Antoine-Marin Lemierre

Antoine-Marin Lemierre was a French dramatist and poet.

Life

Lemierre was born in Paris to a poor family but secured patronage from the collector-general of taxes, André [Marie Jean Jacques Dupin|Dupin], eventually becoming his secretary. Lemierre achieved his initial theatrical success with Hypermnestre ; Titre and Idomne failed on account of the subjects. Artaxerce, modelled on Metastasio, and Guillaume Tell were produced in 1766; other successful tragedies were La Veuve de Malabar and Barnavelt. He was admitted to the Académie française in 1780.
In 1786, Lemierre successfully revived Guillaume [Tell (play)|Guillaume Tell] to great acclaim. Following the French Revolution, Lemierre expressed profound remorse for having produced a play that promoted revolutionary ideals. It is widely believed that the trauma of witnessing the revolution's excesses contributed to his untimely death. Lemierre published La Peinture, based on a Latin poem by the abbé de Marsy, and a poem in six cantos. Les Fastes, ou les usages de lannie, an unsatisfactory imitation of Ovid's Fasti.
His Œuvres contain a notice of Lemierre by R. Perrin. and his Œuvres choisies contain one by F. Fayolle.