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.

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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.