Adrien-Thomas Perdou de Subligny

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Adrien-Thomas Perdou de Subligny (* around 1640 ; † before August 22, 1680 ) was a French court writer, journalist and writer.

life and work

Critical preliminary remark on biography

Little is known about Subligny's life. There were and are several untruths floating around. So he was an actor ( comédien ); In reality, comédien also meant “comedy author” in its day. It is also unlikely that he was a lawyer in parliament, as has been claimed. Neither birth nor death dates are available. Only his marriage in 1667 to Claude Bourgoing, who had already given him a daughter ( Marie-Thérèse de Subligny , who became known as a dancer ), and the widow status of his wife on August 22, 1680 are documented.

Position on court and state

Subligny belonged to the Dauphin's circle at the court of Louis XIV . From 1666 to 1667 he wrote a kind of official court newspaper in rhymes: La Muse dauphine , then: La Muse de la Cour . It consisted of letters addressed to the (five-year-old) Dauphin or to Mademoiselle de Toussi (Françoise-Angélique, 1650–1711), the daughter of the governess of the Dauphin ( Louise de Prie de La Mothe-Houdancourt ). Subligny was also a friend of the wealthy tax farmer René Jean Rémy Hénault de Cantobre (1648–1737).

La Folle Querelle

The successful premiere of Jean Racine's play Andromaque on November 17, 1667 at the Versailles court marked the rise of a new star in the theater sky and with it the end of the 30-year Corneille era . This called on numerous Corneille admirers who did not shy away from subjecting Racine's play to comprehensive criticism. Intense polemics ensued. In this situation, Subligny (as a friend of Molière ) wrote a parodic comedy entitled La folle querelle (The crazy quarrel) ou la Critique d'Andromaque , in which all the arguments put forward against Andromaque were processed, and those on May 18, 1668 by the Molière, who was at war with Racine, was premiered (30 performances in total). Racine, who acknowledged some of the reviews, later reconciled with Subligny when the latter actively opposed the critics of Bérénice ( Réplique à la critique de la Bérénice de Racine par l'abbé de Villars , 1671) and Phèdre ( Dissertation sur la tragédie de Phèdre , 1677).

Another piece entitled Le Désespoir extravagant , which was performed sixteen times by the Molière troupe, has been lost.

La Fausse Clélie

In 1670 Subligny published the novel La Fausse Clélie (The False Clelia), which saw several editions and was immediately translated into German. According to the French literary historian Alain Niderst (1938–2014) it is an important work ( une oeuvre véritable ) and, thanks to its realism, a forerunner of the novel L'Éducation sentimentale by Flaubert or the novel Nana by Zola .

Unrecognized author of other works?

Niderst believes it is possible, if not even probable, that Subligny is also the author (or co-author) of the following works:

  • Marie-Catherine de Villedieu : Journal amoureux . Novel. 1669.
  • the same: Mémoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Molière . 1672-1674.
  • Gabriel de Guilleragues : Les Lettres portugaises . Epistle novel. 1669. (Another possibility: Guilleragues helped Subligny with the Fausse Clélie )
  • Robert Challe : Les Illustres Françaises . Novel. 1713. (Challe would have more or less revised an old manuscript by Subligny)

Works (selection)

  • La fausse Clélie. Histoire françoise, galante et comique . Jacques Wagenaar, Amsterdam 1771.
    • (German) The wrong Clelia. A Style Funny French & French Comical story . Zubrodt, Frankfurt 1672.

literature

  • Augustin Jal : Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d'histoire . Paris 1872, pp. 1154-1155.
  • Alain Niderst: Essai d'histoire littéraire. Guilleragues, Subligny et Challe. Des Lettres Portugaises aux Illustres françaises . Nizet, Saint-Genouph 1999.
  • Nicholas Paige: "Releaming to Read: Truth and Reference in Subligny's La Fausse Clélie", in: The art of instruction. Essays on pedagogy and literature in 17th-century France , ed. by Anne Lynn Birberick. Rodopi, Amsterdam 2008.
  • Racine: Théâtre complet , ed. by Maurice Rat . Garnier, Paris 1960, p. 113.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Niderst 1999, p. 45, note 54
personal data
SURNAME Subligny, Adrien-Thomas Perdou de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French court writer, journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1640
DATE OF DEATH before August 22, 1680