C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Jean Chapelain (1595–1674)
Chapelain, Jean (shäp-la
‘). A French poet and critic; born in Paris, Dec. 5, 1595; died there, Feb. 24, 1674. By his own unaided efforts he acquired a knowledge of Greek and Latin, Italian and Spanish. He won the favor of Cardinal Richelieu by his preface to Marini’s notorious poem ‘Adone,’ and was a leading founder of the French Academy, whose first meetings were held at his house. Through court influence he rose to be a recognized lawgiver of literature. He published in 1756 the first installment, 12 cantos, of a great epic, ‘The Maid of Orleans,’ on which he had been at work twenty years. But the critics, headed by Boileau, were so unfavorable that though of the first installment six editions were sold in eighteen months, no publisher could be found for the sequel.