Jean de Mairet

The third and fourth decades of. the seventeenth century, or more strictly speaking the years from 1625 to 1637, form a rather important period in the history of French literature. This is the time when the great Corneille makes his appearance and the “Académie française” is established. For this reason it is all the more striking that there exists, apparently, a great uncertainty concerning a number of the precursors and contemporaries of Corneille, not only with regard to chronology, but also as to their true merits. One of the poets of that time, about whom opinions seem to be divided as to his literary position and undecided as to the chronology, is Jean de Mairet. of Besançon, who lived from 1604 to 1684. The chief works which Mairet wrote, are in chronological order as follows:Chryséide et Arimand, a tragi-comedy; Sylvie, a pastoral; Silvanire, also a pastoral, or as Mairet himself terms it, a tragicomédie pastorale; Due d'Ossonne, a comedy; Virginie, a tragi-comedy; and the tragedies: Sophonisbe, Marc Antoine Soliman, and Roland furieux.