Jean Antoine de Baïf (; 19 February 1532 – 19 September 1589) was a French
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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
, the natural son of the scholar
Lazare de Baïf
Lazare de Baïf (1496–1547) was a French diplomat and humanist. His natural son, Jean-Antoine de Baïf, was born in Venice, while Lazare was French ambassador there.
He published a translation of the ''Electra'' of Sophocles in 1537, and afterw ...
, who was at that time French ambassador at Venice. Thanks, perhaps, to the surroundings of his childhood, he grew up an enthusiast for the
fine arts
In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...
, and surpassed in zeal all the leaders of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
in France. His father spared no pains to secure the best possible education for his son. The boy was taught
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
Cretan
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
scholar and calligraphist who designed Greek types for Francis I.
When he was eleven years old he was put under the care of the famous Jean Daurat. Ronsard, who was eight years his senior, now began to share his studies. Claude Binet tells how young Baïf, bred on Latin and Greek, smoothed out the tiresome beginnings of the Greek language for Ronsard, who in return initiated his companion into the mysteries of French versification.
Baïf possessed an extraordinary facility, and the mass of his work has injured his reputation. Besides a number of volumes of short poems of an amorous or congratulatory kind, he translated or paraphrased various pieces from
Bion of Smyrna
Bion (Βίων ) was an ancient Greek bucolic poet from Smyrna, probably active at the end of the second or beginning of the first century BC. He is named in the Suda as one of three canonical bucolic poets alongside Theocritus and Moschus. One ...
Theocritus
Theocritus (; , ''Theokritos''; ; born 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily, Magna Graecia, and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry.
Life
Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings ...
,
Anacreon
Anacreon ( BC) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. Like all early ...
,
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; ), known as Catullus (), was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexual themes.
Life
...
and
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman and Celtiberian poet born in Bilbilis, Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of '' Epigrams'', pu ...
. He resided in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, and enjoyed the continued favor of the court. In 1570, in conjunction with the composer Joachim Thibault de Courville, with royal blessing and financial backing, he founded the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, with the idea of establishing a closer union between music and poetry; his house became famous for the concerts which he gave, entertainments which Charles IX and Henry III frequently attended. Composers such as Claude Le Jeune, who was to become the most influential musician in France in the late 16th century, and Jacques Mauduit, who carried the Academie's ideas into the 17th century, soon joined the group, which remained secretive as to its intents and techniques.
Works
Baïf elaborated a system for regulating French versification by
quantity
Quantity or amount is a property that can exist as a multitude or magnitude, which illustrate discontinuity and continuity. Quantities can be compared in terms of "more", "less", or "equal", or by assigning a numerical value multiple of a u ...
, a system which came to be known as ''vers mesurés'', or ''vers mesurés à l'antique''. In the general idea of regulating versification by quantity, he was not a pioneer. Jacques de la Taille had written in 1562 the ''Maniére de faire des vers en français comme en grec et en Latin'' (printed 1573), and other poets had made experiments in the same direction; however, in his specific attempt to recapture the ancient Greek and Latin ethical effect of poetry on its hearers, and in applying the metrical innovations to music, he created something entirely new.
Baïf's innovations also included a line of 15 syllables known as the ''vers Baïfin''. He also meditated reforms in French spelling.
His theories are exemplified in ''Etrenes de poezie Franzoeze an vers mezures'' (1574). His works were published in 4 volumes, entitled ''Œuvres en rime'' (1573), consisting of ''Amours, Jeux, Passetemps, et Poemes'', containing, among much that is now hardly readable, some pieces of infinite grace and delicacy. His
sonnet
A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...
on the ''
Roman de la Rose
''Le Roman de la Rose'' (''The Romance of the Rose'') is a medieval poem written in Old French and presented as an allegory">allegorical romantic love is disclosed. Its two authors conceived it as a psychological allegory; throughout the Lover' ...
'' was said to contain the whole argument of that celebrated work, and Colletet says it was on everybody's lips. He held the historian of the French language Claude Fauchet in high regard; in a neo-Latin poem addressed to Fauchet, Baïf called him 'Falcete docte, carminum ô tu candide / Iudex meorum' ('Learned Fauchet, candid judge of my poems').
He also wrote a celebrated sonnet in praise of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Baïf was the author of two comedies, ''L'Eunuque'', 1565 (published 1573), a free translation of
Terence
Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six Roman comedy, comedies based on Greek comedy, Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. A ...
's '' Eunuchus'', and ''Le Brave'' (1567), an imitation of the '' Miles Gloriosus'', in which the characters of
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...
are turned into Frenchmen, the action taking place at
Orléans
Orléans (,"Orleans" (US) and Denise Roger used Baïf's text in some of her songs.
References
* which in turn cites:
** Charles Marty-Laveaux, ''Pléiade française'' which contains the ''Œuvres en rime'' (5 vols., 1881–1890) of J. A. de Baïf.
** Becq de Fouquières, ''Poésies choisies de J. A. de Baïf'' (1874), with a valuable introduction.
** Ferdinand Brunetière, ''Histoire de la littérature française classique'', 1904, bk. iii. pp. 398–422.