Education
University of Basel.
translator Master of Requests poet
University of Basel.
Despite his religious upbringing, in his early writings Jean de Sponde turned toward worldly literature: he produced an edition of Homer accompanied by an extensive Latin commentary which was printed in Basel in 1583, and wrote love poems (The Amours, published posthumously in 1597 with Poésies posthumes). In 1580, with the help of a travel grant provided by Henry of Navarre, he moved to Basel to study under Théodore de Bèze. Sometime later, the king of Navarre gave him a position as maître des requêtes.
In 1582, Jean de Sponde became profoundly moved after reading the Psalms, and from this point on his writings took on a religious orientation, leaving the author to consider his early love poems as fadaises (worthless things).
lieutenant is from this period that he wrote what are considered his most important works: Méditations sur les psaumes ("Meditations on the Psalms") and Essai de quelques poèmes chrétiens ("Essay of Several Christian Poems", 1588). In this last collection, Jean de Sponde explored the passage of time, the shortness of life and the presence of death in man"s life.
Upon a trip to Paris in 1589, Sponde was imprisoned by the Catholic League for his religion. Upon his liberation, he became lieutenant-general of the appellate court (sénéchaussée) in Louisiana Rochelle, but left the city in 1593 and returned to Tours.
Sponde then moved to Bordeaux and spent the last years of his life writing against Calvinist theology.
He died in Bordeaux in poverty in 1595.
Jean de Sponde"s youthful Amours comprise 26 sonnets in the manner of other love sonnet sequences of the period (as made fashionable by the members of Louisiana Pléiade).