Jean-François Sarasin

Sarasin, Jean-François (1614-54). French salon poet whose multiple experiments with new or outmoded forms were an inadequate outlet for his undoubted talent. He is best remembered for his subtle ‘Galanterie’ to a lady nicknamed ‘la souris’, his ingenious gloss on Benserade's ‘Sonnet de Job’, or the witty ‘Pompe funèbre de Voiture’, whose original mixture of prose and verse was to be much imitated. And yet his output also contains odes written in the style of Malherbe, eclogues with evocative echoes of Virgil, and some serious works of historiography. His work was collected together and published posthumously by his friends Pellisson and Ménage.

[Jonathan Mallinson]