Urbain Chevreau

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Urbain Chevreau

Urbain Chevreau (born April 20, 1613 in Loudun ; † February 15, 1701 ibid) was a French writer, historian, Romance scholar and grammarian.

life and work

Chevreau grew up in Loudun and studied law in Poitiers . From 1637 to 1652 he alternated between Loudun and Paris. From 1652 to 1655 he was in Holland and Sweden (around Queen Christine ). From 1663 to 1675 Chevreau lived unsteadily in Germany. Among other things, he played a role in the initiation of the wedding of Liselotte von der Pfalz with her brother Louis XIV, Philippe I. de Bourbon, duc d'Orléans . Until 1685 he was again mainly in Paris (among other things as co-educator of Louis Auguste I de Bourbon, duc du Maine ), from 1686 then finally in Loudun, where he left a rich library.

Chevreau published eight plays (1637-1641), two novels (1644-1656), several moral-philosophical treatises, poetry, a world history (1686), letters, and 1660 (in the succession of Claude Favre de Vaugelas ) purist comments on the Poems by François de Malherbe , which found an interest in linguistics and placed him in the group of prominent figures of classical French.

Chevreau lived a literary and scholarly life in the style of the 17th century. If he did not become a member of the Académie française , it was apparently because of his overwhelming absence from Paris. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, he was fortunate to find in Gustave Boissière a conscientious biographer and reader of all of his numerous writings.

A street in Loudun bears his name.

Works (selection)

  • Scanderberg , 2 vols., Paris 1644 (historical novel about Skanderbeg )
  • Remarques sur les poésies de Malherbe , Saumur 1660; ed. by Gustave Boissière, Niort 1909, Geneva 1989
  • Histoire du monde , 2 vols., Paris 1686, 1689, 1717
  • Oeuvres meslées de monsieur Chevreau , 2 vols., The Hague 1697
  • Chevraeana ou diverse pensées d'histoire, de critique, d'érudition et de morale , 2 vols., Paris 1697–1700

literature

  • Gustave Boissière: Urbain Chevreau. Sa vie. Ses œuvres. Etude biographique et critique. 504 pages, Niort 1909 ( digitized at Archive.org )
  • Antoine Adam : Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle. Volume 2, pp. 167–168, Paris 1997 (1st edition 1951)
  • Erich Brauch: Translation, Paraphrase and Plagiarism. Investigations into the fate of English character books in France in the 17th century. Tuebingen 1978

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Chevreau, Urbain
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer, historian, Romance philologist and grammarian
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1613
PLACE OF BIRTH Loudun
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1701
Place of death Loudun