GRESSET, JEAN-BAPTISTE-LOUIS

born Aug. 29, 1709, Amiens, Fr. died June 16, 1777, Amiens French poet and dramatist who received immediate and lasting acclaim for his irreverently comic narrative poem Ver-Vert (1734; Ver-Vert, or the Nunnery Parrot), describing with wit tinged with malice the adventures of a parrot who attempts to maintain his decorous convent background while on a visit to another convent. Brought up by Jesuits, Gresset was a brilliant pupil and, after entering the Jesuit order in 1726, continued his education in Paris before returning to teach in Amiens and Tours. Ver-Vert, which was circulated privately and printed without the author's permission, brought him instant success in Parisian circles, where the literati were astounded that such a refined wit could come from within the Catholic church. In spite of the objections of some of his superiors, Gresset continued to write light occasional verse, within a year publishing La Carme impromptu (The Lenten Impromptu) and Le Lutrin vivant (The Living Lectern). Returning to Paris in 1735 for a year's study of theology, he wrote La Chartreuse (The Carthusian) and Les Ombres (The Shadows). These lively accounts of life in a Jesuit college, precise and pointed in detail, led first to his banishment to the provinces and then to his expulsion from the order; his keen eye for absurdity and his natural frivolity were seen as anticlerical and impious. Supported by an official pension, he turned to drama; his first plays, the tragedy douard III (performed 1740), which included the first murder ever enacted on the French stage, and a verse comedy, Sidney (1745), were not especially successful, but Le Mchant (1747; The Sorry Man), a witty expos of salon life, was highly praised for its pithy, polished dialogue. Admitted to the French Academy in 1748, he caused a stir with his criticism of nonresident bishops (1754). In 1759 Gresset wrote Lettre sur la comdie, in which he renounced all his previous poetic and dramatic works as irreligious.