RACAN, HONORAT DE BUEIL, SEIGNEUR DE

born Feb. 5, 1589, Champmarin, France died Jan. 21, 1670, Paris French poet, one of the earliest members (1635) of the French Academy. Racan became a page at the court of Henry IV and served in the army. His works include the celebrated Stances sur la retraite (c. 1618; Stanzas on Retreat), which reflects his love of nature and his reluctance to adhere to the poetic discipline of his master, Franois de Malherbe, whose biography he wrote. Racan's best-known work is a pastoral drama, Les Bergeries (The Sheepfolds), sometimes called the finest example of the genre in French; it was performed at the Htel de Bourgogne about 1620 and published in 1625. His other poems are mainly bucolic and religious, both preserving the elegiac lyricism of an earlier age and foreshadowing the gentle melancholy of Alphonse de Lamartine. Racan also wrote verse paraphrases of the Psalms after he retired to his country seat in Touraine in 1639.