Robert Nanteuil, Gilles Boileau, 1658, NGA 9436

Gilles Boileau (22 October 1631,

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 ...

– 18 March 1669), the elder brother of the more famous

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (; 1 November 1636 – 13 March 1711), often known simply as Boileau (, ), was a French poet and critic. He did much to reform the prevailing form of French poetry, in the same way that Blaise Pascal did to reform the ...

, was a French translator and member of the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

. Boileau was well regarded as a classicist by his contemporaries and published a verse translation of the fourth book of the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

'' and prose translations of writings of

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...

and of

Epictetus Epictetus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκτητος, ''Epíktētos''; 50 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when ...

, whose life he wrote. He received a royal sinecure as ''contrôleur de l’argenterie du roi'', and though his poetry is generally accounted mediocre, he was elected to the Académie française in January 1659.

Académie française

His election to the Académie française was an event that gave rise to an incident that proved divisive in the French world of letters. The elder Boileau (who alone carried the name during his lifetime, the brother, with whom he was on ill terms in later years, being called "Despréaux") had attacked in print

Mlle de Scudéry Mademoiselle () is a French courtesy title, abbreviated Mlle, traditionally given to an unmarried woman. The equivalent in English is "Miss". The courtesy title "Madame" is accorded women where their marital status is unknown. From around 1970 on ...

and the grammarian and lexicographer

Gilles Ménage Gilles Ménage (; 15 August 1613 – 23 July 1692) was a French scholar. Biography He was born at Angers, the son of Guillaume Ménage, king's advocate at Angers. A good memory and enthusiasm for learning carried him quickly through his lite ...

, two friends of

Paul Pellisson Paul Pellisson (30 October 1624 – 7 February 1693) was a French author. Pellisson was born in Béziers, of a distinguished Calvinist family. He studied law at Toulouse, and practised at the bar of Castres. Going to Paris with letters of intr ...

, who mounted a campaign against the election of Gilles Boileau. In the affair

Jean Chapelain Jean Chapelain (4 December 1595 – 22 February 1674) was a French poet and critic during the Grand Siècle, best known for his role as an organizer and founding member of the Académie française. Chapelain acquired considerable prestige as a l ...

, whose disastrous epic ''La Pucelle'' had been severely criticised by Pellisson, nevertheless came to defend him; doubtless, his own enmity for Boileau was affected by the satiric parody of ''

Le Cid ''Le Cid'' is a five-act French tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille, first performed in December 1636 at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris and published the same year. It is based on Guillén de Castro's play ''Las Mocedades del Cid''. Castro' ...

'', ''Le Chapelain décoiffé'' (1665), jointly written by the brothers Boileau and occasioned by Chapelain's selection by Colbert to oversee the choices of authors to receive royal pensions. After the election of Gilles Boileau, pressed by

Pierre Séguier Pierre Séguier (; 28 May 1588 – 28 January 1672) was a French statesman, chancellor of France from 1635. Biography Early years Séguier was born in Paris to a prominent legal family originating in Quercy. His grandfather, Pierre Séguier (15 ...

, Pellisson avoided meetings of the ''Académie'' for a decade, until after Boileau's death.

External links

Académie française website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boileau, Gilles Latin–French translators French translators Members of the Académie Française 1631 births 1669 deaths French male non-fiction writers 17th-century French translators

Académie française

See also

External links