Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was born on November 1, 1636, in Paris, into a family of parliamentary clerks. Educated at the Collège de Beauvais, Boileau studied law and theology before abandoning both to dedicate his life to letters, satirical verse, and literary criticism.

Between 1660 and 1668, Boileau published his famous 'Satires', lampooning bad poets and pedantic critics while championing his close friends and literary masters Molière, Jean Racine, and Jean de La Fontaine. In 1674, he published 'L'Art poétique' (The Art of Poetry), modeled on Horace's Ars Poetica, laying down the universal rules of French classical drama, rhyme, decorum, and intellectual clarity.

King Louis XIV appointed Boileau and Racine as royal historiographers (historiographes du roi) in 1677, and in 1684 Boileau was elected to the Académie Française. His famous dictum 'What is well understood is expressed clearly' remains the guiding aesthetic compass of the French language.