biography
| name: |
Baïf, Jean-Antoine de
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pronunciation:
[baeef]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1532–89)
|
| biography:
| French poet, born in Venice, NE Italy, the most learned of the seven French poets who made up the group known as La Pléiade. The son of a poet, he received a classical education, and in 1547 went with Pierre de Ronsard to study under Jean Dorat in Paris, where they planned, with Joachim du Bellay, to transform French poetry by imitating the ancients and the Italians. Baïf contributed two collections of Petrarchan sonnets, Les Amours de Méline (1552) and L'Amour de Francine (1555). He was inspired by Greco-Roman rhythms, and endeavoured to reform spelling on a phonetic basis. He used popular themes in his Chansonnettes mesurées, euvres en rime, published in the same year as Les Passe-Temps (1573). He adapted texts by Plautus, Hesiode, and Pythagoras, translated religious works, such as Peautiers (1567–87), and approached satire in Mimes, enseignements et proverbes (1576), considered his most original work. |
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