Honoré d’ Urfé

Honoré d’ Urfé (born Feb. 10/11, 1567, Marseille, France—died June 1, 1625, Villefranche-sur-Mer) was a French author whose pastoral romance L’Astrée (1607–27; Astrea) was extremely popular in the 17th century and inspired many later writers.

D’Urfé was born into a family of ancient nobility. He grew up in the Forez region of southeastern France and was educated at the Collège de Tournon. He became a partisan of the Holy League during the Wars of Religion and was banished to Savoy before being allowed to return home in 1599. In 1625 d’Urfé raised a regiment and campaigned against the Spaniards in the Valtellina, but he soon died of pneumonia.

D’Urfé’s first work, Epistres Morales (1598; “Moral Letters”), reveals the influence of stoicism and Renaissance Platonism. His magnum opus, L’Astrée, appeared in five parts from 1607 to 1627 and altogether consists of some 5,000 pages. Part 4 of the book was edited by the author’s secretary, Balthazar Baro, who also added Part 5 based on notes left by d’Urfé. With its scene set on the banks of the Lignon River in 5th-century Gaul and its atmosphere one of paradisiacal innocence, L’Astrée describes the life and adventures of shepherds and shepherdesses whose main preoccupation is love. The book derives its title from the pair Astrée and Céladon, who are unable to marry because of their families’ mutual enmity.

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D’Urfé’s models for his novel were various Spanish and Italian pastoral romances read in the French court, notably Diana (1559) by Jorge de Montemayor. D’Urfé himself was a remarkable observer of human nature, however, and his characters are far from mere conventions. Céladon, Sylvandre, and Hylas were for generations of French readers what the characters of Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens were for the Victorian Age.