Paul Scarron (; – 6 October 1660) (a.k.a. Monsieur Scarron) was a French poet, dramatist, and novelist, born in Paris. Though his precise birth date is unknown, he was baptised on 4 July 1610. Scarron was the first husband of Françoise d'Aubigné, who later became Madame de Maintenon and secretly married King Louis XIV.

Life

Scarron was born and died in Paris. He was the seventh child of Paul Scarron, a noble of the robe and member of the Parlement of Paris, and Gabrielle Goguet. Paul became an abbé when he was nineteen. He lived in Le Mans from 1632 to 1640, and in 1635 traveled to Rome with his patron, Charles de Beaumanoir, the bishop of Le Mans. Finding a patron in Marie de Hautefort, maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XIII, he became a well-known figure in literary and fashionable society. The novel also borrows some of its humor (partially embodied in Ragotin) from Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote as well as from Menippean satire. It also contains four interpolated tales, taken mainly from Spanish sources. The most famous is the novella of the "Invisible Mistress," a comic adaptation of the more serious tale by Alonso de Castillo Solorzano. This tale, which includes a number of comic narrative intrusions, would be reworked by a number of English authors such as Thomas Otway and Eliza Haywood.

The earliest English translation was in 1665 by John Bulteel, titled The Comical Romance. The "Brown-Savage" translation was published in 1700. In 2012, it was newly translated by Jacques Houis as The Comic Romance.

References

  • Biography, Bibliography (in French)