- Jean-Jacques Ampère
Jean-Jacques Ampère (August 12, 1800 – March 27, 1864) was a French
philologist and man of letters.Born in
Lyon , he was the only son of the physicistAndré-Marie Ampère . Jean-Jacques' mother died while he was an infant.He studied the folk-songs and popular poetry of the
Scandinavia n countries in an extended tour in northernEurope . Returning to France in 1830, he delivered a series of lectures on Scandinavian and early German poetry at the Athenaeum inMarseille . The first of these was printed as "De l'Histoire de la poésie" (1830), and was practically the first introduction of the French public to the Scandinavian and German epics.Moving to
Paris , he taught at the Sorbonne, and became professor of the history of French literature at the Collège de France. A journey in northernAfrica (1841) was followed by a tour inGreece and Italy, in company withProsper Merimée and others. This bore fruit in his "Voyage dantesque" (printed in his "Grèce, Rome et Dante", 1848), which did much to popularize the study of Dante in France.In 1848 he became a member of the
Académie française , and in 1851 he visited America. From this time he was occupied with his chief work, "L'Histoire romaine àRome " (4 vols., 1861-1864), until his death at Pau.The "Correspondence et souvenirs" (2 vols.) of A-M and J-J Ampère (1805-1854) was published in 1875. Notices of J-J Ampère are to be found in Sainte-Beuve's "Portraits littéraires," vol. iv., and "Nouveaux Lundis," vol. xiii.; and in P Mérimée's "Portraits historiques et littéraires" (2nd ed., 1875).
References
*1911
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title= Seat 37Académie française | years=1847–1864
before=Alexandre Guiraud
after=Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol
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