Leonard Doucette – författare

Emery Bigot's life spans the most brilliant years of seventeenth-century France. He left some six hundred letters addressed to the four corners of literary Europe; among his correspondents, acquaintances, and friends were men of the stature of Jean Chapelain, Nicolaus Heinsius, Charles du Cange, Richard Simon, John Milton, and Gilles Ménage. He travelled widely and was for some forty years at the very centre pf a firmly established, smoothly functioning network of mutual assistance and scholarly information that linked the countries of western Europe. From Uppsala to Venice, from Vienna to Oxford, Leiden, London: a network which quite naturally considered Paris its centre, and whose members represented every interest, very segment of intellectual society. Bigot was also the creator of what was perhaps the most important private library of his era. Yet today he is almost unknown, and his correspondence, scattered widely, has not been examined thoroughly since his death.This detailed biography and critical study is based on Bigot's letters and on other unpublished materials in France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, and England. Although much effort has been directed towards research on the more prominent contemporaries of Bigot, he himself – better known to the scholars of his period than a Racine, a La Fontaine, or a Molière – has gone unappreciated. Professor Doucette's book shows that Bigot represents an essential and seriously neglected side of French and European humanistic studies in the seventeenth century. Bigot's role as an outstanding classical scholar and bibliographic expert, his publications and projects for publications, his correspondence, and what is perhaps the most important facet of his activity, his collaboration with other authors in seventeenth-century Europe, all receive full and intensive coverage. This book holds special interest for scholars in several disciplines, especially historians of French literature and civilization, classicists, philologists, bibliophiles and bibliographers, and historians of religion.

It is only recently that historians of the theatre in French Canada have turned their attention to playwrights active before the twentieth century. Their practice had been to trace the roots of theatre to mid-1930s, to the appearance of Father Emile Legault and his troupe, the Compagnons de Saint-Laurent, dismissing what had gone before. In this innovative history, Leonard Doucette sets out deal for the first time with all plays that have survived to 1867 and to link them with the evolution of politics, institutions, and culture in French Canada.The study of theatre has often been handicapped also by the outdated practice of defining the literary-cultural history of a nation by identifying the masterpieces produced in specific periods and then defining other works in terms of what they are not. The surprisingly rich and varied history of theatrical forms in French Canada has just begun to receive the attention it deserves from scholars. Some of the texts and authors referred to in this history are identified for the first time: the materials cited and conclusions drawn are based upon original research in major Canadian libraries as well as the works of published critics and historians. The result is an excellent introduction to the various forms theatre has taken and the problems it has encountered in French Canada.

Emery Bigot's life spans the most brilliant years of seventeenth-century France. He left some six hundred letters addressed to the four corners of literary Europe; among his correspondents, acquaintances, and friends were men of the stature of Jean Chapelain, Nicolaus Heinsius, Charles du Cange, Richard Simon, John Milton, and Gilles Ménage. He travelled widely and was for some forty years at the very centre pf a firmly established, smoothly functioning network of mutual assistance and scholarly information that linked the countries of western Europe. From Uppsala to Venice, from Vienna to Oxford, Leiden, London: a network which quite naturally considered Paris its centre, and whose members represented every interest, very segment of intellectual society. Bigot was also the creator of what was perhaps the most important private library of his era. Yet today he is almost unknown, and his correspondence, scattered widely, has not been examined thoroughly since his death.This detailed biography and critical study is based on Bigot's letters and on other unpublished materials in France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, and England. Although much effort has been directed towards research on the more prominent contemporaries of Bigot, he himself – better known to the scholars of his period than a Racine, a La Fontaine, or a Molière – has gone unappreciated. Professor Doucette's book shows that Bigot represents an essential and seriously neglected side of French and European humanistic studies in the seventeenth century. Bigot's role as an outstanding classical scholar and bibliographic expert, his publications and projects for publications, his correspondence, and what is perhaps the most important facet of his activity, his collaboration with other authors in seventeenth-century Europe, all receive full and intensive coverage. This book holds special interest for scholars in several disciplines, especially historians of French literature and civilization, classicists, philologists, bibliophiles and bibliographers, and historians of religion.

It is only recently that historians of the theatre in French Canada have turned their attention to playwrights active before the twentieth century. Their practice had been to trace the roots of theatre to mid-1930s, to the appearance of Father Emile Legault and his troupe, the Compagnons de Saint-Laurent, dismissing what had gone before. In this innovative history, Leonard Doucette sets out deal for the first time with all plays that have survived to 1867 and to link them with the evolution of politics, institutions, and culture in French Canada.The study of theatre has often been handicapped also by the outdated practice of defining the literary-cultural history of a nation by identifying the masterpieces produced in specific periods and then defining other works in terms of what they are not. The surprisingly rich and varied history of theatrical forms in French Canada has just begun to receive the attention it deserves from scholars. Some of the texts and authors referred to in this history are identified for the first time: the materials cited and conclusions drawn are based upon original research in major Canadian libraries as well as the works of published critics and historians. The result is an excellent introduction to the various forms theatre has taken and the problems it has encountered in French Canada.

Emery Bigot's life spans the most brilliant years of seventeenth-century France. He left some six hundred letters addressed to the four corners of literary Europe; among his correspondents, acquaintances, and friends were men of the stature of Jean Chapelain, Nicolaus Heinsius, Charles du Cange, Richard Simon, John Milton, and Gilles Ménage. He travelled widely and was for some forty years at the very centre pf a firmly established, smoothly functioning network of mutual assistance and scholarly information that linked the countries of western Europe. From Uppsala to Venice, from Vienna to Oxford, Leiden, London: a network which quite naturally considered Paris its centre, and whose members represented every interest, very segment of intellectual society. Bigot was also the creator of what was perhaps the most important private library of his era. Yet today he is almost unknown, and his correspondence, scattered widely, has not been examined thoroughly since his death.This detailed biography and critical study is based on Bigot's letters and on other unpublished materials in France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, and England. Although much effort has been directed towards research on the more prominent contemporaries of Bigot, he himself – better known to the scholars of his period than a Racine, a La Fontaine, or a Molière – has gone unappreciated. Professor Doucette's book shows that Bigot represents an essential and seriously neglected side of French and European humanistic studies in the seventeenth century. Bigot's role as an outstanding classical scholar and bibliographic expert, his publications and projects for publications, his correspondence, and what is perhaps the most important facet of his activity, his collaboration with other authors in seventeenth-century Europe, all receive full and intensive coverage. This book holds special interest for scholars in several disciplines, especially historians of French literature and civilization, classicists, philologists, bibliophiles and bibliographers, and historians of religion.