 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Élie Catherine Fréron" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
.jpg)
Élie Catherine Fréron (French pronunciation:[elikatʁinfʁeʁɔ̃]; 20 January 1718 – 10 March 1776) was a Frenchliterary critic and controversialist whose career focused on countering the influence of thephilosophes of the FrenchEnlightenment, partly through his vehicle, theAnnée littéraire.[1] Thus Fréron, in recruiting young writers to counter the literary establishment became central to the movement now called theCounter-Enlightenment.
Fréron was born atQuimper inBrittany and educated by theJesuits. He made such rapid academic progress that he was appointed professor at the college of Louis-le-Grand before he turned twenty. He became a contributor to theObservations sur les écrits modernes of the abbéPierre Desfontaines. The very fact of his collaboration with Desfontaines, one ofVoltaire's bitterest enemies, was sufficient to arouse the latter's hostility, and although Fréron had begun his career as one of his admirers, his attitude towards Voltaire soon changed.[2]
Fréron in 1746 founded a similar journal of his own, entitledLettres de la Comtesse de ... It was suppressed in 1749, but he immediately replaced it byLettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps, which, with the exception of a short suspension in 1752, on account of an attack on the character of Voltaire, was continued till 1754, when it was succeeded by the more ambitiousAnnée littéraire. His death at Paris in 1776 is said to have been hastened by the temporary suppression of this journal.[2][a]
Fréron is now remembered solely for his attacks on Voltaire and theEncyclopaedists, and for the retaliation from Voltaire, who, besides attacking Fréron inepigrams, and even incidentally in some of his tragedies, directed against him a virulentsatire,Le Pauvre diable, and made him the principal personage in a comedyL'Ecossaise, in which the journal of Fréron is designatedL'Âne littéraire, "the Literary Ass".[2] Fréron is also mentioned in Voltaire's famous novelCandide, in reference to a rude critic the title character meets at a theater.[citation needed] A further attack on Fréron entitledAnecdotes sur Fréron ... (1760), published anonymously, is generally attributed to Voltaire.[2]
Fréron was the author of anOde sur labataille de Fontenoy (1745)Histoire deMarie Stuart (1742, 2 vols.); andHistoire de l'empire d'Allemagne (1771, 8 vols.).[2]
He was the father ofStanislas Fréron, revolutionary politician.[citation needed]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fréron, Élie Catherine".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 208.