- Antoine Furetière
Infobox Writer
name = Antoine Furetière
imagesize = 180px
birthdate = birth date|1619|12|28|df=y
birthplace =Paris, France
deathdate = death date and age|1688|5|14|1619|12|28|df=y
deathplace =
occupation = Scholar and writer
nationality = FranceAntoine Furetière (28 December 1619 - 14 May 1688) French scholar and writer, was born in
Paris .Biography
He studied law and practised for a time as an advocate, but eventually took orders and after various promotions became abbé of
Chalivoy in thediocese of Bourges in 1662. In his leisure moments he devoted himself to letters, and in virtue of his satires—"Nouvelle Allégorique, ou histoire des derniers troubles arrivés au royaume d'éloquence" (1658) and "Voyage de Mercure" (1653)—he was admitted as a member of theAcadémie française in 1662. The academy had long promised a completedictionary of the French language; and when the members heard that Furetière was on the point of issuing a work of a similar nature, they interfered, alleging that he had purloined from their stores and that they possessed the exclusive privilege of publishing such a book.After much recrimination on both sides, Furetière was expelled in 1685; but he took revenge in his satire, "Couches de l'académie" (Amsterdam, 1687). His "Dictionnaire universel" was posthumously published in 1690 (Rotterdam, 2 vols.). It was revised and improved by the
Protestant juristHenri Basnage de Beauval (1656–1710), who published his edition (3 vols.) in 1701, and it was superseded only by the compilation known as the "Dictionnaire de Trévoux" (Paris, 3 vols., 1704; 7th ed., 5 vols., 1771), which was in fact little more than a reimpression of Basnage's edition. Fact|date=March 2008Furetière also wrote "Le Roman bourgeois" (1666), which cast ridicule on the fashionable romances of
Madeleine de Scudéry and ofGauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède , and described the everyday life of his times. A collected "Fureteriana" appeared in Paris eight years after his death.
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