Bernard de fontenelle biography for kids

*Fontenelle, Bernard de

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Bernard de Fontenelle had ceased to write works of literary or philosophical importance by the date of his admission to the French Academy on 5 May He remained an important literary figure, taking part in the defense of the superiority of modern literature over the antique, and he wrote 69 panegyrics on members of the Académie Royale des Sciences who died during his tenure as permanent secretary from Those of his works which can be called essays were mostly written by , when Fontenelle was The principal exception, the treatise on religion known as De l’origine des fables (Of the origin of fables) and first published in , a reworking of an earlier Sur l’histoire (On history), used to be thought of as an early work. It seems in fact to have been composed between and , which actually changes its meaning, making its insinuations much more daring.
Fontenelle came from Rouen in Normandy, and Voltaire said of him that “he knew how to speak Norman,” which means that he knew how to insinuate what he meant without even ironically stating it. Perhaps Voltaire was being unfair, but Fontenelle’s early works reverberate with compromising innuendos, suggestions, implications, and questions, without actually stating very much. His cultivated literary technique makes straight-faced and perfectly defensible statements bristle with implied skepticism about conservative religious orthodoxy, and leaves the reader’s mind teeming with questions which Fontenelle never presumed directly to ask. It was a technique Fontenelle might have found constraining, but which he adopted with relish, and it constitutes his chief contribution to the essay form.
Fontenelle’s first work was the two-volume Dialogues des morts and Nouveaux dialogues des morts (Dialogues from the Dead), two sets of 18 dialogues published anonymously in Loosely based on Lucian as

French writer and philosopher of the enlightenment (–)

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (;French:[fɔ̃tənɛl]; 11 February – 9 January ), also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author and an influential member of three of the academies of the Institut de France, noted especially for his accessible treatment of scientific topics during the unfolding of the Age of Enlightenment.

Biography

Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France (then the capital of Normandy) and died in Paris at age His mother was the sister of great French dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille. His father, François le Bovier de Fontenelle, was a lawyer who worked in the provincial court of Rouen and came from a family of lawyers from Alençon.

He trained in the law but gave up after one case, devoting his life to writing about philosophers and scientists, especially defending the Cartesian tradition. In spite of the undoubted merit and value of his writings, both to the laity and the scientific community, there is no question of his being a primary contributor to the field. He was a commentator and explicator and occasionally a passionate, though generally good-humoured, controversialist.

He was educated at the college of the Jesuits, the Lycée Pierre Corneille (although it did not adopt the name of his uncle (Pierre Corneille) until , about years later). At the Lycée he showed a preference for literature and distinguished himself.

According to Bernard de Fontenelle, Blondel was a disciple of Father Marin Mersenne at the Academia Parisiensis in the French capital, until There he met "Messieurs Gassendi, Descartes, Hobbes, Roberval, and the two Pascals, father and son".

Early work

He began as a poet, writing a poem in Latin at the age of 13 and more than once competed for prizes of the Académie française, but he never won anything.

(b. Rouen, France, 11 February ; d. Paris, France, 9 January )

dissemination of knowledge, mathematics, astronomy.

Fontenelle’s father, François Le Bouyer, écuyer, sieur de Fontenelle, was originally from Alençon; his mother, Marthe Corneille, sister of Pierre and Thomas Corneille, came from Rouen. The family was of modest means and lived in rented quarters in Rouen. His father, sous-doyen des avocats in the Parlement of Rouen, was “a man of quality but of mediocre fortune” and practiced his profession “with more honor than fame,” according to Trublet. Fontenelle was said to resemble his mother, a woman of great intellect, who was also pious and exhorted her children to virtue. Two of them died at an early age, before Bernard was born; two more, Pierre and Joseph Alexis, were born after him—both were to become ecclesiastics. Bernard’s two maternal uncles, especially his godfather Thomas Corneille, had a great influence on him; they often invited him to Paris, before he moved there permanently around , and introduced him to the world of the French Academy, the theatre, the salons of the précieuses, and the Mercure galant, which was directed by a friend of Thomas’s, Donneau de Visé

About the child was placed in the Jesuit collège in Rouen, where his uncles had studied. He was, according to his teachers, “a well-rounded child in all respects and foremost among the students.” The logic and physics that he was taught seemed to him devoid of meaning: according to Trublet, “He did not find nature in them, but rather vague and abstract ideas which, so to speak, skirted the edge of things but did not really touch them at all.” The Jesuits wished to make him one of their own, but Fontenelle did not have a vocation. In deference to his father he became a lawyer, but he pleaded only one case—which he lost—and quit the bar to devote himself to literature and philosophy, which were more to his taste.

Although his p

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (French: [fɔ̃tənɛl]; 11 February  – 9 January ), also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author and an influential member of three of the academies of the Institut de France, noted especially for his accessible treatment of scientific topics during the unfolding of the Age of Enlightenment.

Biography

Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France (then the capital of Normandy) and died in Paris just one month before his th birthday. His mother was the sister of great French dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille. His father, François le Bovier de Fontenelle, was a lawyer who worked in the provincial court of Rouen and came from a family of lawyers from Alençon.

He trained in the law but gave up after one case, devoting his life to writing about philosophers and scientists, especially defending the Cartesian tradition. In spite of the undoubted merit and value of his writings, both to the laity and the scientific community, there is no question of his being a primary contributor to the field. He was a commentator and explicator and occasionally a passionate, though generally good-humoured, controversialist.

He was educated at the college of the Jesuits, the Lycée Pierre Corneille (although it did not adopt the name of his uncle (Pierre Corneille) until , about years later). At the Lycée he showed a preference for literature and distinguished himself.

According to Bernard de Fontenelle, Blondel was a disciple of Father Marin Mersenne at the Academia Parisiensis in the French capital, until There he met "Messieurs Gassendi, Descartes, Hobbes, Roberval, and the two Pascals, father and son".

Early wor