Jean Rotrou (August 19 or 20, 1609 - June, 1650) was a French poet and tragedian. August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... // Events April 4 – King of Spain signs an edit of expulsion of all moriscos from Spain April 9 – Spain recognizes Dutch independence May 23 - Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia. ... June is the sixth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four with the length of 30 days. ... // Events June 23 - Claimant King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland arrives in Scotland, the only of the three Kingdoms that has accepted him as ruler. ... Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. ... This article refers to the literary work. ...

Rotrou was born at Dreux in Normandy. He studied at Dreux and at Paris, and, though three years younger than Pierre Corneille, began writing before him. In 1632 he became playwright to the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne. With few exceptions, the only events recorded of his life are the successive appearances of his plays and his enrolment in 1635 in the band of five poets who had the duty of turning Richelieu's dramatic ideas into shape. Dreux is a town and commune in northwest France, in the Eure-et-Loir département. ... Mont Saint Michel is a historic pilgrimage site and a symbol of Normandy Normandy is a geographical region in northern France. ... Pierre Corneille (June 6, 1606–October 1, 1684) was one of the three great dramatists produced by France during the 17th century, along with Molière and Racine. ... A playwright is an author of plays for performance in the theater. ... For other uses of Richelieu, see Richelieu (disambiguation). ...

Rotrou's own first piece, L'Hypocondriaque (first produced in 1631), dedicated to the Comte de Soissons, seigneur of Dreux, appeared when he was only eighteen. In the same year he published a collection of Œuvres poetiques, including elegies, epistles and religious verse. His second piece, La Bague de l'oubli (1635), an adaptation in part from the Sortija del Olvido of Félix Lope de Vega, was much more characteristic. It is the first of several plays in which Rotrou endeavoured to naturalize in France the romantic comedy which had flourished in Spain and England instead of the classical tragedy of Seneca and the classical comedy of Terence. Louis de Bourbon, comte de Soissons (1604-1641) was the son of Charles de Bourbon, comte de Soissons and Anne de Montafié. He was the 2nd cousin of King Louis XIII of France. ... Lope de Vega (also Félix Lope de Vega Carpio or Lope Félix de Vega Carpio) (25 November 1562 – 27 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright and poet. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (mid-2004) - Density Ranked 1st UK 50. ... Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca, or Seneca the Younger) (c. ... Comedy is the use of humor in the performing arts. ... Publius Terentius Afer, better known as Terence, was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. ...

Corneille had leanings in the same direction. Rotrou's brilliant but hasty and unequal work showed the marks of a stronger adhesion to the Spanish model. In 1634, when he printed Cleagénor et Doristée (acted 1630), he said he was already the author of thirty plays; but this probably includes adaptations. Diane (acted 1630; pr. 1633), Les Occasions perdues (acted 1631; printed 1635), which won for him the favour of Richelieu, and L'Heureuse Constance (acted 1631; pr. 1635), which was praised by Anne of Austria, succeeded each other rapidly, and were all in the Spanish manner. For other uses of Richelieu, see Richelieu (disambiguation). ... Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (September 22, 1601 _ January 20, 1666) was Queen Consort of France and Regent for her son, Louis XIV of France. ...

In 1631 Rotrou imitated Plautus in Les Mentyhmes, and in 1634 Seneca in his Hercube mourant. Comedies and tragi-comedies followed. Documents exist showing the sale of four pieces to Antoine de Sommarille for 750 binres tournois in 1636, and in the next year he sold ten to the same bookseller. He spent much time at Le Mans with his patron, de Belin, who was one of the opponents of Corneille in the quarrel over Le Cid. It has been generally assumed, partly because of a forged letter long accepted as Corneille's, that Rotrou was his generous defender in this matter. He appears to have been no more than neutral, but is credited with an attempt at reconciliation between the parties in a pamphlet printed in 1637, L'Inconnu et veritable amy de messieurs de Scudéry et Corneille. // Events February 5 - Roger Williams emigrates to Boston. ... Titus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. ... Le Mans is a city in France, located at the Sarthe River. ... Le Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published/first_performed??? in 1636/1637???. It is based on the legend of El Cid. ...

De Belin died in 1637, and in 1639 Rotrou bought the post of lieutenant particulier au baüliage at Dreux. In the next year he married Marguerite Camus, and settled down as a model magistrate and père de famille. Among his pieces written before his marriage were a translation of the Amphitryon of Plautus, under the title of Les Deux Sosies (1636), Antigone (1638), and Laure Persecutie (acted 1637; pr. 1639), in the opposite style to these classical pieces. Events February 3 - Tulipmania collapses in Netherlands by government order February 15 - Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor December 17 - Shimabara Rebellion erupts in Japan Pierre de Fermat makes a marginal claim to have proof of what would become known as Fermats last theorem. ... Amphitryon, or Amphitrion, in Greek mythology, was a son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis. ... Titus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. ...

