JEAN JACQUES

See also:

• AMPERE, ANDRE MARIE (1775–1836)
• JEAN JACQUES AMPERE (1800-1864)

AMPERE (1800-1864)  , French philologist and man of letters, only son of Andre Marie Ampere, was born at Lyons on the 12th of August 1800 . He studied the folk-songs and popular poetry of the Scandinavian countries in an extended tour in northern Europe . Returning to France, he delivered in 183o a series of lectures on Scandinavian and early German poetry at the Athenaeum in Marseilles . The first of these was printed as De l'Histoire de la poesie (1830) , and was practically the first introduction of the French public to the Scandinavian and German epics . In Paris he taught at the Sorbonne, and became professor of the history of French literature at the College de France . A journey in northern Africa (1841) was followed by a tour in Greece and Italy, in company with Prosper Merimee and others . This bore fruit in his Voyage dantesque (printed in his Grece, Rome et Dante, 1848), which did much to popularize the study of Dante in France . In 1848 he be ame a member of the French Academy, and in 1851 he visited America . From this time he was occupied with his chief work, L'Histoire romaine a Rome (4 vols., 1861-1864), until his death at Pau on the 27th of March 1864 . The Correspondance et souvenirs (2 vols.) of A . M. and J . J .

Ampere (1805–1854) was published in 1875 . Notices of J . J . Ampere are to be found in Sainte-Beuve's Portraits litteraires, vol. iv., and Nouveaux Lundis, vol. xiii.; and in P . Merimee's Portraits historiques et litteraires (2nd ed., 18i5) .