COPPEE, FRANCOIS EDOUARD JOACHIM (18421908)

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 102 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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COPPEE, FRANCOIS EDOUARD JOACHIM (18421908) , French poet and novelist, was born in Paris on the 12th of January 1842. His father held a small post in the civil service, and he owed much to the care of an admirable mother. After passing through the Lycee Saint-Louis he became a clerk in the ministry of war, and soon sprang into public favour as a poet of the

young

" Parnassian " school. His first printed verses date from 1864. They were republished with others in 1866 in
a collected form (Le Reliquaire), followed (1867) by Les Intimites and Poemes modernes (1867-1869). In 1869 his first play, Le Passant, was received with marked approval at the Odeon theatre, and later Fais ce que dois (1871) and Les Bijoux de la delivrance (1872), short metrical dramas inspired by the war, were warmly applauded. f
After filling a post in the library of the senate, Coppee was chosen in 1878 as archivist of the Comedie-Francaise, an office which he held till 1884. In that year his election to the

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

caused him to retire altogether from his public appointments. He continued to publish volumes of poetry at frequent intervals, including Les Humbles (1872), Le Cahier

rouge

ROUGE (" red," from Lat. rubeus)

(1874), Olivier (1875), L'Exilee {1876), Conies en vers, &c. (1881), Fames et recits (1886), Arriere-saison (1887), Paroles sinceres (189o). In his later years his output of verse declined, but he published two more volumes, Dans la priere et la lutle and Vers francais. He had established his fame as " le poke des humbles." Besides the plays mentioned above, two others written in collaboration with Armand d'Artois, and some light pieces of little importance, Coppee produced Madame de Maintenon (1881), Severo Torelli (1883), Les Jacobites (1885), and other serious dramas in verse, including Pour la couronne (1895), which was translated into English (For the Crown) by John Davidson, and produced at the Lyceum Theatre in 1896. The performance of a short episode of the Commune, Le Pater, was prohibited by the government (1889). Coppee's first story in

prose

PROSE

, Une Idylle pendant le siege, appeared in 1875. It was followed by various volumes of short tales, by Toute une jeunesse (,89o)an attempt to reproduce the feelings, if not the actual wants, of the writer's youth,Les Vrais Riches (1892), Le Coupable (1896), &c. He was made an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1888. A

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of reprinted short articles on miscellaneous subjects, styled Mon Franc Parler, appeared from 1893 to 1896; and in 1898 was published La Bonne Souffrance, the outcome of Coppee's reconversion to the Roman Catholic Church, which gained very wide popularity. The immediate cause of his return to the faith was a severe illness which twice brought him to the verge of the grave. Hitherto he had taken little open

interest

INTEREST

in public affairs, but he now joined the most violent section of Nationalist politicians, while retaining contempt for the whole apparatus of democracy. He took a leading part against the prisoner in the Dreyfus case, and was one of the originators of the notorious Ligue de la Patric Francaise. He died on the 23rd of May 1908.
Alike in verse and

prose

PROSE

Coppee concerned himself with the plainest expressions of human emotion, with elemental patriot-ism, and the joy of

young

love, and the pitifulness of the poor, bringing to

bear

on each a singular

gift

GIFT (a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. die Gift, gift, das Gift, poison, formed from the Teut. stem gab-, to give, cf. Dutch geven, Ger. geben; in O. Eng. the word appears with initial y, the guttural of later English is due to Scandinavian influence)

of sympathy and insight. The lyric and idyllic poetry, by which he will chiefly be re-membered, is animated by musical charm, and in some instances, such as La Benediction and La Greve des forgerons, displays a vivid, though not a sustained, power of expression. There is force, too, in the gloomy tale, Le Coupable. But he exhibits all the defects of his qualities. In prose especially, his sentiment often degenerates into sentimentality, and he continually approaches, and sometimes oversteps, the verge of the trivial. Nevertheless, by neglecting that canon of contemporary art which would reduce the deepest tragedies of life to mere subjects for dissection, he won those common suffrages which are the prize of exquisite literature.
See M. de Lescure's Francois Coppee, l'homme, la vie, l'ceuvre (1889), and G. Druilhet, Un Poete francais (1902).

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