BOUHOURS, Dominique. - Jesuit and French man of letters, born in Paris on 15 May 1628, entered the religious life in 1644, died there on 27 May 1702.
Initially a teacher of rhetoric and later a tutor in aristocratic households, he eventually served as one of the *scriptores* at the Collège de Louis-le-Grand in Paris. His reputation as a stylist, as well as his urbanity, introduced him to the literary circles of the capital and to the friendship of major authors of the day, such as Racine and Boileau.
The anti-Jansenist controversy inspired the first part of B.’s output, including his devotional works, which today appear mannered, with the exception of *Paroles tirées de l'Écriture Sainte pour servir de consolation à ceux qui souffrent*, published posthumously in 1704. His biographical works, too, were mannered, though widely reprinted, including the *Vie de s. Ignace* (Paris 1679) and *Vie de s. François Xavier* (ibid. 1683).
B.’s specific field, however, was literary and linguistic criticism.
Following Vaugelas, he wrote *Doutes sur la langue françoise, proposez à MM. de l'Académie française par un gentilhomme de province* (Paris 1674), together with *Remarques nouvelles sur la langue françoise* (ibid. 1675) and *Suite des remarques nouvelles* (1687, against Port-Royal). His rigorous purism helped to refine the French language, but had it prevailed, it would have reduced French to a courtly idiom.
Two of B.’s works achieved European resonance. In a chapter of *Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène* (Paris 1671; Italian trans. by Fr. D. Janno, Palermo 1714), B. asked whether the *bel esprit* of Parisian salons could be found in other nations. Germans such as Cramer responded (*Vindiciae nominis germanici contra quosdam obtestatores gallos*, Berlin 1694), as did Italians in the controversy surrounding the following book, *La manière de bien penser dans les ouvrages d'esprit* (Paris 1687; 15th ed., trans. into Latin, Italian, English, German). In these dialogues, Eudoxe—i.e., B.—embodied the “classical” temperament of France under Louis XIV, opposed to the “Baroque” represented by Philanthe. His harsh and sometimes contemptuous judgments on Italian authors, such as Tasso, and his incomprehension of elevated poetic forms provoked fierce protests in Italy, especially after the book was taken up by the Italian Jesuit C. Ettore (*Il buon gusto nei componimenti retorici*, Bologna 1696). The first defender of Italian classicism was Marquis G. Orsi (*Considerazioni sopra un famoso libro francese intitolato: La manière de bien penser*, ibid. 1703). In the controversy, B.’s cause after his death was taken up by the *Mémoires de Trévoux* (1705) and by some Italians, such as Count Francesco Montani; on the Italian side, among others, Manfredi and Baruffaldi intervened, as did some who saw in Vico, and outside Italy in Leibniz, a kindred spirit. This first great international literary controversy, which engaged the deepest principles of every literature, has given rise in our own day to numerous studies.