Boileau, Nicolas

(1636-1711)

   poet, critic

   of bourgeois background, Nicholas Boileau, or Boileau-Despréaux, as he is known, was born in Paris and educated at the sorbonne. Considered to have had an important influence on French literature, as both a poet and a critic, he established the principles for French classical writing and, in this regard, was known as the "lawgiver of Princes." His earliest significant works include his 12 Satires (begun in 1660) in rhymed couplets, in which he gives witty and sharp critiques of contemporary writers. other important works include the several volumes of his Épîtres (1669-90); Art poétique (1674), which was inspired by Horace's Ars Poetica and in which Boileau analyzed various forms of poetry and set down the guidelines for their composition; and Le Latin (1674), a mock heroic poem that would later be used by the English poet Alexander Pope as a model for his Rape of the Lock. In 1670, Boileau-Despréaux was granted a pension by louis XIV,was made royal historiographer in 1677, and, in 1684, was elected into the Académie Française.