Playwright and poet, born in Paris, France. Accused of publishing libellous poetry, he was forced into exile in Vienna and then Brussels, where he died. His Odes and his Cantates remain worthy of reading, even though of a rather bombastic character.
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Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (April 6, 1671- March 17, 1741), was a French poet.
He was born in Paris, the son of a shoemaker, and was well educated.
His misfortunes began with a club squabble at the Café Laurent, which was much frequented by literary men, and where he indulged in lampoons on his companions.
Verses more offensive than ever were handed round, and gossip maintained that Rousseau was their author.
Prince Eugène and then other persons of distinction took him under their protection during his exile, and at Soleure he printed the first edition of his poetical works. Voltaire's Le Pour et le contre is said to have shocked Rousseau, who expressed his sentiments freely. His death elicited from Jean-Jacques Lefranc, marquis de Pompignan an ode that was perhaps better than anything of Rousseau's own work.
As an epigrammatist Rousseau is inferior only to his friend Alexis Piron. The frigidity of conventional diction and the disuse of all really lyrical rhythm which characterize his period do not prevent his odes and cantatas from showing at times true poetical faculty, though cramped, and inadequate to explain his extraordinary vogue. Few writers were so frequently reprinted during the 18th century, but even in his own century La Harpe had arrived at a truer estimate of his real value when he said of his poetry: "Le fond n'est qu'un lieu commun chargé de déclamations et même d'idées fausses."
Besides the Soleure edition mentioned above, Rousseau published an issue of his work in London in 1723.
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