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FONTENELLE, BERNARD LE BOVIER DE (165...

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 609 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FONTENELLE, See also:BERNARD LE BOVIER DE (1657-1757) , See also:French author, was See also:born at See also:Rouen, on the 11th of See also:February 1657. He died in See also:Paris, on the 9th of See also:January 1757, having thus very nearly attained the See also:age of See also:loo years. His See also:father was an See also:advocate settled in Rouen, his See also:mother a See also:sister of the two See also:Corneille. He was educated at the See also:college of the See also:Jesuits.in his native See also:city, and distinguished himself by the extraordinary precocity and versatility of his talents. His teachers, who readily appreciated these, were anxious for him to join their See also:order, but his father had designed him for the See also:bar, and an advocate accordingly he became; but, having lost the first cause which was entrusted to him, he soon abandoned See also:law and gave himself wholly to See also:literary pursuits. His See also:attention was first directed to See also:poetry; and more than once he competed for prizes of the French See also:Academy, but never with success. He visited Paris from See also:time to time and established intimate relations with the See also:abbe de See also:Saint See also:Pierre, the abbe Vertot and the mathematician Pierre Varignon. He witnessed, in 168o, the See also:total failure of his tragedy Aspar. Fontenelle afterwards acknowledged the See also:justice of the public See also:verdict by burning his unfortunate See also:drama. His See also:opera of See also:Thetis et Pelee, 1689, though highly praised by See also:Voltaire, cannot be said to rise much above the others; and it may be regarded as significant that of all his dramatic See also:works not one has kept the See also:stage. His Poesies pastorales (1688) have no greater claim to permanent repute, being characterized by stiffness and affectation; and the utmost that can be said for his poetry in See also:general is that it displays much of the limae labor, See also:great purity of diction and occasional felicity of expression. His Lettres galantes du See also:chevalier d'Her .

. ., published anonymously in 1685, was an amusing collection of stories that immediately made its See also:

mark. In 1686 his famous See also:allegory of See also:Rome and See also:Geneva, slightly disguised as the See also:rival princesses Mreo and Eenegu, in the Relation de See also:Pile de See also:Borneo, gave See also:proof of his daring in religious matters. But it was by his Nouveaux Dialogues See also:des morts (1683) that Fontenelle established a genuine claim to high literary See also:rank; and that claim was enhanced three years later by the See also:appearance of the Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes (1686), a See also:work which was among the very first to illustrate the possibility of being scientific without being either uninteresting or unintelligible to the See also:ordinary reader. His See also:object was to popularize among his countrymen the astronomical theories of See also:Descartes; and it may well be doubted if that philosopher ever ranked a more ingenious or successful expositor among his disciples. Hitherto Fontenelle had made his See also:home in Rouen, but in 1687 he removed to Paris; and in the same See also:year he published his Histoire des oracles, a See also:book which made a considerable stir in theological and philosophical circles. It consisted of two essays, the first of which was designed to prove that oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons, and the second that they did not cease with the See also:birth of See also:Christ. It excited the suspicion of the See also:Church, and a Jesuit, by name Baltus, published a ponderous refutation of it; but the See also:peace-loving disposition of its author impelled him to leave his opponent unanswered. To the following year (1688) belongs his Digression sur See also:les anciens et les modernes, in which he took the See also:modern See also:side in the controversy then raging; his Doutes sur le systeme physique des causes occasionnelles (against See also:Malebranche) appeared shortly afterwards. In 1691 he was received into the French Academy in spite of the determined efforts of the partisans of the ancients in this See also:quarrel, especially of See also:Racine and Boileau, who on four previous occasions had secured his rejection. He consequently was admitted a member both of the Academy of See also:Inscriptions and of the Academy of Sciences; and in 1697 he became perpetual secretary to the latter See also:body. This See also:office he actually held for the See also:long See also:period of See also:forty-two years; and it was in this See also:official capacity that he wrote the Histoire du renouvellement del' Academie des Sciences (Paris, 3 vols., 1708, 1717, 1722) containing extracts and analyses of the proceedings, and also the doges of themembers, written with great simplicity and delicacy. Perhaps the best known of his eloges, of which there are sixty-nine in all, is that of his See also:uncle Pierre Corneille.

This was first printed in the Nouvelles de la republique des lettres (January 1685) and, as See also:

Vie de Corneille, was included in all the See also:editions of Fontenelle's Euvres. The other important works of Fontenelle are his Elements de la geometric de l'infini (1727) and his Apologie des tourbillons (1752). Fontenelle forms a See also:link between two very widely different periods of French literature, that of Corneille, Racine and Boileau on the one See also:hand, and that of Voltaire,609 D'See also:Alembert and See also:Diderot on the other. It is not in virtue of his great age alone that this can be said of him; he actually had much in See also:common with the See also:beaux esprits of the 17th See also:century, as well as with the philosophes of the 18th. But it is to the latter rather than to the former period that he properly belongs. He has no claim to be regarded as a See also:genius; but, as Sainte-Beuve has said, he well deserves a See also:place " Bans la classe des esprits infiniment distingues "—distinguished, however, it ought to be added by intelligence rather than by See also:intellect, and less by the See also:power of saying much than by the power of saying a little well. In See also:personal See also:character he has sometimes been described as having been revoltingly heartless; and it is abundantly See also:plain that he was singularly incapable of feeling strongly the more generous emotions—a misfortune, or a See also:fault, which revealed itself in many ways. " Il faut avoir de fame pour avoir du godt." But the cynical expressions of such a See also:man are not to be taken too literally; and the See also:mere fact that he lived and died in the esteem of many See also:friends suffices to show that the theoretical selfishness which he sometimes professed cannot have been consistently and at all times carried into practice. There have been several collective editions of Fontenelle's works, the first being printed in 3 vols. at the See also:Hague in 1728-1729. The best is that of Paris, in 8 vols. 8vo, 1790. Some of his See also:separate works have been very frequently reprinted and also translated.

The Pluralite des mondes was translated into modern See also:

Greek in 1794. Sainte-l3euve has an interesting See also:essay on Fontenelle, with several useful references, in the Causeries du lundi, vol. iii. See also Ville-See also:main, Tableau de la literature frangaise au X VIII, siecle; the abbe Trublet, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de Fontenelle (1759); A. Laborde-Milaa, Fontenelle (19o5), in the " Grands ecrivains See also:francais " See also:series; and L. Maigron, Fontenelle, l'homme, l'ceuvre, l'See also:influence (Paris, 1906).

End of Article: FONTENELLE, BERNARD LE BOVIER DE (1657-1757)

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