Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle | |
---|---|
Born | Rouen, France | 11 February 1657
Died | 9 January 1757 Paris, France | (aged 99)
Occupation | Essayist |
Relatives | Thomas Corneille and Pierre Corneille |
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (French: [fɔ̃tənɛl]; 11 February 1657 – 9 January 1757),[1] also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author and an influential member of three of the academies of the Institut de France, noted especially for his accessible treatment of scientific topics during the unfolding of the Age of Enlightenment.
Biography
Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France (then the capital of Normandy) and died in Paris at age 99. His mother was the sister of great French dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille. His father, François le Bovier de Fontenelle, was a lawyer who worked in the provincial court of Rouen and came from a family of lawyers from Alençon.[2]
He trained in the law but gave up after one case, devoting his life to writing about
He was educated at the college of the
According to Bernard de Fontenelle, Blondel was a disciple of Father
Early work
He began as a poet, writing a poem in
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His Lettres galantes du chevalier d'Her ..., published anonymously in 1685, was a collection of letters portraying worldly society of the time. It immediately made its mark. In 1686 his famous allegory of Rome and Geneva, slightly disguised as the rival princesses Mreo and Eenegu, in the Relation de l'île de Bornéo, gave proof of his daring in religious matters. But it was by his Nouveaux Dialogues des morts (1683) that Fontenelle established a genuine claim to high literary rank.[7]
That claim was enhanced three years later by what has been summarised[8] as the most influential work on the plurality of worlds in the period, Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686). He wrote extensively on the nature of the universe: Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all. Our world is terrifying in its insignificance.
Later work
Fontenelle had made his home in Rouen. In 1687 he moved to Paris. In 1687 he published his Histoire des oracles, a book which made a considerable stir in theological and philosophical circles. It consisted of two essays, the first of which was designed to prove that oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons, and the second that they did not cease with the birth of Jesus.
It excited the suspicion of the Church, and a
He remained influential in his older years and when a then unknown Jean-Jacques Rousseau met him in 1742, when Fontenelle was 85, he passed on the advice he gave all young writers that came to him: "You must courageously offer your brow to laurel wreaths and your nose to blows."[9]
A noted
Member of the French Academy
In 1691 he was received into the
Perhaps the best known of his éloges, of which there are sixty-nine in all, is that of his uncle Pierre Corneille. This was first printed in the Nouvelles de la republique des lettres (January 1685) and, as Vie de Corneille, was included in all the editions of Fontenelle's Œuvres. The other important works of Fontenelle are his Éléments de la géometrie de l'infini (1727) and his Théorie des tourbillons (1752). In the latter he supported the views of René Descartes concerning gravitation, material that by that time had effectively been superseded by the work of Isaac Newton.[4]
He is noted for the accessibility of his work – particularly its novelistic style. This allowed non-scientists to appreciate scientific development in a time where this was unusual, and scientists to benefit from the thoughts of the greater society. If his writing is often seen as trying to popularize the astronomical theories of Descartes, whose greatest exponent he is sometimes considered, it also appealed to the literate society of the day to become more involved in "natural philosophy," thus enriching the work of
Legacy
Fontenelle was a popular figure in the educated French society of his period, byholding a position of esteem comparable only to that of Voltaire. Unlike Voltaire, however, Fontenelle avoided making important enemies. He balanced his penchant for universal critical thought with liberal doses of flattery and praise to the appropriate individuals in aristocratic society.
Fontenelle forms a link between two very widely different periods of French literature, that of Corneille, Racine and Boileau on the one hand, and that of Voltaire, D'Alembert and Diderot on the other. It is not in virtue of his great age alone that this can be said of him; he actually had much in common with the beaux esprits of the 17th century, as well as with the philosophes of the 18th. But it is to the latter rather than to the former period that he properly belongs.
According to Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, he deserves a place dans la classe des esprits infiniment distinguésbut is distinguished by being ought to be added by intelligence rather than by intellect and less by the power of saying much than by the power of saying a little well. There have been several collected editions of Fontenelle's works, the first being printed in 3 vols. at the Hague in 1728–1729. The best is that of Paris, in 8 vols., 1790. Some of his separate works have been frequently reprinted and also translated.
The
His
In 1935, the
Bibliography
- La Comète (1681)
- Nouveaux dialogues des morts (1683)
- De l'origine des fables (1684)
- Lettres galantes du chevalier d’Her*** (1685)
- Relation de l’île de Bornéo (1686)
- Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686; revised 1724)
- Histoire des oracles (1687)
- Digression sur les anciens et les modernes (1688)
- Le Comte de Gabalis, comédie en un acte (1689)
- Énée et Lavinie (1690)
- Idalie (circa 1710)
References
- ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
- ^ "Fontenelle biography". www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ a b Madame Geoffrin by Janet Aldis. G. P. Putnam's sons. 1905. p. 26. Retrieved 16 August 2012 – via Internet Archive.
Fontenelle Madame Helvetius.
- ^ a b c d e Grégoire François. Le dernier défenseur des tourbillons : Fontenelle.. In: Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications, tome 7, n°3, 1954. pp. 220-246. doi : 10.3406/rhs.1954.3438 http://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0048-7996_1954_num_7_3_343 Archived 5 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Lycée Pierre Corneille de Rouen – History". Lgcorneille-lyc.spip.ac-rouen.fr. 19 April 1944. Retrieved 16 August 2012.
- ^ "Resolution des quatre principaux problemes d'architecture". University of Tours (in English and French). Archived from the original on 22 April 2016. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- .
- .
- ^ Leo Damrosch (2007). Jean-Jacques Roussea: Restless Genius. Mariner Books.
- ISBN 9780674318106.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 608–609. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- Works by or about Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle at Internet Archive
- Works by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews