VAUQUELIN DE LA FRESNAYE, JEAN (1536 i608), French poet, was born at the château of La Fresnaye, near Falaise, in 1536. He studied the humanities at Paris and law at Poitiers and Bourges. He fought in the civil wars under Marshal Matignon and was wounded at the siege of Saint-Lo (1574). Most of his life was spent at Caen, where he was president, and he died there in 1608. La Fresnaye was a disciple of Ronsard, but, while praising the reforms of the Pleiade, he laid stress on the continuity of French literary history. He was a student of the trouveres and the old chroniclers, and desired to see French poetry set on a national basis. These views he expounded in an Art poetique, begun in 1574, but not published until 1605.
His Foresteries appeared in ; his Diverses poesies, including the Art poetique, the Satyres francoises, addressed to various distin guished contemporaries, and the ldylles, with some epigrams and sonnets, appeared in 16o5. Among his political writings may be noted Pour la monarchie du royaume contre la division (1569).
The Art poetique was edited by G. Pellissier in r885. It is summar ized for English readers in vol. ii. of George Saintsbury's History of Criticism. A notice of the poet by J. Travers is prefixed to an edition of the Oeuvres diverses (Caen, 1872).