Jean (de) Mairet (10 May 160431 January 1686) was a classical
french
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
dramatist who wrote both
tragedies and
comedies.
Life
He was born at
Besançon, and went to Paris to study at the
Collège des Grassins
In France, secondary education is in two stages:
* ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15.
* ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...
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 of time, action and place, after a misreading of
Aristotle's ''
Poetics
Poetics is the theory of structure, form, and discourse within literature, and, in particular, within poetry.
History
The term ''poetics'' derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός ''poietikos'' "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" an ...
''.
Mairet was one of the bitterest assailants of
Corneille in the controversy over the violation of the classical unities in ''
Le Cid''.
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
Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman and statesman. He was also known as ''l'Éminence rouge'', or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the ...
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
Duke of Montmorency was a title of French nobility that was created several times for members of the Montmorency family, who were lords of Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, Montmorency, near Paris.
History
The first creation was in 1551 for Anne de Mont ...
(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, which allowed him to stay in
Paris, but in 1653 he was banished by
Cardinal Mazarin. 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