Jean de La Bruyère
born August 1645, Paris, France
died May 10/11, 1696, Versailles
French satiric moralist who is best
known for one work, Les Caractères de
Théophraste traduits du grec avec Les
Caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle
(1688; The Characters, or the Manners of
the Age, with The Characters of
Theophrastus), which is considered to be
one of the masterpieces of French
literature.
La Bruyère studied law at Orléans.
Through the intervention of
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the eminent
humanist and theologian, he became one
of the tutors to the Duke de Bourbon,
grandson of the Prince de Condé, and
remained in the Condé household as
librarian at Chantilly. His years there
were probably unhappy because, although
he was proud of his middle-class origin,
he was a constant butt of ridicule
because of his ungainly figure, morose
manner, and biting tongue; the
bitterness of his book reflects the
inferiority of his social position. His
situation, however, afforded him the
opportunity to make penetrating
observations on the power of money in a
demoralized society, the tyranny of
social custom, and the perils of
aristocratic idleness, fads, and
fashions.
La Bruyère’s masterpiece appeared as
an appendage to his translation of the
4th-century bc character writer
Theophrastus in 1688. His method was
that of Theophrastus: to define
qualities such as dissimulation,
flattery, or rusticity and then to give
instances of them in actual people,
making reflections on the “characters,”
or “characteristics,” of the time, for
the purpose of reforming manners. La
Bruyère had an immense and richly varied
vocabulary and a sure grasp of
technique. His satire is constantly
sharpened by variety of presentation,
and he achieves vivid stylistic effects,
which were admired by such eminent
writers as the 19th-century novelists
Gustave Flaubert and the Goncourt
brothers.
Eight editions of the Caractères
appeared during La Bruyère’s lifetime.
The portrait sketches were expanded
because of their great popularity.
Readers began putting real names to the
personages and compiling keys to them,
but La Bruyère denied that any was a
portrait of a single person.
Topical allusions in his book made
his election to the French Academy
difficult, but he was eventually elected
in 1693. The Duke de Saint-Simon, the
diplomat and memoirist, described him as
honourable, lovable, and unpretentious.
