Editing Étienne Jodelle (section)

== Biography ==

Jodelle belongs to the Parisian bourgeoisie, but he is attracted to the nobility. He is “Seigneur du Lymodin”. The premature death of her father when Jodelle was only four years old forced her mother, Marie Drouet, to take care of the education of her children, Étienne and his sister. Her maternal uncle, Étienne de Passavant, who owned a large collection of books, seems to have been the one who ignited Jodelle's taste for literature.

He stayed in [[Lyon]] to 1550, then he settled in Paris where he became friends with [[Jean Antoine de Baïf]], [[Nicolas Denisot]] and [[Remy Belleau]]. He belongs to the circle of the patron Jean II Brinon. Attached himself to the poetic circle of the [[La Pléiade|Pléiade]] and proceeded to apply the principles of the reformers to dramatic composition. Jodelle aimed at creating a classical drama that should be in every respect different from the moralities and {{lang|fr|[[sotie]]s}} that then occupied the French stage, his first play, ''[[Cléopâtre captive]]'', was represented before the court at the hôtel de Reims in 1552. Jodelle himself took the title role, and the cast included his friends [[Remy Belleau]] and [[Jean Bastier de La Péruse]], in honour of the play's success the friends organized a ceremony inspired by pagan rites called {{Interlanguage link multi|Pompe du Bouc|fr}}  at [[Arcueil]] when a goat garlanded with flowers was led in procession and presented to the author. The ceremony was exaggerated by the enemies of the [[Pierre de Ronsard|Ronsardists]] into a renewal of the pagan rites of the worship of [[Dionysus|Bacchus]].<ref name=EB1911/>

Jodelle wrote two other plays. ''Eugène'', a comedy satirizing the superior clergy, had less success than it deserved. Its preface poured scorn on Jodelle's predecessors in comedy, but in reality his own methods are not so very different from theirs. ''Didon se sacrifiant'', a tragedy which follows [[Virgil]]'s narrative, appears never to have been represented. Jodelle died in poverty in July 1573. His works were collected the year after his death by Charles de la Mothe. They include a quantity of miscellaneous verse dating chiefly from Jodelle's youth. The intrinsic value of his tragedies is small. ''Cléopâtre'' is lyric rather than dramatic. Throughout the five acts of the piece nothing actually happens. The death of [[Mark Antony|Antony]] is announced by his ghost in the first act; the story of Cleopatra's suicide is related, but not represented, in the fifth. Each act is terminated by a chorus which moralizes on such subjects as the inconstancy of fortune and the judgments of heaven on human pride. But the play was the starting-point of French classical tragedy, and was soon followed by the ''Médée'' (1553) of Jean Bastier de La Péruse and the ''Aman'' (1561) of {{Interlanguage link multi|André de Rivaudeau|fr}}. Jodelle was a rapid worker, but idle and fond of dissipation. His friend Ronsard said that his published poems gave no adequate idea of his powers.<ref name=EB1911/>

While he was considered favorable to the [[Reformation]], he wrote the sonnets  ''Contre les ministres de la nouvelle opinion''. He was later accused of having defended the [[St. Bartholomew's Day massacre]], notably by [[Pierre de l'Estoile]]. He may have been part of the literary circle of [[Claude Catherine de Clermont|Maréchale de Retz]].

Jodelle received five hundred pounds from [[Charles IX of France]] in 1572, but continued to fall into debt, and he died in poverty in July 1573, in a hovel on rue Champ-Fleury2. The Protestant poet [[Agrippa d'Aubigné]] celebrated him in Funereal Verses. It was Charles de La Mothe who, after the poet's death, had his Œuvres et melanges poëtiques printed (Paris, N. Chesneau and M. Patisson, 1574).

In modern times, the contribution of his work has gained importance, as a precursor of theater in the country but also in the development of what would later be called [[Classical unities|French classical theater]].

Jodelle's works are collected (1868) in the ''Pléiade française'' of [[Charles Marty-Laveaux]]. The prefatory notice gives full information of the sources of Jodelle's biography, and La Mothe's criticism is reprinted in its entirety.<ref name=EB1911/>