Jean (de) Mairet (10 May 160431 January 1686) was a classical 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 ...

who wrote both

tragedies Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...

and

comedies Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term origin ...

Life

He was born at

Besançon Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzer ...

, and went to Paris to study at the Collège des Grassins about 1625. In that year he produced his first piece ''Chryséide et Arimand''. In 1634 he produced his masterpiece, ''Sophonisbe'', which marks, in its observance of the rules, the first to be staged of the classical French tragedies. He also introduced to French drama the three

classical unities The classical unities, Aristotelian unities, or three unities represent a prescriptive theory of dramatic tragedy that was introduced in Italy in the 16th century and was influential for three centuries. The three unities are: #''unity of action' ...

of time, action and place, after a misreading of

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

's '' Poetics''. Mairet was one of the bitterest assailants of

Corneille Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronag ...

in the controversy over the violation of the classical unities in ''

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 ...

''. He produced several pamphlets against Corneille, who responded more than once, most famously with his ''Advertissement au Besançonnois Mairet'' (1637). The personal intervention of Cardinal Richelieu was eventually required to calm the furore in the theatres. It was perhaps his jealousy of the successful Corneille, together with the deaths of his aristocratic patrons, first the duc de Montmorency (1632) and then François de Faudoas, comte de Belin, that made Mairet give up writing for the stage. He was appointed in 1648 official representative of his home country, the

county of Burgundy The Free County of Burgundy or Franche-Comté (french: Franche Comté de Bourgogne; german: Freigrafschaft Burgund) was a medieval county (from 982 to 1678) of the Holy Roman Empire, predecessor to the modern region of Franche-Comté. The name ' ...

, which allowed him to stay in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

, but in 1653 he was banished by

Cardinal Mazarin Cardinal Jules Mazarin (, also , , ; 14 July 1602 – 9 March 1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino () or Mazarini, was an Italian cardinal, diplomat and politician who served as the chief minister to the Kings of France Louis XIII and Louis X ...

. He was subsequently allowed to return, but in 1668 he retired to Besançon, and subsequently rarely left.

Other plays

* ''La Sylvie'', a pastoral tragi-comedy (1626) * ''La Silvanire, ou la Morte-vive'', with an elaborate preface on the observance of the unities (1631) * ''Les Galanteries du duc d'Ossonne'', comedy (1632) * ''La Virginie'', tragi-comedy (1633) * ''Le Marc-Antoine, ou la Cléopâtre'', tragedy (1635) * ''L'illustre corsaire'', tragi-comedy (1636) * ''Le Grand et dernier Solyman'', tragedy (1637) * ''L’Illustre corsaire'', tragi-comedy (1640) * ''Le Roland furieux'', tragi-comedy (1641) * ''L’Athénaïs'', tragi-comedy (1642) * ''La Sidonie'', tragi-comedy (1643)

Bibliography

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mairet, Jean 1604 births 1686 deaths 17th-century French dramatists and playwrights Writers from Besançon 17th-century French male writers