Étienne Jodelle, seigneur de Limodin (1532July 1573), French

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

, was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

of a noble family. He attached himself to the poetic circle of the Pléiade and proceeded to apply the principles of the reformers to dramatic composition. Jodelle aimed at creating a classical drama that should be in every respect different from the moralities and that then occupied the French stage, his first play, '' Cléopâtre captive'', was represented before the court at the hôtel de Reims in 1552. Jodelle himself took the title role, and the cast included his friends

Remy Belleau Remy or Rémy may refer to: Places * Remy River, a tributary of rivière du Gouffre in Saint-Urbain, Quebec, Canada * Rémy, a French commune in Pas-de-Calais * Remy, Oise, northern France * Remy, Oklahoma, USA * 14683 Remy, an asteroid * Pon ...

and Jean Bastier de La Péruse, in honour of the play's success the friends organized a little etc. at

Arcueil Arcueil () is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Name The name Arcueil was recorded for the first time in 1119 as ''Arcoloï'', and later in the 12th c ...

when a goat garlanded with flowers was led in procession and presented to the author—a ceremony exaggerated by the enemies of the Ronsardists into a renewal of the pagan rites of the worship of

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

. Jodelle wrote two other plays. ''Eugène'', a comedy satirizing the superior clergy, had less success than it deserved. Its preface poured scorn on Jodelle's predecessors in comedy, but in reality his own methods are not so very different from theirs. ''Didon se sacrifiant'', a tragedy which follows

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

's narrative, appears never to have been represented. Jodelle died in poverty in July 1573. His works were collected the year after his death by Charles de la Mothe. They include a quantity of miscellaneous verse dating chiefly from Jodelle's youth. The intrinsic value of his tragedies is small. ''Cléopâtre'' is lyric rather than dramatic. Throughout the five acts of the piece nothing actually happens. The death of Antony is announced by his ghost in the first act; the story of Cleopatra's suicide is related, but not represented, in the fifth. Each act is terminated by a chorus which moralizes on such subjects as the inconstancy of fortune and the judgments of heaven on human pride. But the play was the starting-point of French classical tragedy, and was soon followed by the ''Médée'' (1553) of Jean Bastier de La Péruse and the ''Aman'' (1561) of . Jodelle was a rapid worker, but idle and fond of dissipation. His friend Ronsard said that his published poems gave no adequate idea of his powers. Jodelle's works are collected (1868) in the ''Pléiade française'' of

Charles Marty-Laveaux Charles Joseph Marty-Laveaux (13 April 1823, Paris – 11 July 1899, Vitry-sur-Seine) was a French literary scholar. He is best known for his ''La Pléiade Française'', a long series of editions of the poets of La Pléiade. He also edited Corneil ...

. The prefatory notice gives full information of the sources of Jodelle's biography, and La Mothe's criticism is reprinted in its entirety.

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Short biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jodelle, Etienne 16th-century French dramatists and playwrights 16th-century French poets 1532 births 1573 deaths Writers from Paris