Honoré d’Urfé
born Feb. 10/11, 1567, Marseille,
France
died June 1, 1625, Villefranche-sur-Mer
French author whose pastoral romance
L’Astrée (1607–27; Astrea) was extremely
popular in the 17th century and inspired
many later writers.
D’Urfé was born into a family of
ancient nobility. He grew up in the
Forez region of southeastern France and
was educated at the Collège de Tournon.
He became a partisan of the Holy League
during the Wars of Religion and was
banished to Savoy before being allowed
to return home in 1599. In 1625 d’Urfé
raised a regiment and campaigned against
the Spaniards in the Valtellina, but he
soon died of pneumonia.
D’Urfé’s first work, Epistres Morales
(1598; “Moral Letters”), reveals the
influence of stoicism and Renaissance
Platonism. His magnum opus, L’Astrée,
appeared in five parts from 1607 to 1627
and altogether consists of some 5,000
pages. Part 4 of the book was edited by
the author’s secretary, Balthazar Baro,
who also added Part 5 based on notes
left by d’Urfé. With its scene set on
the banks of the Lignon River in
5th-century Gaul and its atmosphere one
of paradisiacal innocence, L’Astrée
describes the life and adventures of
shepherds and shepherdesses whose main
preoccupation is love. The book derives
its title from the pair Astrée and
Céladon, who are unable to marry because
of their families’ mutual enmity.
D’Urfé’s models for his novel were
various Spanish and Italian pastoral
romances read in the French court,
notably Diana (1559) by Jorge de
Montemayor. D’Urfé himself was a
remarkable observer of human nature,
however, and his characters are far from
mere conventions. Céladon, Sylvandre,
and Hylas were for generations of French
readers what the characters of Sir
Walter Scott and Charles Dickens were
for the Victorian Age.
