Jacques Delille was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and translator. He was born at Aigueperse

Aigueperse, Puy-de-Dôme

Aigueperse is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France.-Notable people:Aigueperse was the birthplace of:* Michel de l'Hôpital Aigueperse is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France.-Notable people:Aigueperse was the birthplace of:* Michel de...

 in Auvergne

Auvergne (province)

Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....

.

Life

He was an illegitimate child, and was descended by his mother from the chancellor De l'Hôpital

Michel de l'Hôpital

Michel de l'Hôpital was a French statesman.-Biography:De l'Hôpital was born near Aigueperse in Auvergne ....

. He was educated at the College of Lisieux in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and became an elementary teacher. He gradually acquired a reputation as a poet by his epistle

Epistle

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians...

s, in which things are not called by their ordinary names but are hinted at by elaborate paraphrases. Sugar becomes le miel américain, Que du suc des roseaux exprima l'Africain.

The publication (1769) of his translation of the Georgics

Georgics

The Georgics is a poem in four books, likely published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. It is a poem that draws on many prior sources and influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present...

of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 made him famous. Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

 recommended the poet for the next vacant place in the Académie française

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,...

. He was at once elected a member, but was not admitted until 1774 owing to the opposition of the king, who alleged that he was too young. In his Jardins, ou l'art d'embellir les paysages (1782) he made good his pretensions as an original poet. In 1786 he made a journey to Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 in the train of the ambassador M. de Choiseul-Gouffier.

Delille had become professor of Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 poetry at the Collège de France

Collège de France

The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

, and abbot of Saint-Sévrin, when the outbreak of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 reduced him to poverty. He purchased his personal safety by professing his adherence to revolutionary doctrine, but eventually quit Paris, and retired to Saint-Dié-des-Vosges

Saint-Dié-des-Vosges

Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, commonly referred to as Saint-Dié, is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-Geography:...

, where he completed his translation of the Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

.

He emigrated first to Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 and then to Glairesse in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. Here he finished his Homme des champs, and his poem on the Trois règnes de la nature. His next place of refuge was in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, where he composed his La Pitié; and finally, he passed some time in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, chiefly employed in translating Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

. In 1802 he was able to return to Paris, where, although nearly blind, he resumed his professorship and his chair at the Académie française, but lived in retirement. He fortunately did not outlive the vogue of the descriptive poems which were his special province.

Works

Delille left behind him little prose. His preface to the translation of the Georgics is an able essay, and contains many excellent hints on the art and difficulties of translation. He wrote the article Jean de La Bruyère

Jean de La Bruyère

Jean de La Bruyère was a French essayist and moralist.-Ancestry:He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan in 1645...

 in the Biographie universelle. The following is the list of his poetical works:

• Les Géorgiques de Virgile, traduites en vers français (Paris, 1769, 1782, 1785, 1809)
• Les Jardins, en quatre chants (1780; new edition, Paris, 1801)
• L'Homme des champs, ou les Géorgiques françaises (Strassburg, 1802)
• Poésies fugitives (1802)
• Dithyrambe sur l'immortalité de l'âme, suivi du passage du Saint Gothard, pome traduit de l'anglais de Madame la duchesse de Devonshire (1802)
• La Pitié, poeme en quatre chants (Paris, 1802)
• L'Énéide de Virgile, traduite en vers français (4 vols., 1804)
• Le Paradis perdu (3 vols., 1804)
• L'Imagination, poème en huit chants (2 vols., 1806)
• Les trois règnes de la nature (2 vols., 1808)
• La Conversation (1812).

A collection given under the title of Poésies diverses (1801) was disavowed by Delille.

His Œuvres (16 vols.) were published in 1824. See Sainte-Beuve

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.-Early years:...

, Portraits littéraires, vol. ii.

External links