Antoine de La Fosse
Illustration — François-Joseph Talma in Manlius Capitolinus at Comédie-Française, 1806 Antoine de La Fosse (alias Sieur d'Aubigny; 1653 or 1658 – 2 November 1708) Premier gentilhomme de la Chambre, was a French playwright who wrote four tragedies, and was the last French author of tragedies to make a name for himself at the end of the 17th century. The son of a goldsmith and the nephew of painter Charles de La Fosse, Antoine served first as the secretary for the Envoy of France to Florence. La Fosse translated the odes of Anacreon to French (Traduction nouvelle des odes d'Anacreon, sur l'original grec) in 1704, and popular with contemporaries the second edition was published in 1706.
Antoine de La Fosse
Unknown costume designer at Comédie-Française, Paris, France, 1806 · Public domain
- Nationality
- France
- Occupation
- linguist · poet · translator · playwright · writer · diplomat
- Fields
- creative and professional writing · drama · poetry · diplomacy
- Languages
- French · Latin · Modern Greek
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Illustration — François-Joseph Talma in Manlius Capitolinus at Comédie-Française, 1806 Antoine de La Fosse (alias Sieur d'Aubigny; 1653 or 1658 – 2 November 1708) Premier gentilhomme de la Chambre, was a French playwright who wrote four tragedies, and was the last French author of tragedies to make a name for himself at the end of the 17th century. The son of a goldsmith and the nephew of painter Charles de La Fosse, Antoine served first as the secretary for the Envoy of France to Florence. La Fosse translated the odes of Anacreon to French (Traduction nouvelle des odes d'Anacreon, sur l'original grec) in 1704, and popular with contemporaries the second edition was published in 1706.
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Antoine de La Fosse (1653–1708) was a French diplomat, linguist and playwright, among other activities. The diplomat was born and died in Paris. Antoine de La Fosse was active in creative and professional writing, diplomacy and drama. Languages used include French, Latin and Modern Greek.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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wikidata · Q725618 · wikipedia · Antoine de La Fosse
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German classicist Johann Friedrich Christ (1701–1756) praised the French verse translation. La Fosse's chef d'œuvre Manlius Capitolinus (1698) about Marcus Manlius Capitolinus (died), was imitated from the English dramatist Thomas Otway's play Venice Preserv'd, who in turn had taken his plot from César Vichard de Saint-Réal's Conjuration des Espagnols contre la République de Venise en l'Année M. La Fosse's later plays were not as successful, but according to theater historian Phyllis Hartnoll in The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, many of his contemporaries thought he might have rivalled Jean Racine had he began his dramatic career earlier. His collected plays were popular for more than a century and were re-published multiple times in the 18th and 19th century, e.g. in two quarto volumes in 1747 (Nouvelle edition - "new edition"), and in 1811 in two octavo volumes. Among his other works of elegies, odes, epigrams, poems, and cantatas is an ode written in Italian, a language he became fluent in while in Florence, which earned him a membership of Accademia degli Apatisti. La Fosse is interred in St-Gervais-et-St-Protais, Paris.
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Plays
Plays
• Polyxène (premiere February 3, 1686) • Manlius Capitolinus (premiere January 18, 1698) • Thesée (premiere 5 January 1700) • Corésus Callirhoé (premiere December 7, 1703)
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Origins and background
Origins and background
The following is established of origins and background. Born in 1653 at Paris. It is also recorded that antoine de La Fosse died in 1708 at Paris.
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Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Virtue & Yorston. Haydn's Universal Index of Biography from the Creation to the Present Time: For the Use of the Statesman, the Historian, and the Journalist. 309–. 1869.
- 2.Antoine : d'Aubigny de La Fosse. Chef-d'oeuvres de La Fosse. au bureau de la Petite Bibliotheque des Theatres. 11–. 1784.
- 3.Evrard Titon du Tillet. Le parnasse françois . de l'Imprimerie de Jean-Baptiste Coignard fils. 512–. 1732.
- 4.Ludovic Marquis de Magny. Recueil de généalogies de maisons nobles de France: extrait du Nobiliaire universel publié sous la directions de L. de Magny. A la direction des Archives de la Noblesse. 2. 22–. 1894.
- 5.McGraw-Hill Encyclopaedia of World Drama. 205.
- 6.Lacy Lockert. The Chief Rivals of Corneille and Racine. Vanderbilt University Press. 467–. 1 January 1956. 978-0-8265-1047-1.
- 7.Henry Carrington Lancaster. A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century: The pre-classical period, 1610–1634. 2 v. Johns Hopkins Press. 385–. 1940.
- 8.Slatkine. Lafosse Otway, Saint-real. 217–.
- 9.Chez Pierre Ribou. Traduction nouvelle des odes d'Anacreon, sur l'original grec. 1706.
- 10.De Gruyter. Imitate Anacreon!: Mimesis, Poiesis and the Poetic Inspiration in the Carmina Anacreontea. 181–. 1 April 2014. 978-3-11-033414-2.
- 11.College Art Association of America. Meeting. Abstracts and Program Statements. College Art Association. 77. 178–. 1989.
- 12.Vilhelm Lundström. Eranos: Acta philologica suecana. Apud Editorem. 74-76. 80–. 1977.
- 13.Konta, Annie Lemp. The History of French Literature from the Oath of Strasburg to Chanticler. D. Appleton. 266–. 1910.
- 14.Edmund Gosse. Collected Essays of Edmund Gosse: Seventeenth century studies. William Heinemann. 341–. 1913.
- 15.Claude-Jean Nébrac. Chronique d'une année du règne de Louis-le-Grand: août 1697 – juillet 1698. BoD – Books on Demand. 111–. 7 March 2014. 978-2-322-03551-9.
- 16.Phyllis Hartnoll. The Oxford companion to the theatre. Oxford U.P. 544–. 1967. 978-0-19-211531-7.
- 17.Biographie universelle classique: ou, Dictionnaire historique portatif. 1609–. 1829.
- 18.Marie-Nicolas Bouillet. Dictionnaire universel d'histoire et de géographie: contenant l'histoire proprement dite. L. Hachette et Cie. 984–. 1863.
- 19.Johannes Thiemer. Antoine de La Fosse, Sieur d'Aubigny als Tragiker. Seele. 36–. 1906.
- 20.dalla tipografia Pepoliana. Biblioteca teatrale della nazione francese, ossia Raccolta de' più scelti componimenti tragici, comici, lirici e burleschi di quel teatro dall'origine de' suoi spettacoli fino a' nostri giorni, recata in italiano da una società di dotte persone, con prefazioni, giudizi critici, aneddoti, osservazioni, vite, ritratti in rame di varj illustri autori, ec: Capi d'opera di Antonio La-Fosse. 1–. 1795.
- 21.Samuel Orchart Beeton. Beeton's Dictionary of Universal Biography: Being the Lives of Eminent Persons of All Times : with the Pronunciation of Every Name. Ward, Lock and Tyler. 413–. 1870.
- 22.Jacques-Maximilien Benjamin Bins de Saint-Victor. Tableau historique et pittoresque de Paris depuis les Gaulois jusqu'à nos jours. Chez H. Nicolle. 568–. 1808.
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This entry is compiled from 10 catalogued sources across 6 independent registers. The registers consulted are Crossref registry, Wikidata, Wikipedia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Internet Archive and Wellcome Collection. Every statement above is held against the register that stated it; where the registers are silent, the entry is silent.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
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