Jean (de) Mairet (bap. May 10, 1604 – January 31, 1686) was a classical French dramatist who wrote both tragedies and comedies.

Life

He was born at Besançon, and went to Paris to study at the Collège des Grassins about 1625. In that year he produced his first piece Chryséide et Arimand. In 1634 he produced his masterpiece, Sophonisbe, which marks, in its observance of the rules, the beginning of the regular tragedies. He also introduced to French drama the Three Unities of time, action and place, after a misreading of Aristotle's Poetics.

Mairet was one of the bitterest assailants of Corneille in the controversy over Le Cid . It was perhaps his jealousy of Corneille that made him give up writing for the stage.

He was appointed in 1648 official representative of his home county, the Franche-Comté, which allowed him to stay in Paris, but in 1653 he was banished by Cardinal Mazarin. He was subsequently allowed to return, but in 1668 he retired to Besançon, and subsequently rarely left.

Other plays

• La Sylvie, a pastoral tragi-comedy (1626)
• La Silvanire, ou la Morte-vive, with an elaborate preface on the observance of the unities (1631)
• Les Galanteries du duc d'Ossonne, comedy (1632)
• La Virginie, tragi-comedy (1633)
• Le Marc-Antoine, ou la Cléopâtre, tragedy (1635)
• L'illustre corsaire, tragi-comedy (1636)
• Le Grand et dernier Solyman, tragedy (1637)
• L’Illustre corsaire, tragi-comedy (1640)
• Le Roland furieux, tragi-comedy (1641)
• L’Athénaïs, tragi-comedy (1642)
• La Sidonie, tragi-comedy (1643)