Scarron, Paul

Scarron, Paul (pōl skärôN`), 1610–60, French writer. His picaresque novel Le Romant comique (1651) vividly portrays the lives of a company of strolling players. He also wrote short stories, collected as Les Nouvelles tragi-comiques (1655), satires, and burlesque poems and plays. Scarron married (1652) Françoise d'Aubigné, known later as Mme de Maintenon. He was long bedridden with paralysis.

---

Scarron, Paul

(baptized July 4, 1610, Paris, France—died Oct. 7, 1660, Paris) French writer. With his first works, Scarron helped make the burlesque a characteristic literary form of his time. Virgile travesty, 7 vol. (1648–53) was a very successful parody of Virgil's Aeneid. Scarron's plays, often based on Spanish originals, were important in the theatrical life of Paris. He is now remembered for a single novel, Le Roman comique, 3 vol. (1651–57; “The Comic Novel”), which recounts the comical adventures of a company of strolling players; its realism makes it an invaluable source of information about conditions in the French provinces in the 17th century. His widow, Madame de Maintenon, was later married to Louis XIV.

---

Scarron, Paul 

Born July 4, 1610, in Paris; died there Oct. 7, 1660. French writer. Opponent of classicism and literary preciosity.

Scarron’s first published work was A Collection of Burlesque Verse (1643), which was followed by the epic travesties Typhoon, or Gigantomachia (1644) and Vergil Travestied (1648–52). In the new genre that he originated, the burlesque epic travesty, he depicted the gods and heroes of antiquity endowed with human vices. His epics inspired numerous imitations. The Comic Novel (1651–57), which brought Scarron fame, depicted the life and mores of provincial society. Scarron preferred the Spanish theater to the French and borrowed heavily from the former for his comedies Jodelet, or the Valet as Master (staged 1645, published 1646) and Don Japhet From Armenia (staged 1646). Scarron’s comedies occupy an important place in the history of French dramaturgy. His last work was the series Tragicomic Stories (published 1661).

WORKS

Oeuvres, vols. 1–7. Paris, 1786.
Théâtre complet. Paris, 1879.
Poésies diverses, vols. 1–2, 1947–[1961].
In Russian translation:
Komicheskii roman. Foreword by N. Kravtsov. Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.
Tragikomicheskie novelly. Foreword by V. Bliumenfel’d. Leningrad, 1938.
Komedii. Foreword by V. Lozovetskii. Moscow, 1964.

REFERENCES

Istoriia frantsuzskoi literatury, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946. Pages 396–99.
De Armas, F. Paul Scarron. New York [1972],
Cioranescu, A. Bibliographie de la littérature française du XVII siècle, vol. 3. Paris, 1966.

T. G. KHATISOVA