Honored Urfe

Urfé, Honoréd’ 

Born Feb. 11, 1568, in Marseille; died June 1, 1625, in Villefranche. French writer.

Born into an old noble family, d’Urfé was the originator of the French pastoral romance. He was an adherent of the 17th-century literary school of preciosity. His novel L’Astrée (parts 1–3, 1607–18; parts 4–5, posthumous edition, 1627–28), which was influenced by Italian and Spanish-Portuguese literature, depicted in a refined manner the romantic adventures of its idyllic heroes. The name of the shepherd Celadon came to represent in literature a gallant cavalier. D’Urfé was also the author of Moral Epistles (1598) and the pastoral narrative poem The Siren (published 1604).

WORKS

In Russian translation:
In Khrestomatiia po zapadnoevropeiskoi literature: Literatura semnadtsatogo veka, 2nd ed. Compiled by B. I. Purishev. Moscow, 1949.

REFERENCES

Istoriia frantsuzskoi literatury, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946. Pages 373–74.
Magendie, M. Le Premier des grands romans français: L’Astrée. Paris, 1928.