United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All the authors who can compose blank verses very easily, as I can, employ them when they intend to make a fair copy of their prose. Ask Crebillon, the Abby de Voisenon, La Harpe, anyone you like, and they will all tell you the same thing. Voltaire was the first to have recourse to that art in the small pieces in which his prose is truly charming.
The King pensioned the successful poet; and the coffee-houses pronounced that Voltaire was a clever man, but that the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire which had glowed in Corneille and Racine, was to be found in Crebillon alone. The blow went to Voltaire's heart.
I will not believe that you come with empty hands, and that the Homer of France has broken his lyre." "No, sire, I am not empty-handed! I have brought you a present. I believe it to be the best and most beautiful production of my muse. For twenty years I have swelled with indignation at the tragedy which my good friend, Master Crebillon, made of the most exalted subject of antiquity.
Every morning Bailly started early from his humble residence at Chaillot; he went to the Bois de Boulogne, and there, walking for many hours at a time, his powerful mind elaborated, coördinated, and robed in all the pomps of language, those high conceptions destined to charm successive generations. Biographers inform us that Crébillon composed in a similar way.
Crebillon mentioned likewise his tragedy of Catilina, and he told me that, in his opinion, it was the most deficient of his works, but that he never would have consented, even to make a good tragedy, to represent Caesar as a young man, because he would in that case have made the public laugh, as they would do if Madea were to appear previous to her acquaintances with Jason.
Do you know 'Crebillon le fils'? He is a fine painter and a pleasing writer; his characters are admirable and his reflections just.
In his letters and conversation he alluded to the greatest potentates of the age in terms which would have better suited Colle, in a war of repartee with young Crebillon at Pelletier's table, than a great sovereign speaking of great sovereigns.
He eagerly engaged in an undignified competition with Crébillon, and produced a series of plays on the same subjects which his rival had treated. These pieces were coolly received. Angry with the court, angry with the capital, Voltaire began to find pleasure in the prospect of exile. His attachment for Madame du Châtelet long prevented him from executing his purpose.
That uncouth blunder soon got known throughout Paris, and gave me a sort of reputation which I lost little by little, but only when I understood the double meanings of words better. Crebillon was much amused with my blunder, and he told me that I ought to have said after instead of behind. Ah! why have not all languages the same genius!
"Do you remember any of your version of the Radamiste?" "I remember it all." "You have a wonderful memory; I should be glad to hear it." I began to recite the same scene that I had recited to Crebillon ten years before, and I thought M. de Voltaire listened with pleasure. "It doesn't strike one as at all harsh," said he. This was the highest praise he would give me.
Word Of The Day