View source for Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

{{Short description|French writer and philosopher of the enlightenment (1657–1757)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2014}}
{{Infobox writer
| name         = Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle 
| image        = Fontenelle 2.jpg
| imagesize    = 200px
| alt          =
| caption      = A 1723 portrait of Fontenelle by [[Louis Galloche]]
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| birth_date   = {{birth_date|1657|02|11|df=y}}
| birth_place  = [[Rouen]], France
| death_date   = {{death_date_and_age|1757|01|09|1657|02|11|df=y}}
| death_place  = Paris, France
| occupation   = Essayist
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| relatives    = [[Thomas Corneille]] and [[Pierre Corneille]]
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'''Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle''' ({{IPAc-en|f|ɒ|n|t|ə|ˈ|n|ɛ|l}};<ref>{{Cite Collins Dictionary|Fontenelle}}</ref> {{IPA|fr|fɔ̃tənɛl|lang}}; 11 February 1657 
– 9 January 1757),<ref>{{DSB |first=Suzanne | last=Delorme | title=Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bouyer (or Bovier) De | volume=5 | pages=57–63}}</ref> also called '''Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle''', was a French writer and a member of three of the academies of the [[Institut de France]], noted especially for his accessible treatment of scientific topics during the unfolding of the [[Age of Enlightenment]].

==Biography==
Fontenelle was born in [[Rouen]], France (then the capital of [[Normandy]]) and died in Paris at age 99.  His mother was the sister of great French dramatists [[Pierre Corneille|Pierre]] and [[Thomas Corneille]]. His father, François le Bovier de Fontenelle, was a lawyer who worked in the provincial court of Rouen and came from a family of lawyers from Alençon.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Fontenelle biography|url = http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Fontenelle.html|website = www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk|access-date = 2016-02-08}}</ref> 

He trained in the law but gave up after one case, devoting his life to writing about [[philosophers]] and scientists, especially defending the [[René Descartes|Cartesian]] tradition.<ref name="MadameGeoffrin">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/madamegeoffrinh00aldigoog |page=[https://archive.org/details/madamegeoffrinh00aldigoog/page/n52 26] |quote=Fontenelle Madame Helvetius. |title=''Madame Geoffrin'' by Janet Aldis |via=[[Internet Archive]] |year=1905 |publisher=G. P. Putnam's sons |access-date=16 August 2012}}</ref> In spite of the undoubted merit and value of his writings, both to the laity and the scientific community, there is no question of his being a primary contributor to the field. He was a commentator and explicator and occasionally a passionate, though generally good-humoured, controversialist.<ref name="GF">Grégoire François. Le dernier défenseur des tourbillons : Fontenelle.. In: Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications,
tome 7, n°3, 1954. pp. 220-246. doi : 10.3406/rhs.1954.3438 http://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0048-7996_1954_num_7_3_343 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005143410/http://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0048-7996_1954_num_7_3_343 |date=5 October 2018 }}</ref>

He was educated at the college of the [[Jesuits]], the ''[[Lycée Pierre Corneille (Rouen)|Lycée Pierre Corneille]]'' (although it did not adopt the name of his uncle (Pierre Corneille) until 1873, about 200 years later).<ref name="LyCo6">{{cite web |url=http://lgcorneille-lyc.spip.ac-rouen.fr/spip.php?article6 |title=Lycée Pierre Corneille de Rouen – History |publisher=Lgcorneille-lyc.spip.ac-rouen.fr |date=19 April 1944 |access-date=16 August 2012}}</ref> At the Lycée he showed a preference for literature and distinguished himself.

According to Bernard de Fontenelle, [[François Blondel]] was a disciple of Father [[Marin Mersenne]] at the ''Academia Parisiensis'' in the French capital, until 1649. There he met "Messieurs [[Pierre Gassendi|Gassendi]], [[Descartes]], [[Thomas Hobbes|Hobbes]], [[Gilles de Roberval|Roberval]], and the two Pascals, [[Étienne Pascal|father]] and [[Blaise Pascal|son]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/traite/Notice/ENSBA_LES1835.asp?param=en|title=Resolution des quatre principaux problemes d'architecture|language=English, French|website=[[University of Tours]]|access-date=May 2, 2021|archive-url=https://archive.today/20160422122809/http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/traite/Notice/ENSBA_LES1835.asp?param=|archive-date=22 April 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Early work==
He began as a poet, writing a poem in [[Latin]] at the age of 13 and more than once competed for prizes of the [[Académie française]], but he never won anything. He visited Paris from time to time and became friendly with the [[abbé de Saint-Pierre]], the abbé [[Réné-Aubert Vertot|Vertot]] and the mathematician [[Pierre Varignon]]. He witnessed, in 1680, the total failure of his [[tragedy]] ''Aspar''.  Fontenelle afterwards acknowledged the public verdict by burning his drama. His libretto for Pascal Collasse's ''[[Thétis et Pélée]]'' ("[[Thetis]] and [[Peleus]]"), which premiered at the Opéra de Paris in January, 1689, was received with great acclaim. 
{{French literature sidebar}}
His ''Lettres galantes du chevalier d'Her ...'', published anonymously in 1685, was a collection of letters portraying worldly society of the time.  It immediately made its mark. In 1686 his famous allegory of Rome and [[Geneva]], slightly disguised as the rival princesses Mreo and Eenegu, in the ''Relation de l'île de Bornéo'', gave proof of his daring in religious matters. Fontenelle's ''Nouveaux Dialogues des morts'' (1683) established a genuine claim to high literary rank.

