BENOIT, PETER LEONARD LEOPOLD (1834-1901), Flemish composer, was born on the 17th of August 1834 at Harlebeke in Flanders. His father and a local village organist were his first teachers. In 1851 Benoit entered the Brussels Conservatoire, where he remained till 1855, studying chiefly under F.J. Fétis. During this period he composed music to many melodramas, and to an opera Le Village dans les montagnes for the Park theatre, of which in 1856 he became conductor. He won a government prize and a money grant in 1857 by his cantata Le Meurtre d’Abel, and this enabled him to travel through Germany. In course of his journeyings he found time to write a considerable amount of music, as well as an essay L’École de musique flamande et son avenir. Fétis loudly praised his Messe solennelle, which Benoit produced at Brussels on his return from Germany. In 1861 he visited Paris for the production of his opera Le Roi des Aulnes (“Erlkönig”), which, though accepted by the Théâtre Lyrique, was never mounted; while there he conducted at the Bouffes-Parisiens. Again returning home, he astonished a section of the musical world by the production at Antwerp of a sacred tetralogy, consisting of his Cantate de Noël, the above-mentioned Mass, a Te Deum and a Requiem, in which were embodied to a large extent his theories of Flemish music. It was in consequence of his passion for the founding of an entirely separate Flemish school that Benoit changed his name from Pierre to Peter. By prodigious efforts he succeeded in gathering round him a small band of enthusiasts, who affected to see with him possibilities in the foundation of a school whose music should differ completely from that of the French and German schools. In its main features this school failed, for its faith was pinned to Benoit’s music, which is hardly more Flemish than French or German. Benoit’s more important compositions include the Flemish oratorios De Schelde and Lucifer, the latter of which met with complete failure on its production in London in 1888; the operas Het Dorp int Gebirgte and Isa, the Drama Christi; an enormous mass of songs, choruses, small cantatas and motets. Benoit also wrote a great number of essays on musical matters. He died at Antwerp on the 8th of March 1901.
BENOÎT DE SAINTE-MORE, or Sainte-Maure, 12th century French trouvère, is supposed to have been a native of Sainte-Maure in Touraine. Very little is known of his personal history. The maître prefixed to his name implies that he had graduated at the university, but there is nothing to show whether he was a simple trouvère by profession or belonged to the clergy. He was a loyal subject of Henry II. of England, to whose court he was attached, and when he speaks of the French, it is as “they.” Wace had begun a history of the dukes of Normandy in his Roman du Rou. This he brought down to the reign of Henry I., but here Henry II. seems to have withdrawn his patronage, and at the end of his poem Wace refers to a maistre Beneeit who had received a similar commission. There is no other contemporary poem extant dealing with the subject except the Chronique des ducs de Normandie, and it would seem reasonable to assume the identity of Wace’s rival with Benoît de Sainte-More, whose authorship of the chronicle has, nevertheless, been often disputed. But a comparison of the Roman de Troie, which is certainly Benoît’s work, with the Chronique, confirms the supposition that they are by the same author. The poem contains over forty thousand lines, and relates the history of the Norman dukes from Rollo to Henry I., with a preliminary sketch of the Danish invasions and the adventures of Hastings and his companions. It has no claims to be considered an original authority. Benoît drew his information from the De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum of Dudon de Saint Quentin as far as 1002, following his model very closely. From that time he avails himself of the chronicle of William of Jumieges, also of Ordericus Vitalis and others. The Chronique probably dates from about 1172 to 1176. In the Roman de Troie, written about 1160, Benoît expressly asserts his authorship. He mentions “Omers” with great respect as li clers merveillos, but his authority for the story is naturally not Homer, of whom he could have no first-hand knowledge. He follows the apocryphal Historia de excidio Trojae of Dares the Phrygian and the Ephemerides belli Trojani of Dictys of Crete. The poem runs to about 30,000 lines. The personages of the classical story are converted into heroes of romance. They have their castles and their abbeys, and act in accordance with feudal custom. The supernatural machinery of Homer is missing both in Benoît’s original and his own narrative. The story begins with the capture of the Golden Fleece and comes down to the return of the Greek princes after the fall of Troy. Benoît diverges very widely from the classical tradition, and M. Léopold Constans sees reason to suppose that the trouvère founded his poem on an amplified version of the Dares narrative that has not come down to us. In the Roman de Troie first appeared the episode of Troïlus and Briseïde, that was to be developed later in the Filostrato of Boccaccio, which in its turn formed the basis of Chaucer’s Troilus and Creseide. The Shakespearian play of Troilus and Cressida is also indirectly derived from Benoît’s story.
On the strength of a certain similarity of treatment Benoît has sometimes been credited with the authorship of the anonymous Roman d’Énéas and of the Roman de Thèbes, a romance derived indirectly from the Thebaïs of Statius. M. Constans is inclined to negative both these attributions. It is not even certain that the Benoît who chronicled the deeds of the Norman dukes for Henry II. between 1172 and 1176 was the Benoît de Sainte-More of the Roman de Troie.
The Chronique des ducs de Normandie was edited by Francisque Michel in 1836-1844; the Roman de Troie by A. Joly in 1870-1871; the Énéas, by J.J. Salverda de Grave in H. Suchier’s Bibliotheca Normannica in 1891; the Roman de Thèbes for the Société des anciens textes français, by M.L. Constans in 1890. See E.D. Grand in La Grande Encyclopédie; L. Constans in Petit de Julleville’s Hist. de la langue et de la litt, française (vol. i. pp. 171-225). where the three romances are analysed at length. The prefaces to the editions just mentioned discuss the authorship of the romances.
BENSERADE, ISAAC DE (1613-1691), French poet, was born in Paris, and baptized on the 5th of November 1613. His family appears to have been connected with Richelieu, who bestowed on him a pension of 600 livres. He began his literary career with the tragedy of Cléopâtre (1635), which was followed by four other indifferent pieces. On Richelieu’s death Benserade lost his pension, but became more and more a favourite at court, especially with Anne of Austria. He provided the words for the court ballets, and was, in 1674, admitted to the Academy, where he wielded an influence quite out of proportion to the merit of his work. In 1676 the failure of his Métamorphoses d’Ovide in the form of rondeaux gave a blow to his reputation, but by no means destroyed his vogue with his contemporaries. Benserade would probably be forgotten but for his sonnet on Job (1651). This sonnet, which he sent to a young lady with his paraphrase on Job, having been placed in competition with the Urania of Voiture, a dispute on their relative merits long divided the whole court and the wits into two parties, styled respectively the Jobelins and the Uranists. The partisans of Benserade were headed by the prince de Conti and Mile de Scudéry, while Mme de Montausier and J.G. de Balzac took the side of Voiture.
Some years before his death, on the 19th of October 1691, Benserade retired to Chantilly, and devoted himself to a translation of the Psalms, which he nearly completed.