Julien Louis Geoffroy (17 August 1743 – 27 February 1814) was a French literary

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...

. He was born at

Rennes Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...

, and educated there and at the Collège Louis le Grand 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 ...

. He took orders and for some time was a mere usher, eventually becoming professor of

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

at the

Collège des Quatre-Nations The Collège des Quatre-Nations ("College of the Four Nations"), also known as the Collège Mazarin after its founder, was one of the colleges of the historic University of Paris. It was founded through a bequest by the Cardinal Mazarin. At his d ...

. His

tragedy 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 ...

, ''Caton'', was accepted at the Théâtre Français, but was never performed. On the death of

Élie Fréron Élie is the French equivalent of "Elie", "Elias" or "Elijah."''The Complete Baby Name Book'' 1989 Page 92 "It was revived in the seventeenth century by the Puritans, and it's still used, especially by religious Protestant families. Famous name: El ...

in 1776 the other collaborators in the ''Année littéraire'' asked Geoffroy to succeed him, and he conducted the journal until its closure in 1792. Geoffroy was a bitter critic of

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...

and his followers, and made for himself many enemies. An enthusiastic royalist, he published, with Fréron's brother-in-law, the abbé (1741–1792), a journal, ''L'Ami du roi'' (1790–1792), which possibly did more harm than good to the king's cause by its ill-advised partisanship. During the

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, ...

, Geoffroy hid in the neighbourhood of Paris, only returning in 1799. An attempt to revive the ''Année littéraire'' failed, and Geoffroy undertook the position of theatre critic of the ''

Journal des Débats The ''Journal des débats'' ( French for: Journal of Debates) was a French newspaper, published between 1789 and 1944 that changed title several times. Created shortly after the first meeting of the Estates-General of 1789, it was, after the ou ...

''. His scathing criticisms had a success of notoriety, but their popularity was ephemeral, and the publication of them (5 vols., 1819–1820) as ''Cours de littérature dramatique'' proved a failure. He was also the author of a perfunctory ''Commentaire'' on the works of

Jean Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...

prefixed to Lenormant's edition (1808).

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Geoffroy, Julien Louis 1743 births 1814 deaths Academic staff of the University of Paris French literary critics Voltaire Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery