SCUDÉRI, GEORGES DE, a French litterateur, was born at Havre, in Normandy, about 1601, where his father held
the post of governor. He at first followed the profession of arms, but subsequently, in 1630, exchanged the sword for the pen, and took to the writing of dramas. He rose to a wide notoriety, and could, at one time, count more admirers than Corneille, the greatest dramatist of France. But men's minds gradually changed, and Corneille is now recognized as the greatest tragedian France has known, and Georges de Scudéri is entirely forgotten. De Scudéri could not bear the rising reputation of his rival; and on the publication of the Cid, so strong was his vanity and so urgent his animosity, that he wrote Observations sur le Cid, in which he laboured industriously to tear to pieces that superb drama; but its author could afford to smile on all such petty animosities, and he contented himself by a stinging epigram, which he flung at the head of the "solemn fool," his late friend, De Scudéri. He got into disrepute; and despite all the exertions of Cardinal Richelieu, he could not regain his position with the French public. He was appointed governor of Notre Dame de la Garde, a small fort situated on a rock adjoining Marseilles; but he soon returned from that retirement, and died at Paris, on May 14, 1667, after having been elected a member of the French Academy in 1650.
His plays, which number sixteen in all, are as follows:—L'Amour Tyrannique; Armenius; Oronte; L'Ygdamon; Le Vassal Généreux; Le Trompeur Puni; La Mort de César; L'Amant Libéral; Didon; Eudoxe; Andromire; Ariane; Le Fils Supposé; Le Prince Dequisé; L'Illustre Bassa; La Comédie des Comédiens. He likewise wrote Poésies Diverses, Paris, 1649; and an heroic poem, called Alarie, ou Rome Vaincue.