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Jean Baptiste Gresset

Jean-Baptiste-Louis Cresset, born 29 August 1709 at Amiens , and died in the same city on 16 June 1777 , is a French poet and playwright. He was a Jesuit from 1726 to 1735.

Summary

1 Biography
2 Quotes
3 Works
4 Bibliography
5 Notes and references
6 External links

/ / Biography

Youth and early career

Jean-Baptiste Cresset studied at the College of Jesuits at Amiens before entering the order at the age of seventeen years on 3 September 1726. He studied at the College Louis-le-Grand and then teaches humanities at Moulins , Tours and Rouen , appreciated as a teacher.

From 1730 he published an Ode on love of country. A little later he discovered the genre he excelled: it will be poetry kids, joking and enjoying life in convents. His masterpiece - in the genre - is the poem Verde Verde , or travel parrot Nevers ( 1734 ). The success is considerable. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau calls this poem "literary phenomenon", for both the time and talent. The same year, Cresset gives two other poems in the same spirit: the living and Lectern Lent impromptu.

Other contemporary pieces, Chartreuse ( 1734 ), The Shadows, In the epistles Movin 'Father , to my sister, my muse, and so on. - More serious and philosophical - are also less successful.

The top of the Visitation of Nevers , whose convent had been ridiculed in Vert-Vert gets the poet is penalized. Cresset is transferred to the college of La Fleche , where he spends his time translating the Eclogues of Virgil before leaving the Jesuits in 1735 , without having been ordained priest. He writes on this occasion his farewell to the Jesuits. There edge of regret and emotion:

If their homes now I do not live,

My heart survives with them ^{Exhibitions and Academies}

So begins a socialite knows where Cresset fast success. He attended especially the "green office" Hall Forcalquier at the Countess of Brancas. A protg of Madame de Pompadour , he is exposed to the wit of songwriters jealous of the favor he enjoyed.

Turning to the theater, he first gives - without success - a tragedy, Edward III ( 1740 ) and a drama Sidney ( 1745 ) before his comedy The Villain ( 1747 ). This work is much better received, which earned him election to the French Academy ( 1748 ), where it occupies ^the 5th chair. He replaces the 28 March 1748, Antoine Danchet and formally received by Claude Gros de Boze on April 4 next.

It al'insigne honor of being admitted to the Royal Academy of Berlin , while declining the offer of the King of Prussia to settle in his capital. He founded in 1750 the Academy of Amiens , he was appointed president in perpetuity. He married in 1751.

Turning religious

Is this related to his marriage? The fact is that there is a moral and religious change in his attitude and writings.

Receiving the 25 August 1754 , Louis de Boissy to the French Academy, he blames in his speech what he calls the "indecency of intrigue." The same year, December 19 , responding to the acceptance speech of D'Alembert , he protested against the bishops who failed to do their residency obligation. These critics do not like and give rise to complaints coming from the King. The latter has expressed its displeasure, Cresset retired to his hometown of Amiens.
On the advice of the Bishop of Amiens, it burns some of its projects including several unpublished works. He denies his works in light in 1759 , up cursing poetry as a dangerous art, to deplore the scandal he had caused by his comedies and solemnly to retract what he could write "in a tone some thought , rhymed in trifles which is multiplied editions "before he had" never been in any confidence. " This shift coupled with the rise of such improbabilities sarcasm of Voltaire (including The Poor Devil) and Piron.
On 4 August 1774 , Cresset reappears at the French Academy to meet the acceptance speech of Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard. Discoursing on the influence of morality on language in a speech that seemed a monument of bad taste, it rises against the Anglomania forcefully under toilet: the speech made the audience laugh. However, Louis XVI gave him letters of nobility and Mr appointed historian of the Order of St. Lazarus.
It took a few reads before the Academy of Amiens: The Gazetin, poem in 4 songs that was not printed; The Godfather beautiful poem in 10 songs that was not published until after the death of its author, two songs that he planned to add Green Verde - entitled "The Residents" and "The Laboratory of Sisters" - and which he abandoned on the advice of his bishop.

Jean-Baptiste Cresset rests in the transept, north of Amiens Cathedral.

In 1781, the Academy of Rouen, in the context of its contest for a prize or Letters of eloquence, offered praise Cresset. None of the submissions addressed was not considered worthy of the prize. The subject was shown in 1782,1783,1784 with this time to the key, a reward of 1,200 pounds. Submissions should be provided before June 15, 1785 and August 25, 1786, feast day of St. Louis, the Academy decided that once again, no work deserves reward. The prize was not awarded in competition. However, one of the unsuccessful candidates decided to publish his "In Praise of Cresset. The work appeared in Royet, bookseller in Paris in late 1785. The author, also a former student of Louis the Great, was Maximilien Robespierre. The opening words of the eulogy was written thus: "The real tribute to a great man, what are his actions and his works any praise seems pretty useless to his glory: but whatever it is a good show to see a nation make solemn tributes to those who have illustrated, contemplate, so to speak, with just pride, the monuments of its glory and titles of nobility, and light a useful emulation in the hearts of these people public praise by awarding it to the virtues and talents that have honored. "

Quotes

Women's desire is a fire devours

Desire nun is a hundred times worse.

(Green-Green)

The spirit that wants to spoil that we a.

(The Villain)

It has fairly nice eyes for eyes province.

(The Villain)

The ruling is not one law for all.

Pain is a century and a moment of death.

The praise is absent without flattery.

Works

Green-Green , the story of a parrot of Nevers (1734)
The impromptu Lent (1734)
The Lectern living (1734)
Chartreuse (1734)
Shadows (1734)
Edward III, tragedy, January 22, 1740
Sidney, verse drama, May 3, 1745
The Villain , a comedy in five acts, in verse, April 15, 1747
The Godfather beautiful poem in ten cantos (1810)
Correspondence with Frederick the Great

Bibliography

Cayrol, Louis-Nicolas: Historical Essay on the life and works of Cresset, Amiens, 1844.
Wogue, J. Jean-Baptiste Cresset, his life and his works, Paris, 1894.
SALAZAR, PG: The Theater of Cresset: reflection of an era, (PhD), Paris, 1977.
S. Lenel: Cresset Voltaire, Paris, 1889. (Rd. 2010, ed. Nabu Press)

References

quoted from Wogue, JBL Cresset, Paris, 1894, p.80

See "In Praise of Cresset" by Maximilien Robespierre. Works by Maximilien Robespierre Tome 1 - Literary Works - Publication of the Society for Research Robespierrists - Phoenix Edition - 2000