Parny, Évariste-Désiré de Forges

Parny, Évariste-Désiré de Forges

 

Born Feb. 6, 1753, in Saint-Paul, on what is now the island of Réunion; died Dec. 5, 1814, in Paris. French viscount and poet. Member of the Académie Française from 1803.

Parny won his first success as a poet with his Epistle to the Boston Rebels (1777), which showed his admiration for the American colonists fighting for independence. His Poetic Trifles, written in the French classical style, are imbued with a sincerity of feeling and an elegiac mood. Even more popular was The War of the Gods (1799), an antireligious parody in verse.

Parny was appreciated in his lifetime by Iu. A. Neledinskii-Meletskii and other Russian poets. The number of translations and imitations of Parny grew as elegiac poetry flourished in the work of V. L. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovskii, E. A. Baratynskii, and K. N. Batiushkov. A. S. Pushkin called Batiushkov the Russian Parny in his poem “To Batiushkov” (1814). “Tender Parny” was one of Pushkin’s favorite French poets.

WORKS

Oeuvres: Elégies et poésies diverses avec une préf. de Sainte-Beuve. Paris, 1862.
In Russian translation:
In Mastera russkogo stikhotvornogo perevoda, 2nd ed., book 1. [Leningrad] 1968. (Biblioteka poeta; Larger series.)
In Frantsuzskie stikhi v perevodakh russkikh poetov XIX-XX vv. Moscow, 1969.
Voina bogov. Leningrad, 1970. (Translated by V. G. Dmitriev.)

REFERENCES

Morozov, P. “Pushkin i Parni.” In Pushkin [Works], vol. 1. St. Petersburg, 1907. Pages 380–92.
Tomashevskii, B. Pushkin i Frantsiia. Leningrad, 1960.

M. A. GOL’DMAN