Victor de Laprade

Pierre Martin Victor Richard de Laprade (January 13, 1812 - December 13, 1883), known as Victor de Laprade, was a French poet and critic.

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He was born at Montbrison, in the d?partement of the Loire, of a modest provincial family. After completing his studies at Lyons, he produced, in 1839, a small volume of religious verse, Les Parfums de Madeleine. This was followed in 1840 by La col?re de Jesus, in 1841 by the religious fantasy of Psyche, and in 1844 by Odes et po?mes. In 1845 Laprade visited Italy on a mission of literary research, and in 1847 he was appointed professor of French literature at Lyons. The Acad?mie fran?aise, by a single vote, preferred ?mile Augier at the election in 1857, but in the following year Laprade was chosen to fill the place vacated by Alfred de Musset.

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In 1861 Laprade was removed from his post at Lyons owing to the publication of a political satire in verse (Les Mus?es d'Etat), and in 1871 took his seat in the National Assembly on the benches of the Right. A statue was erected in his memory at Montbrison.

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Besides those named above, Laprade's poetic works include Po?mes ?vang?liques (185 2), Idylles h?ro?ques (1858), Les Voix du silence (1864), Pernette (1868), Po?mes civiles (1873), Le Livre d'un p?re (1877), Varia and Livre des adieux (1878-1879). In prose he published, in 1840, Des habitudes intellectuelles de l'avocat. Questions d'art et de morale appeared in 1861, succeeded by Le Sentiment de la nature, avant le Christianisme in 1866, and Chez les modernes in 1868, Education lib?rale in 1873.

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The material for these prose works had in some cases been printed earlier, after delivery as a lecture. He also contributed articles to the Revue des deux mondes and the Revue de Paris. No writer represents more perfectly than Laprade the spirit of French provincial life, its homely simplicity, its culture, its piety and its sober patriotism. As a poet he belongs to the school of Chateaubriand and Alphonse de Lamartine. Devoted to the best classical models, inspired by a sense of the ideal, and by worship of nature as revealing the divinegifted, too, with a full faculty of expression--he lacked only fire and passion in the equipment of a romantic poet. The absence of these prevented him from reaching the first rank, or from even attaining any great level of popularity.

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Only in his patriotic verse did he free himself from these restrictions. He possessed some of the qualities, and many of the defects, of the English Lake School. Laprade's prose criticisms must be ranked high. Apart from his classical and metaphysical studies, he was widely read in the literatures of Europe, and built upon the groundwork of a naturally correct taste. His dislike of irony and scepticism probably led him to underrate the product of the 18th century, and there are signs of a too fastidious dread of Philistinism.

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January 13: January 13 is the 13th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. It is still celebrated as New Year's Eve by those on the Julian calendar. There are 352 days remaining (353 in a leap year)....

1812: :This article is about the year 1812. For the overture by Tchaikovsky, see 1812 Overture....

December 13: December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 18 days remaining....

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