biography
| name: |
Malherbe, François de
|
pronunciation:
[malairb]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1555–1628)
|
| biography:
| Poet, born in Caen, NW France, of the Norman noblesse de robe. He studied at Basel and Heidelberg universities and became secretary to Henri d'Augoulême, who was assassinated in 1586. He turned to poetry, dedicating Les Larmes de Saint-Pierre (1627, The Tears of St Peter) to Henri III, and ingratiated himself with Henri IV. An industrious writer, he produced odes, songs, epigrams, epistles, translations, and criticism. His name is immortalized in the first line of Boileau's L'Art Poétique (1674) - ‘Enfin, Malherbe vint, et le premier en France...’, which hailed him as the initiator of classical poetry. He established the 12-syllable alexandrine as the standard for French verse. He retired, overwhelmed by the death of his son who was killed in a duel in 1624. |
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