Jean Dorat
born 1508, Le Dorat, near Limoges,
Fr.
died Nov. 1, 1588, Paris
French humanist, a brilliant Hellenist,
one of the poets of the Pléiade, and
their mentor for many years.
Dorat belonged to a noble family;
after studying at the Collège de
Limoges, he became tutor to the pages of
Francis I. He tutored Jean-Antoine de
Baïf, whose father he succeeded as
director of the Collège de Coqueret.
There, besides Baïf, his pupils included
Pierre de Ronsard, Rémy Belleau, and
Pontus de Tyard. Joachim du Bellay was
added to this group by Ronsard, and
these five young poets, along with and
under the direction of Dorat, formed a
society for the reform of French
language and literature. They increased
their number to seven with the dramatist
Étienne Jodelle and named themselves La
Pléiade, in emulation of the seven Greek
poets of Alexandria. The election of
Dorat as their president proved his
personal influence, but as a writer of
French verse he is the least important
of the seven.
Dorat stimulated his students to
intensive study of Greek and Latin
poetry, while he himself wrote
incessantly in both languages. He is
said to have composed more than 15,000
Greek and Latin verses.
His influence and fame as a scholar
extended to England, Italy, and Germany.
In 1556 he was appointed professor of
Greek at the Collège Royal, a post that
he held until he retired in 1567. He
published a collection of the best of
his Greek and Latin verse in 1586.
