Author: Andre, Yves Marie
Biography:
ANDRE, Yves-Marie (1675-1764: BNG)
A Jesuit priest best known, as a writer, for an essay on aesthetics published in 1741, and as a philosopher for an association with Malebranche (1638-1715) that cost him a spell in the Bastille, he owes his place in this bibliography to an English verse translation published in 1777 which appears to have been the first English version of any of his writings. The name of the translator is not known but the preface indicates clearly that he was male and that he had come upon the original in the posthumous edition of André’s works (5 vols., Paris 1766). He dedicated the translation to the Earl of Bute, John Stuart (1713-92), former tutor of George III, and referred to André as formerly Professor of Eloquence at Rouen. There was a very brief, cutting review in MR (“rhymes, for we cannot call them poetry”). André was born in Chåteaulin on 22 May 1675, entered the Jesuit order in 1693, and died at Caen on 26 Feb. 1764. (BNG; MR 58 [1777] 480) HJ