DORAT, CLAUDE JOSEPH (1734-178o), French man of letters, was born in Paris. He obtained a great vogue by his Reponse d' Abailard a Helofse, and followed up this first success with a number of heroic epistles, Les Victimes de l'arnour, ou lettres de quelques amants celebres (1776). Besides light verse he wrote comedies, fables and novels. He was maladroit enough to draw down on himself the hatred both of the philosophe party and of their archenemy, Charles Palissot, and thus cut himself off from the possibility of academic honours. Le Tartufe litteraire ('777) attacked La Harpe and Palissot, and at the same time D'Alembert and Mlle. de Lespinasse. Dorat died in Paris on April 29, 1780.
See his Oeuvres completes (2o vols., 1764-80) ; G. Desnoireterres, Le Chevalier Dorat et les poetes legers au siecle (1887). For the bibliographical value of his works, see Henry Cohen, Guide de l'amateur de livres a figures et a vignettes du siecle (editions of Ch. Mehl, 1876, and R. Portalis, 1887) .