La Calprenède, Gauthier de Coste, sieur de (c.1610-1663). French playwright and novelist. His literary career divides into two phases. From 1635 to 1642 he wrote six tragedies and three tragicomedies, some exploiting contemporary successes by Tristan and Mairet (e.g. La Mort des enfants d'Hérode, 1638), familiar others exploring the less ground of English history (e.g. Le Comte d'Essex, 1637). From 1642 he published a series of long, quasi-historical romances: Cassandre (1642-5), Cléopâtre (1646-57), and the unfinished Faramond (1661-3). Although confused in construction and unashamedly anachronistic, these novels were enormously popular for their heroic mythification of contemporary courtly ideals. They inspired the plots of many plays, most notably Thomas Corneille's Timocrate (1656).
[Jonathan Mallinson]
