拉封丹传记

诗人的传记

让·德·拉封丹出生在法国中部香槟的蒂埃里堡，父亲是一名政府官员。他去巴黎学习医学和神学，但却被纷繁的社会生活所吸引。拉封丹有资格成为一名律师，但他于1647年回到家乡，帮助他的父亲，一位森林管理员。他在政府中担任过许多职务，但薪水都不高。1647年，他娶了一位女继承人玛丽·海姆特里卡特，但婚姻并不幸福，他们于1658年分居。拉封丹决心成为一名著名作家。1658年，他离开家人搬到巴黎，在那里度过了他最富有成效的岁月，致力于写作。他找到了许多赞助人。他的一位赞助人尼古拉斯·富凯(Nicolas Fouquet)因挪用公款和叛国罪被捕，并被判处死刑。拉封丹写了一首他最美丽的诗，慷慨激昂地恳求宽恕。 He left Paris to avoid arrest and spent soem time in Limousin. From 1664 to 1672 La Fontaine served as a gentleman-in-waiting to the dowager duchess d'Orleans in Luxemburg, and from 1673 he was a member of the household of Mme de La Sabliere. In 1683 he was elected to the Academie Francaise in recognition of his contribution to French literature. Among La Fontaine's major works are Contes et Nouvelle en Vers (1664), a collection of tales borrowed from Italian sources, tales of Boccaccio, Rabelais, and other medieval and renaissance masters, these were stories dealt with marital misdemeanors and love affairs and were not written for readers who blushed easily. They went through four editions during La Fontaine's lifetime, but the last edition was banned by the authorities because it was considered too obscene. Later La Fontaine regretted ever having written them. Another major work is Les Amours de Psyche et de Cupidon(1669). His Fables Choisies Mises en Vers, usually called La Fontaine Fables, were published over the last 25 years of his life. The first volume appeared when the author was 47. The book includes some 240 poems and timeless stories of countryfolk, heroes from Greek mythology, and familiar beasts from the fables of Aesop, from which La Fontaine unhesitatingly borrowed his material. The last of his tales were published posthumously. Each tale has a moral - an instruction how to behave correctly or how life should be lived. In the second volume La Fontaine based his tales on stories from Asia and other places. They were widely translated and imitated during the 17th and 18th centuries all over Europe, and beyond. At the age of 71 La Fontaine became ill, and he started to think seriously about his life. He translated the Psalms, wore a hair shirt, and again embraced Catholicism. La Fontaine died in Paris on April 13, 1695. Before his death La Fontaine was encouraged by his abbé to condemn publicly his indecent stories. La Fontaine obeyed the advice and also burned a comedy he had just composed.