MALHERBE, FRANÇOIS de. — Poet and grammarian, born at Caen in 1555, died at Paris on 16 October 1628. His father and four of his brothers were Protestants; he remained Catholic. Secretary to the duke of Angoulême, he followed him to Provence; after his death, he returned to Normandy and began composing verses of little value, such as Les larmes de st-Pierre (in imitation of Tansillo). In 1600 he presented at Aix an ode to Maria de' Medici, A la reine sur sa bienvenue en France.
Recommended by Cardinal du Perron, he entered the court in 1605 as a gentleman of the chamber of Henry IV. He was protected by Maria de' Medici during the regency, and by Louis XIII. M.’s importance lies in his reform of the language and of poetic technique. Through his criticism of the poets of the Pléiade and of his contemporaries, he established the new language, free of neologisms and archaisms, devoid of idioms, whose characteristics are purity of expression, clarity, and syntactical order. With regard to versification, he formulated precise rules, simplifying the metre and giving preference to those of regular structure. Boileau, in the Art poétique, acknowledged the value of M.’s innovations, which in reality anticipated classical French poetry. As a poet, M. is of lesser merit, since he lacks imagination and feeling. His verses, technically perfect, possess a broad rhythmic movement and a distinctive harmony, often too oratorical, at times forceful and effective.