton in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A farming and light industrial town located 10 miles south of Arras at the junction of the A1 autoroute and the N17 and N30 national roads its location is...
he obtained from his patron a captain's commission in the dragoon regiment of Penthièvre.
He left the army soon after and began to write comedies, and was elected to the Académie Française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called 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,...
in 1788. On the outbreak of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
he retired to Sceaux
Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine
Sceaux is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Wealth:Sceaux is famous for the Château of Sceaux, set in its large park , designed by André Le Nôtre, measuring...
, but he was soon discovered and imprisoned; and though Robespierre's death spared him, he died a few months later still in prison.
Works
To modern readers, Florian is chiefly known as the author of pretty fables well suited as reading for the young, but his contemporaries praised him also for his poetical and pastoral novels. Florian was very fond of Spain and its literature, doubtless owing to the influence of his Castilian mother, and both abridged and imitated the works of Cervantes.Florian's first literary efforts were comedies; his verse epistle Voltaire et le serf du Mont Jura and an eclogue Ruth were crowned by the French Academy in 1782 and 1784 respectively. In 1782 also he produced a one-act prose comedy, Le Bon Ménage, and in the next year Galatie, a romantic tale in imitation of the Galatea of Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
. Other short tales and comedies followed, and in 1786 appeared Numa Pompilius, an undisguised imitation of Fénelon
François Fénelon
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, more commonly known as François Fénelon , was a French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer...
's Telémaque.
In 1788 he became a member of the French Academy
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called 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,...
, and published Estelle, a pastoral of the same class as Galatie. Another romance, Gonzalve de Cordoue, preceded by an historical notice of the Moors, appeared in 1791, and his famous collection of Fables in 1802. Among his posthumous works are La Jeunesse de Florian, ou Mémoires d'un Jeune Espagnol (1807), and an abridgment (1809) of Don Quixote, which, though far from being a correct representation of the original, had great and merited success.
Florian imitated Salomon Gessner, the Swiss idyllist, and his style has all the artificial delicacy and sentimentality of the Gessnerian school. Perhaps the nearest example of the class in English literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
is afforded by John Wilson's
John Wilson (Scottish writer)
John Wilson of Ellerey FRSE was a Scottish advocate, literary critic and author, the writer most frequently identified with the pseudonym Christopher North of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine....
Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life (written as Christopher North). Among the best of his fables are reckoned The Monkey showing the Magic Lantern, The Blind Man and the Paralytic, and The Monkeys and the Leopard.
Selected works
Fables- The Blind man and the Paralytic
- The Monkey and the Magic Lantern
- The Monkeys and the Leopard
- The Fable and the Truth
- The Crocodile and the Sturgeon'
- The Child and the Mirror
- The Old Tree and the Gardener
- The Nightingale and the Prince
- The Two Travelers
Theatre
- Les Deux BilletsLes Deux BilletsLes Deux Billets is a one act comedy by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. It was first performed by the Comédie Italienne in 1779. Les Deux Billets is the first of a trilogy of plays called "The Arlequinades" that tell the story of Arlequin, his wife Argentine, and later, their children...
(1779) - Le Bon MénageLe Bon MénageLe Bon Ménage is a one act comedy by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. It was first performed by the Comédie Italienne in 1782. Le Bon ménage is the second of a trilogy of plays called "The Arlequinades" that tell the story of Arlequin, his wife Argentine, and later, their children...
(1782) - Le Bon PèreLe Bon PèreLe Bon Père is a one act comedy by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. It was first performed by the Comédie Italienne in 1784. Le Bon Père is the last of a trilogy of plays called "The Arlequinades" that tell the story of Arlequin, his wife Argentine, and later, their children...
(1784) - Les Jumeaux de Bergame (1782)
Other
- Pastorales
- Variétés et contes en vers
- Plaisir d'amourPlaisir d'Amour"Plaisir d'amour" is a classical French love song written in 1780 by Jean Paul Égide Martini . Hector Berlioz arranged it for orchestra...
, a song - Mémoires d'un jeune Espagnol
Famous verses
Florian wrote a collection of fables. From these fables several expressions have passed into colloquial French:- Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés: "In order to live happily, live hidden"
- Chacun son métier, les vaches seront bien gardées: "To each his occupation, and the cows will be well guarded."
- Rira bien qui rira le dernier: "He who laughs last laughs best."
The expression éclairer la lanterne ("light the lantern") is also drawn from Florian's fables.