Sponde, Jean de

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Jean de Sponde (zhäN də spôNd), 1557–95, French poet and humanist. He held various posts in the court of Henry IV but died destitute because of his reckless nature. His Sonnets of Love and Death (1630, tr. 1962), considered his best work, abounds in antithesis and metaphor, foreshadowing the works of John Donne. Sponde also published scholarly editions of Homer and Aristotle, Homeri poemarum versio latina and La Logique d'Aristote.