In 1646 Rotrou produced the first of his four masterpieces, Le Veritable Saint Genest (acted 1646; pr. 1648), a story of Christian martyrdom containing some amusing byplay, one noble speech and a good deal of dignified action. Rotrou uses with considerable success the device of a play within a play. The actor Genest becomes a real convert while playing the part of a Christian martyr. Incidentally (Act i. Sc. v.) Rotrou pays a noble tribute to the genius of Corneille. Don Bertrand de Cabrère (1647) is a tragi-comedy of merit; Venceslas (1647; pr. 1648) is considered in France his masterpiece, and has had several modern revivals; Cosroès (1649) has an Oriental setting, and is claimed as the only absolutely original piece of Rotrou. // Events The Westminster Confession of Faith Ongoing events English Civil War (1642-1649) Births February 4 - Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz, German statesman and poet (d. ... Historically, a martyr is a person who dies for his or her religious faith. ...

These masterpieces follow foreign models, and Rotrou's genius is shown in the skill with which he simplifies the plot and strengthens the situations. Saint Genest followed Lope de Vega's Lo fingido verdadero; Venceslas followed the No ay ser padre siendo rey of Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla. In this play Ladislas and his brother both love the princess Cassandra; Ladislas makes his way into her house and in the darkness kills a man whom he thinks to be the duke of Courland, but who is really his brother Alexandre, the favoured lover. In the early morning he meets the king and is confronted by the duke of Courland. The outline of this incident is in the Spanish play, but there the spectators are aware of the ghastly mistake at the time of the murder. Rotrou shows his dramatic skill by concealing the real facts from the audience until they are revealed to the horror-struck Ladislas himself. Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla (1607 - c. ...

In 1650 the plague broke out at Dreux. Rotrou remained at his post, although urgently desired to save himself by going to Paris; caught the disease, and died in a few hours. He was buried at Dreux on June 28 1650. Rotrou's great fertility (he left thirty-five collected plays besides others lost, strayed or uncollected), and perhaps the uncertainty of dramatic plan shown by his hesitation almost to the last between the classical and the romantic style have injured his work. He has no thoroughly good play, hardly one thoroughly good act. But his situations are often pathetic and noble, and as a tragic poet properly so called he is at his best almost the equal of Corneille and of Jean Racine. His single lines and single phrases have a brilliancy and force not to be found in French drama between Corneille and Victor Hugo. // Events June 23 - Claimant King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland arrives in Scotland, the only of the three Kingdoms that has accepted him as ruler. ... Plague is usually understood as a generic term for Bubonic plague, the mortal disease caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis, which is spread by fleas from rats and some species of mice to human beings. ... (Some entries on this page have been duplicated on August 1. ... Jean Racine (December 22, 1639 - April 21, 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the big three of 17th century France (along with Molière and Corneille). ... Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802–May 22, 1885) was a French author, designer, and artist. ...

A complete edition of Rotrou was edited in five volumes by Viollet-le-Duc in 1822. In 1882 Louis de Ronchaud published a handsome edition of six plays--Saint Genest, Venceslas, Don Bertrand de Cabrère, Antigone, Hercule Mourant and Cosroes. Venceslas and Saint Genest are also to be found in the Chefs-d'œuvre Tragiques of the Collection Didot. Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (Paris, January 27, 1814 - Lausanne 1879) was a French architect, famous for his restorations of medieval buildings. ...

Rotrou's brother, Pierre Rotrou de Saudreville, left a memoir of him which is unfortunately lost, but this is cited by the Abbé Brillon (1671-1736) as his authority in a Notice biographique sur Jean Rotrou, first printed in I885 at Chartres under the editorship of L Merlet. Other good earlier authorities are:

• Nicéron, Mémoires pour servir de l'histoire des hommes illustres (1731), vol. xvi. pp. 89-97
• the duke de la Vallière, Bibl. du théâtre français depuis son origine (Dresden, 1768), vol. ii. pp. 155-273

Later works are by:

• J Jarry, Essai sur les œuvres dramatiques de Jean Rotrou (Paris and Lille, 1868)
• Léonce Person, Hist. du Venceslas de Rotrou, suivie de notes critiques et biographiques (1882), in which many legends about Rotrou are discredited
• Hist. du veritable Saint Genest de Rotrou (1882), Les Papiers de Pierre Rotrou de Saudreyule (1883)
• Henri Chardon, La Vie de Rotrou mieux connue (1884)
• Georg Steffens, Jean Rotrou als Nachahmer Lope de Vega's (Berlin, 1891).

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