Chénier, André Marie de (1762–1794)

French poet. His lyrical poetry was later to inspire the Romantic movement, but he was known in his own time for his uncompromising support of the constitutional royalists after the Revolution. In 1793 he went into hiding, but finally he was arrested and, on 25 July 1794, guillotined. While in prison he wrote Jeune Captive/Captive Girl and the political Iambes, published after his death.

The best known of his poems belong to the Bucoliques: La Jeune Tarentine/Young Tarentine; L'Aveugle/The Blind Man (on the legend of Homer wandering and blind); and Le Jeune Malade/The Sick Young Man. Of the odes, Jeu de Paume/Real Tennis is in the metrical structure known as Pindaric, and one is addressed to the revolutionary Charlotte Corday.

Stylistically, Chéier is important for his use of enjambment, with which he was the first to systematically modify the uniformity of alexandrine verse so as to give it more life and flexibility.