C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
André Chénier (1762–1794)
Chénier, André Marie de (shā-nyā’). A notable French poet, older brother of Marie Joseph de Chénier; born at Constantinople, Oct. 30, 1762; died on July 25, 1794. Shortly before the Terror he made a vigorous attack on the Jacobins in the Journal de Paris. He wrote Louis XVI.’s appeal to the people after the death sentence. He celebrated in verse Charlotte Corday. He perished under the guillotine. The maturity, breadth, and soundness of his judgment in poetical composition are demonstrated by his poem on ‘Invention,’ written in his 24th year. Of the same year is his fine idyl ‘Liberty.’ Similar in spirit to this, and of perfect Pindaric form, is the ‘Dithyrambic on the Tennis Play’ (1791). In his prison of St. Lazare he composed a beautiful elegy, ‘The Girl Captive.’ (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).