JOSEPH

See also:

• JOSEPH AUTRAN (1813-1877)

AUTRAN (1813-1877)  , French poet, was born at Marseilles on the loth of June 1813 . In 1832 he addressed an ode to Lamartine, who was then at Marseilles on his way to the East . The elder poet persuaded the young man's father to allow him to follow his poetic bent, and Autran remained from that time a faithful disciple of Lamartine . His best known work is La Mer (1835), remodelled in 1852 as Les Poemes de la mer . Ludibria ventis (1838) followed, and the success of these two volumes gained for Autran the librarianship of his native town . His other most important work is his Vie rurale (1856), a series of pictures of peasant life . The Algerian campaigns inspired him with verses in honour of the common soldier . Milianah (1842) describes the heroic defence of that town, and in the same vein is his Laboureurs et soldats (1854) . Among his other works are the Paroles de Salomon (,868), Epitres rustiques (1861), Sonnets capricieux, and a tragedy played with great success at the Odeon in 1848, La Fine d'Eschylt . A definitive edition of his works was brought out between 1875 and 1881 . He became a member of the French Academy in 1868, and died at Marseilles on the 6th of March 1877 .