Name Bernard-Joseph Saurin Parents Joseph Saurin | Role Poet | |
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Died November 17, 1781, Paris, France | ||
Bernard-Joseph Saurin (1706 in Paris – 17 November 1781 in Paris) was a lawyer, poet, and playwright.
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Biography
Saurin was the son of Joseph Saurin, a converted Protestant minister and mathematician who had been accused in 1712 by Jean-Baptiste Rousseau of being the actual author of defamatory verses that gossip had attributed to Rousseau.
Attracted to literature, and frequenting the Society of the Caveau, he became a lawyer at Parliament, a career which he did not like, but endured for fifteen years in order to support his family. His professional life in the theatre began when he was forty.
Neither his comedy Les Trois rivaux (The Three Rivals), nor his tragedy Amenophis met with success, which came in 1760 with the tragedy Spartacus and the comedy Les Mœurs du temps (The Manners of the Time), which were applauded at the Comedie-Francaise. In the following year, the author was elected a member of the Academie francaise.
He attended the literary cafes and the salons of Madame de Stael, Mme de Tencin, Madame Geoffrin and Madame d'Epinay. Friend of Voltaire, Saint-Lambert, Montesquieu, Turgot and Helvetius, he could be regarded as one of the philosophers.
He translated some English works into French, and saw some of his works translated in turn into English. Among the better known of his plays was Beverlei (1768), a tragedy.
Theatre
Works are listed chronologically and include links to the text in Gallica at the Bibliotheque nationale de France when available :