Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
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Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (13 January 1674 – 17 June 1762) was a French poet and tragedian.[1]
He is sometimes known as Crébillon père or Crébillon le Tragique (Crébillon the Tragic) to distinguish him from his son Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (Crébillon the Gay).[2]
Biography
Crébillon was born in
In 1705 he succeeded with Idoménée; in 1707 his Atrée et Thyeste was repeatedly acted at court; Electre appeared in 1709; and in 1711 he produced his finest play, Rhadamiste et Zénobie, considered as his masterpiece despite a complicated and over-involved plot. But his Xerxes (1714) was only performed once and his Sémiramis (1717) was an absolute failure.[3]
In 1707 Crébillon had married a penniless girl, who died, leaving him two young children. His father had also died, insolvent. In three years at court he had gained nothing and aroused considerable envy. Oppressed with melancholy, he moved to a garret, where he surrounded himself with dogs, cats and birds, which he had befriended; he became utterly careless of cleanliness or food, and sought comfort only in smoking.[3]
He returned to the stage in 1726 with a successful play, Pyrrhus. In 1731, despite his long seclusion, he was elected to the
Crébillon was considered by many to be superior to Voltaire as a tragic poet. The spirit of rivalry induced Voltaire to take the subjects of no less than five of Crébillon's tragedies (Semiramis, Electre, Catilina, Le Triumviral and Ahreeas) as his own. The so-called Éloge de Crébillon (1762; the title meant ironically), which appeared in the year of the poet's death, was generally attributed to Voltaire, though he strenuously denied the authorship.[4]
There are numerous editions of his works, among which may be noticed: Œuvres (1772), with preface and éloge, by Joseph de La Porte; Œuvres (1828), containing D'Alembert's Éloge de Crébillon (1775); and Théâtre complet (1885), with a notice by Auguste Vito. A complete bibliography is given by Maurice Dutrait in his Étude sur la vie et le théâtre de Crébillon (1895).[5]
Edgar Allan Poe took lines from Crébillon's Atrée as the last lines and obscure ending of his tale "The Purloined Letter".[6]
References
- ^ The Century Dictionary: The Century cyclopedia of names ... ed. by Benjamin E. Smith ... vol. I. Century Company. 1895. p. 289.
- ^ Durant, Will; Durant, Ariel (1965). The Age of Voltaire: A History of Civilization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756. The Story of Civilization. Vol. IX. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 60.
- ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911, p. 388.
- ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 388–389.
- ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 389.
- ^ Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Vintage Books, 1975, p. 222.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 388–389.
External links
- Works by Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon at Internet Archive
- Works by Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)