Antoine Baudeau de Somaize
Antoine Baudeau, sieur de Somaize (* around 1630, † unknown) was a French author. He is known today for his work on the so-called Preziösentum in France during the 17th century. Somaize attacked Molière violently regarding its artistic originality and made serious allegations of plagiarism.
Life and work
About Antoine de Baudeau Somaizes life little is known. He served as secretary Maria Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin in 1657 and wrote a pamphlet against the writer François le Metel de Bois Robert. He gained some attention in connection with Molière's play Les précieuses ridicules of 1659, in which he had successfully made " the precieuses ", the social issue. As preciously were living, feeling and expressions of extreme or exaggerated sophistication; these were attributed to advance the Paris salon culture, and the terminology found in particular for a female audience application that should have distinguished themselves most conspicuous in the type mentioned.
Somaize used the attention that fell to the precieuses since Molière's one-act farce, and recovered it by means of several in quick succession of published literary works: Les véritables précieuses (1660 ), Les précieuses ridicules mises en vers (1660 ), Le grand dictionnaire ou la clef de la langue of ruelles (1660 ), Le procès of précieuses en vers burlesques (1660 ), Le grand dictionnaire the précieuses (1661 ). While Les Véritables Précieuses was still an independent text, Les précieuses mises en vers Molière ridicules rendered in rhymed prose stage language without changing the plot. In order not to be regarded as the true plagiarist, Somaize made in the prefaces to his works Molière - proven wrong - the accusation that only the auteur prétendu ( " supposed author") of Précieuses to be ridicules and to have written off: Both from the novel La précieuse, ou le mystère of ruelles (1656-1658) of the Abbé Michel de Pure as well as several stage plays, the Italian theater companies as that of the famous would (also known under the name of the coined by him stage character Scaramouche ) listed Tiberio Fiorelli. In general, he assumed the Molière defamatory, but remained unpunished saying that the whole art is an alien advance of the 1648 late actor Guillot - Gorju.
"It is a certainty that he [ Molière ] in all that he does a copycat and that he has not only written the Précieuses the Lord Abbé de Pure, which have been played by the Italians; but that he is also in a mimicry, which alone he is capable, has imitated volant the Doctor and other pieces of the same Italians who he not only in what is played in their theater, imitate, but even in their style of play, so that he incessantly both Trivelin and Scaramouche abkupfert. But what else should one expect from a man who all his glory Guillot - Gorgeus owes memoirs, which he bought from his widow and he converts them into his works? "
It is believed that behind Somaizes serious allegations are already established in Paris playwrights and theater companies ( so the Troupe royale and the Comédie- Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne ) were; probably wanted this effect to turn off the first few months earlier arrived from the province of Molière as competitors. The mention Scaramouches by Somaize was particularly piquant, as Fiorelli actually considered to be a friend of Molière and Louis XIV had allowed this to perform his pieces in the hall of adjoining the Louvre Petit- Bourbon, where the Italians occurred on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday.
Somaizes artistic works are not of concern, but in literary and cultural history. The Dictionnaire, which is written in the style of a popular lexicon, described some four hundred French personalities as actors of preciousness and declared the same to a mass phenomenon. In turn, you will find many of the Clef for their pretentiousness and Schwulsts, linguistic artistry and bizarre imagery as typical precious designated phrases and phrases. Somaizes Dictionnaire has literary character and his Clef quotes from Molière's satirical prose stage ( as well as many other authors ); yet these publications for reference works for the traditional in the next screen of an aesthetically effective Preziösentums in Paris and the French provincial cities, which, however, has recognized the younger literary criticism as a traveling animal border creation were.