Three years later, he wrote the most influential work to date on the [[Cosmic pluralism|plurality of worlds]], ''[[Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds|Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes]]'' (1686).<ref name=Almond>Almond, Philip C. "[https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9809.2006.00446.x Adam, Pre-Adamites, and Extra-Terrestrial Beings in Early Modern Europe]". ''[[Journal of Religious History]]'', vol. 30, no. 2. July 2006. 163–174.</ref> He wrote extensively on the nature of the [[universe]]: "Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all. Our world is terrifying in its insignificance."

==Later work==
[[Image:Fontenelle - Élements de la geometrie de l'infini, 1727 - 1520530.jpg |thumb|''Éléments de la géométrie de l'infini'', 1727]]

Fontenelle had made his home in [[Rouen]]. In 1687 he moved to Paris. In 1687 he published his ''Histoire des oracles'', a book which made a considerable stir in theological and philosophical circles. It consisted of two essays, the first of which was designed to prove that oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons, and the second that they did not cease with the birth of Jesus. 

It excited the suspicion of the Church, and a [[Jesuit]], by name [[Jean-François Baltus]], published a ponderous refutation of it; but the peace-loving disposition of its author impelled him to leave his opponent unanswered. To the following year (1688) belongs his ''Digression sur les anciens et les modernes'', in which he took the modern side in the controversy then raging; his ''Doutes sur le système physique des causes occasionnelles'' (against [[Nicolas Malebranche]]) appeared shortly afterwards.

He remained influential in his older years and when a then unknown [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] met him in 1742, when Fontenelle was 85, he passed on the advice he gave all young writers that came to him: "You must courageously offer your brow to laurel wreaths and your nose to blows."<ref>{{cite book|title=Jean-Jacques Roussea: Restless Genius|author=Leo Damrosch|year=2007|publisher=Mariner Books}}</ref>

A noted [[gourmand]], he attributed his longevity to eating [[strawberries]]{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}. At ninety-two, one observer wrote that he was as lively as a man of twenty-two.<ref name="MadameGeoffrin"/> When, in his late nineties, he met the then-beautiful [[Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius|Madame Helvétius]], he reportedly told her, "Ah Madame, if only I were eighty again!"<ref name="80 again">{{cite book |title=Franklin of Philadelphia |page=327 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E8njwnBl-QsC&pg=PA327 |first=Esmond |last=Wright |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1988 |isbn=9780674318106}}</ref>

==Member of the French Academy==
In 1691 he was received into the [[French Academy]] in spite of the determined efforts of the partisans of the "ancients", especially [[Jean Racine|Racine]] and [[Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux|Boileau]], who on four previous occasions had ensured his rejection. He was thus a member both of the [[Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres|Academy of Inscriptions]] and of the [[French Academy of Sciences|Academy of Sciences]].<ref name="GF"/> In 1697 he became perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences, an office he held for forty-two years. It was in this official capacity that he wrote the ''Histoire du renouvellement de l'Académie des Sciences'' (Paris, 3 vols., 1708, 1717, 1722) containing extracts and analyses of the proceedings, and also the ''éloges'' of the members, written with great simplicity and delicacy.<ref name="GF"/>

Perhaps the best known of his ''éloges'', of which there are sixty-nine in all, is that of his uncle [[Pierre Corneille]]. This was first printed in the ''Nouvelles de la republique des lettres'' (January 1685) and, as ''Vie de Corneille'', was included in all the editions of Fontenelle's ''Œuvres.'' The other important works of Fontenelle are his ''Éléments de la géometrie de l'infini'' (1727) and his ''Théorie des tourbillons'' (1752). In the latter he supported the views of [[René Descartes]] concerning gravitation, material that by that time had effectively been superseded by the work of [[Isaac Newton]].<ref name="GF"/>

He is noted for the accessibility of his work – particularly its novelistic style. This allowed non-scientists to appreciate scientific development in a time where this was unusual, and scientists to benefit from the thoughts of the greater society. If his writing is often seen as trying to popularize the astronomical theories of Descartes, whose greatest exponent he is sometimes considered, it also appealed to the literate society of the day to become more involved in "natural philosophy," thus enriching the work of [[17th century philosophy|early-Enlightenment]] scientists. In spite of the inarguable value and quality of his writings, he had no serious pretensions to original scientific or mathematical work, but did not let that stop him from outspoken support for Descartes' proposed conceptions of the roles of vortices in physics.<ref name="GF"/>

==Legacy==
{{More citations needed|date=August 2025}}[[File:Fontenelle.jpg|thumb|250px|A portrait of Fontenelle by [[Nicolas de Largillière]]]]
Fontenelle was a popular figure in the educated French society of his period, by holding a position of esteem comparable only to that of [[Voltaire]]. Unlike Voltaire, however, Fontenelle avoided making important enemies. He balanced his penchant for universal critical thought with liberal doses of flattery and praise to the appropriate individuals in aristocratic society.

