Michel-Jean Sedaine
Oxford Companion to French Literature:
Top
Michel-Jean Sedaine
Sedaine, Michel-Jean (1719-97). French librettist and dramatist. Sedaine was the son of a master mason whose financial ruin and early death obliged him to become a stonemason himself in order to support the family. Self-educated in his spare time, he was encouraged by his employer to develop his literary talents. His career as a librettist, during which he worked with Philidor, Monsigny, and Grétry, began in 1756 and produced, e.g., Le Déserteur (1769) and Richard Cœur de Lion (1784). He also wrote Le Philosophe sans le savoir (1765), which was the most notable example of the drame, and La Gageure imprévue (1768), a comedy reminiscent of the work of Marivaux, both of which were well-received at the Comédie-Française.
Sedaine's importance lies in his contribution to the development of the opéra-comique and the drame, which marks the decline of the traditional genres and style of production. Contemporaries admired him for his agreeable personality, intelligence, and sound judgement. He was a founder member of the Société des Auteurs Dramatiques in 1777. A modernist in drama, he was a friend of Diderot and the philosophes and shared the view that literature had an ethical responsibility for the propagation of social progress. He helped the painter David at the beginning of his career but, though he supported the Revolution when it came, did not share David's Jacobinism. He was made secretary of the Académie d'Architecture in 1768 and elected to the Académie Française in 1786.
[John Dunkley]
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Top
Michel-Jean Sedaine
| French literature |
|---|
| By category |
| French literary history |
| French writers |
| Portals |
| France · Literature |
Michel-Jean Sedaine (4 July 1719 – 17 May 1797) was a French dramatist, was born in Paris.
Biography
His father, who was an architect, died when Sedaine was quite young, leaving no fortune, and the boy began life as a mason's labourer. He was at last taken as pupil by an architect whose kindness he eventually repaid by the help he was able to give to his benefactor's grandson, the painter David.
Meanwhile he had done his best to repair his deficiencies of education, and in 1750 he published a Recueil de pièces fugitives, which included fables, songs and pastorals. His especial talent was, however, for light opera. He produced Le diable à quatre (1756), the music being by several composers; Blaise le savetier (1759), for the music of Danican Philidor; On ne s'avise jamais de tout (1761) and others with Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny; Aucassin et Nicolette (1780), Richard Coeur-de-lion (1784), and Amphitryon (1788) with André Grétry.
Sedaine's vaudevilles and operettas attracted the attention of Diderot, and two plays of his were accepted and performed at the Théâtre Français. The first and longest, the Philosophe sans le savoir, was acted in 1765; the second, a lively one-act piece, La gageure imprévue in 1768. These two at once took their place as stock pieces and are still ranked among the best French plays, each of its class.
Except these two pieces little or nothing of his has kept the stage or the shelves, but Sedaine may be regarded as the literary ancestor of Scribe and Dumas. He had the practical knowledge of the theatre, which enabled him to carry out the ideas of Diderot and give him claims to be regarded as the real founder of the domestic drama in France.
Sedaine, who became a member of the Academy (1786), and secretary for architecture of the fine arts division, died at Paris on the 17th of May 1797. He wrote two historical dramas, Raymond V, comte de Toulouse ou L'épreuve inutile, and Maillard, ou Paris sauvé.
His Œuvres (1826) contain a notice of his life by Ducis.
External links
Quotations related to Michel-Jean Sedaine at Wikiquote
|
|||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
Oxford Companion to French Literature
The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Read more
