JEAN DE

See also:

• JEAN DE MAIRET (1604–1686)

MAIRET (1604–1686)  , French dramatist, was born at Besancon, and baptized on the loth of May 1604 . His own statement that he was born in 1610 has been disproved . He went to Paris to study at the College des Grassins about 1625, in which year he produced his first piece Chriseide et Arimand, followed in 1626 by Sylvie, a " pastoral tragi-comedy." In 1634 appeared his masterpiece, Sophonisbe, which marks, in its observance of the rules, the beginning of the " regular " tragedies . Mairet was one of the bitterest assailants of Corneille in the controversy over The Cid . It was perhaps his jealousy of Corneille that made him give up writing for the stage . He was appointed in 1648 official representative of the Franche-Comte in Paris, but in 1653 he was banished by Mazarin . He was subsequently allowed to return, but in 1668 he retired to Besancon, where he died on the 31st of January 1686 . His other plays include Silvanire ou la Morte-vive, published in 1631 with an elaborate preface on the observance of the unities, Les Galanteries du duc d'Orsonne (1632), Virginie (1633), Marc-Antoine (1635), and Le Grand at dernier Solyman (1637) . See G . Bizos, Etude sur la vie et les teuvres de Jean de Mairet (1877) . Sophonisbe was edited by K . Vollmoller (Heilbronn, 1888), and Silvanire by R .

Otto (Bamberg, 1890) .