Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Jean

views updated

Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (zhäN dāmärā´ də săN-sôrlăN´), 1595–1676, French poet and dramatist. A protégé of Richelieu, he was a founding member of the French Academy. In 1670 he precipitated a controversy over the literary merits of the ancients that foreshadowed the polemics of Perrault and Boileau-Despréaux; Boileau attacked him in L'Art poétique.