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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: FLA-FRA |
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FONTENELLE, BERNARD LE BOVIER DE (1657-1757) , French author, was born at Rouen, on the 11th of February 1657. He died in Paris, on the 9th of January 1757, having thus very nearly attained the age of loo years. His father was an advocate settled in Rouen, his mother a sister of the two Corneille. He was educated at the college of the Jesuits.in his native city, and distinguished himself by the extraordinary precocity and versatility of his talents. His teachers, who readily appreciated these, were anxious for him to join their order, but his father had designed him for the bar, and an advocate accordingly he became; but, having lost the first cause which was entrusted to him, he soon abandoned law and gave himself wholly to literary pursuits. His attention was first directed to poetry; and more than once he competed for prizes of the French Academy, but never with success. He visited Paris from time to time and established intimate relations with the abbe de Saint Pierre, the abbe Vertot and the mathematician Pierre Varignon. He witnessed, in 168o, the total failure of his tragedy Aspar. Fontenelle afterwards acknowledged the justice of the public verdict by burning his unfortunate drama. His opera of Thetis
great
His Lettres galantes du chevalier d'Her . . ., published anonymously in 1685, was an amusing collection of stories that immediately made its mark. In 1686 his famous allegory of Rome and Geneva, slightly disguised as the rival princesses Mreo and Eenegu, in the Relation de Pile
work
ordinary reader. His object was to popularize among his countrymen the astronomical theories of Descartes; and it may well be doubted if that philosopher ever ranked a more ingenious or successful expositor among his disciples.Hitherto Fontenelle had made his home in Rouen, but in 1687 he removed to Paris; and in the same year he published his Histoire des oracles, a book which made a considerable stir in theological and philosophical circles. It consisted of two essays, the first of which was designed to prove that oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons, and the second that they did not cease with the birth
In 1691 he was received into the French Academy in spite of the determined efforts of the partisans of the ancients in this quarrel, especially of Racine and Boileau, who on four previous occasions had secured his rejection. He consequently was admitted a member both of the Academy of Inscriptions and of the Academy of Sciences; and in 1697 he became perpetual secretary to the latter body
forty
great
D'Alembert and Diderot on the other. It is not in virtue of his great age alone that this can be said of him; he actually had much in common with the beaux esprits of the 17th century, as well as with the philosophes of the 18th. But it is to the latter rather than to the former period that he properly belongs. He has no claim to be regarded as a genius; but, as Sainte-Beuve has said, he well deserves a place " Bans la classe des esprits infiniment distingues "distinguished, however, it ought to be added by intelligence rather than by intellect, and less by the power of saying much than by the power of saying a little well. In personal character he has sometimes been described as having been revoltingly heartless; and it is abundantly plain that he was singularly incapable of feeling strongly the more generous emotionsa misfortune, or a fault, which revealed itself in many ways. " Il faut avoir de fame pour avoir du godt." But the cynical expressions of such a man are not to be taken too literally; and the mere fact that he lived and died in the esteem of many friends suffices to show that the theoretical selfishness which he sometimes professed cannot have been consistently and at all times carried into practice. There have been several collective editions of Fontenelle's works, the first being printed in 3 vols. at the Hague in 1728-1729. The best is that of Paris, in 8 vols. 8vo, 1790. Some of his separate works have been very frequently reprinted and also translated. The Pluralite des mondes was translated into modern Greek in 1794. Sainte-l3euve has an interesting essay on Fontenelle, with several useful references, in the Causeries du lundi, vol. iii. See also Ville-main, Tableau de la literature frangaise au X VIII, siecle; the abbe Trublet, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de Fontenelle (1759); A. Laborde-Milaa, Fontenelle (19o5), in the " Grands ecrivains francais " series ; and L. Maigron, Fontenelle, l'homme, l'ceuvre, l'influence (Paris, 1906).End of Article: FONTENELLE, BERNARD LE BOVIER DE (1657-1757) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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