Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
| Pierre de Marivaux | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Marivaux by Louis-Michel van Loo
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| Born |
4 February 1688 Paris, Kingdom of France |
| Died | 12 February 1763 (aged 75) Paris, Kingdom of France |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Nationality | French |
| Period | Enlightenment |
| Genre | Romantic comedy |
Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (4 February 1688 – 12 February 1763), commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French novelist and dramatist.
He is considered one of the most important French playwrights of the 18th century, writing numerous comedies for the Comédie-Française and the Comédie-Italienne of Paris. His most important works are Le Triomphe de l'amour, Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard and Les Fausses Confidences. He also published a number of essays and two important but unfinished novels, La Vie de Marianne and Le Paysan parvenu.
His father was a Norman financier whose real name was Carlet, but who assumed the surname of Chamblain, and then that of Marivaux. He brought up his family in Limoges and Riom, in the province of Auvergne, where he directed the mint.
Marivaux is said to have written his first play, the Père prudent et équitable, when he was only eighteen, but it was not published till 1712, when he was twenty-four. However, the young Marivaux concentrated more on writing novels than plays. In the three years from 1713 to 1715 he produced three novels – Effets surprenants de la sympathie; La Voiture embourbée, and a book which had three titles – Pharsamon, Les Folies romanesques, and Le Don Quichotte moderne. These books are very different from his later, more famous pieces: they are inspired by Spanish romances and the heroic novels of the preceding century, with a certain mixture of the marvelous.
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