François de Malherbe was a French poet, critic, and translator.
Background
François de Malherbe was born in Le-Locheur (near Caen, Normandie) in 1555, to a family of standing, although the family's pedigree did not satisfy the heralds in terms of its claims to nobility pre-16th century. Francois the poet was the eldest son of another François de Malherbe, conseiller du roi in the magistracy of Caen.
Education
He himself was elaborately educated at Caen, at Paris, at Heidelberg and at Basel.
Career
Malherbe's earliest poems, addressed to Henry IV, Marie de Médicis, and other important people, were unsuccessful attempts to secure an invitation to the royal court.
In 1605 the Cardinal du Perron presented him to Henry IV, and he was made gentleman-in-waiting to the king. A factor in the appointment was the poet's prayer for Henry IV, Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin (1605). Once launched at court, he remained there through the regency until his death during the reign of Louis XIII. It was as court poet that he produced most of his odes, stances, sonnets, and songs.
As a poet, Malherbe produced little of lasting interest. Most of his odes and official poems were occasional pieces celebrating battles and political events, extolling the benefits of peace, or bemoaning the ravages of the wars of religion. Their style resembles that of Ronsard and the Pléiade school, but is less eloquent and poorer in vocabulary.
As a critic and reformer of poetry, Malherbe had tremendous influence, spreading his doctrine almost entirely by word of mouth in sessions with his friends and disciples, among them Maynard and Racan. The only document extant on which an authentic appraisal of Malherbe's principles may be based is a copy of the works of the poet Philippe Desportes, covered with marginal annotations and criticism in Malherbe's hand (a similarly annotated copy of Ronsard's works, mentioned by contemporaries, has never been found).
Immediately apparent is Malherbe's keen ear for correct rhyme, which made him critical of the somewhat loose rhyming of earlier poets. Throughout his commentary, Malherbe blames Desportes for inexact word usage, syntactical looseness, faulty structure, and weak logic in the development of comparisons and images, incoherence, failure to develop antitheses, and a tendency to succumb to Petrarchian emotionalism.
Malherbe's ideal poem is, then, a tight-knit, epigrammatic demonstration of some definite thought, in the manner of a syllogism. In bringing order into the chaos of late Renaissance French style, Malherbe did a useful work of preparation for French classicism, prompting Boileau to write in his Art poétique (1674): Enfin Malherbe vint ("At last came Malherbe").