Guillaume Colletet
Encyclopedia
Guillaume Colletet was a French poet and a founder member of the Académie française
. His son was François Colletet
.
Colletet married, in succession, three female servants, one of whom, Claudine Le Nain, he attempted to pass of as a poet in her own right, himself composing works which she then signed. When he realised he was dying, he produced a poem stating that she was giving up poetry following her husband's death; but no one was fooled. Jean de La Fontaine
wrote an epigram on the subject.
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
. His son was François Colletet
François Colletet
François Colletet was a French poet, the son of the poet Guillaume Colletet, however, his poetry was considered inferior to that of his father and he was ridiculed by Nicolas Boileau.-Works:*Noëls nouveaux, 1660*the Tracas de Paris, 1665...
.
Life
Colletet was born and died in Paris. He had a great reputation among his contemporaries and enjoyed the patronage of several important people, including Cardinal Richelieu, which whom he sometimes collaborated and who once gave him 600 livres for six verses.Colletet married, in succession, three female servants, one of whom, Claudine Le Nain, he attempted to pass of as a poet in her own right, himself composing works which she then signed. When he realised he was dying, he produced a poem stating that she was giving up poetry following her husband's death; but no one was fooled. Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...
wrote an epigram on the subject.
Works
- Divertissements ;
- poems (tragedies, pastorals, etc), including le Banquet des Poètes (1646) ;
- EpigramEpigramAn epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
me (1653) ; - Histoire des poètes français .
- Much-esteemed treatises on moral poetry, sonnets and eclogues, gathered under the title d'Art poétique, 1658
- Translations, including of the Couches de la Vierge by Jacopo SannazaroJacopo SannazaroJacopo Sannazaro was an Italian poet, humanist and epigrammist from Naples.He wrote easily in Latin, in Italian and in Neapolitan, but is best remembered for his humanist classic Arcadia, a masterwork that illustrated the possibilities of poetical prose in Italian, and instituted the theme of...
and of works by Scévole de Sainte-MartheScévole de Sainte-Marthe (1536-1623)Scévole de Sainte-Marthe was a French poet....
.