Fontenelle forms a link between two very widely different periods of French literature, that of [[Pierre Corneille|Corneille]], [[Jean Racine|Racine]] and [[Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux|Boileau]] on the one hand, and that of Voltaire, [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert|D'Alembert]] and [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]] on the other. It is not in virtue of his great age alone that this can be said of him; he actually had much in common with the ''beaux esprits'' of the 17th century, as well as with the ''philosophes'' of the 18th. But it is to the latter rather than to the former period that he properly belongs.

According to [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve]], he deserves a place ''dans la classe des esprits infiniment distingués'' but is distinguished by being ought to be added by intelligence rather than by intellect and less by the power of saying much than by the power of saying a little well.
There have been several collected editions of Fontenelle's works, the first being printed in 3 vols. at [[the Hague]] in 1728–1729. The best is that of Paris, in 8 vols., 1790. Some of his separate works have been frequently reprinted and also translated.

The ''[[Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds|Pluralité des mondes]]'' was translated into [[Greek language|modern Greek]] in 1794. [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve|Sainte-Beuve]] has an interesting essay on Fontenelle, with several useful references, in the ''Causeries du lundi'', vol. iii. See also [[Abel-Francois Villemain|Villemain]], ''Tableau de la littérature française au XVIIIe siècle''; the abbé Trublet, ''Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de Fontenelle'' (1759); A Laborde-Milaà, ''Fontenelle'' (1905), in the "''Grands écrivains français''" series; and L. Maigron, ''Fontenelle, l'homme, l'œuvre, l'influence'' (Paris, 1906).

His ''[[:fr:Dialogue des morts (Fontenelle)|Dialogues of the dead]]'' show both his erudition and wit by presenting invented but plausible dialogues between dead ancients, dead moderns and a whole book devoted to dialogues between an ancient and a modern. To [[Montaigne]] asking him if some centuries had more wise men than other, [[Socrates]] answers sadly, "The general order of natures seems very constant". In one of the books [[Roxelane]] and [[Anne Boleyn]] discuss about politics and the way for a woman to decide a man to marry her. The dialogue between [[Moctezuma II|Montezuma]] and [[Hernán Cortés|Cortez]] allows the former to dismiss some myths about the wisdom in ancient Greece by quoting some counter-examples.

In 1935, the [[lunar crater]] [[Fontenelle (crater)|Fontenelle]] was named after him.<ref>"[https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/1992 MOON - Fontenelle]", ''Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature''. International Astronomical Union, Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature.</ref>

== Bibliography ==

* ''La Comète'' (1681)
* ''Nouveaux dialogues des morts'' (1683)
* ''De l'origine des fables'' (1684)
* ''Lettres galantes du chevalier d’Her***'' (1685)
* ''Relation de l’île de Bornéo'' (1686)
* ''[[Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds|Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes]]'' (1686; revised 1724)
* ''Histoire des oracles'' (1687)
* ''Digression sur les anciens et les modernes'' (1688)
* ''Le Comte de Gabalis, comédie en un acte'' (1689)
* ''Énée et Lavinie'' (1690)
* ''Idalie'' (circa 1710)

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de |volume=10 |pages=608–609}}
<!-- Although paraphrased, and with additional unreferenced material -->

==External links==
*{{commons and category-inline}}
*{{wikiquote-inline}}
*{{wikisource author-inline}}
*[https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Fontenelle%2C+Bernard+le+Bovier+de%22 Works] at [[Internet Archive]]
* {{Librivox author |id=12304}}
* {{MacTutor Biography|id=Fontenelle}}
{{Académie française Seat 27}}
{{Age of Enlightenment}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de}}
[[Category:1657 births]]
[[Category:1757 deaths]]
[[Category:Writers from Rouen]]
[[Category:Lycée Pierre-Corneille alumni]]
[[Category:17th-century French poets]]
[[Category:18th-century French poets]]
[[Category:17th-century French dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:18th-century French dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:17th-century French male writers]]
[[Category:18th-century French male writers]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres]]
[[Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Members of the Académie Française]]
[[Category:Officers of the French Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:French Enlightenment]]
[[Category:People of the Age of Enlightenment]]
[[Category:Writers from the Province of Normandy]]