LA TAILLE

la taille, jean de (c. 1540-1608), french poet and dramatist, was born at bondaroy. he studied the humanities in paris under muret, and law at orleans under anne de bourg. he began his career as a huguenot, but afterwards adopted a mild catholicism. he was wounded at the battle of arnay-le duc in 1570, and retired to his estate at bondaroy, where he wrote a political pamphlet entitled _histoire abregee des singeries de la ligue_, often published with the _satire menippee_. his chief poem is a satire on the follies of court life, _le courtisan retire_; he also wrote a political poem, _le prince necessaire_. but his fame rests on his achievements in drama. in 1572 appeared the tragedy of _saul le furieux_, with a preface on _l' art de la tragedie_. like jodelle, grevin, la peruse and their followers, he wrote, not for the general public to which the mysteries and farces had addressed themselves, but for the limited audience of a lettered aristocracy. he therefore depreciated the native drama and insisted on the senecan model. in his preface la taille enunciates the unities of place, time and action; he maintains that each act should have a unity of its own and that the scenes composing it should be continuous; he objects to deaths on the stage on the ground that the representation is unconvincing, and he requires as subject of the tragedy an incident really terrible, developed, if possible, by elaborate intrigue. he criticizes e.g. the subject of the sacrifice of abraham, chosen by theodore de beze for his tragedy (1551), as unsuitable because "pity and terror" are evoked from the spectators without real cause. if in _saul le furieux_ he did not completely carry out his own convictions he developed his principal character with great ability. a second tragedy, _la famine ou les gabeonites_ (1573), is inferior in construction, but is redeemed by the character of rizpah. he was also the author of two comedies, _le negromant_ and _les corrivaux_, both written apparently by 1562 but not published until 1573. _les corrivaux_ is remarkable for its colloquial prose dialogue, which foreshadows the excellence of later french comedy. his brother, jacques de la taille (1542-1562), composed a number of tragedies, of which _la mort de daire_ and _la mort d'alexandre_ (both published in 1573) are the chief. he is best known by his _maniere de faire des vers en francais comme en grec et en latin_, an attempt to regulate french verse by quantity. he died of plague at the age of 20. his _poesies diverses_ were published in 1572. the works of jean de la taille were edited by rene de maulde (4 vols., 1878-1882). see also e. faguet, _la tragedie francaise au xvi^e siecle_ (1883). latakia (anc. _laodicea_), the chief town of a sanjak in the beirut vilayet of syria, situated on the coast, opposite the island of cyprus. the oldest name of the town, according to philo herennius, was [greek: ramitha] or [greek: leuke akte] it received that of laodicea (_ad mare_) from seleucus nicator, who refounded it in honour of his mother as one of the four "sister" cities of the syrian tetrapolis (antioch, seleucia, apamea, laodicea). in the roman period it was favoured by caesar, and took the name of julia; and, though it suffered severely when the fugitive dolabella stood his last siege within its walls (43 b.c.), strabo describes it as a flourishing port, which supplied, from the vineyards on the mountains, the greater part of the wine imported to alexandria. the town received the privileges of an italian colony from severus, for taking his part against antioch in the struggle with niger. laodicea was the seat of an ancient bishopric, and even had some claim to metropolitan rights. at the time of the crusades, "liche," as jacques de vitry says it was popularly called, was a wealthy city. it fell to tancred with antioch in 1102, and was recovered by saladin in 1188. a christian settlement was afterwards permitted to establish itself in the town, and to protect itself by fortifications; but it was expelled by sultan kala'un and the defences destroyed. by the 16th century laodicea had sunk very low; the revival in the beginning of the 17th was due to the new trade in tobacco. the town has several times been almost destroyed by earthquakes--in 1170, 1287 and 1822. the people are chiefly employed in tobacco cultivation, silk and oil culture, poultry rearing and the sponge fishery. there is a large export of eggs to alexandria; but the wealth of the place depends most on the famous "latakia" tobacco, grown in the plain behind the town and on the ansarieh hills. there are three main varieties, of which the worst is dark in colour and strong in flavour; the best, grown in the districts of diryus and amamareh, is light and aromatic, and is exported mainly to alexandria; but much goes also to constantinople, cyprus and direct to europe. after the construction of a road through jebel ansarieh to hamah, latakia drew a good deal of traffic from upper syria; but the hamah-homs railway has now diverted much of this again. the products of the surrounding district, however, cause the town to increase steadily, and it is a regular port of call for the main levantine lines of steamers. the only notable object of antiquity is a triumphal arch, probably of the early 3rd century, in the s.e. quarter of the modern town. latakia and its neighbourhood formerly produced a very beautiful type of rug, examples of which are highly prized. (d. g. h.) lateen (the anglicized form of fr. _latine_, i.e. _voile latine_, latin sail, so-called as the chief form of rig in the mediterranean), a certain kind of triangular sail, having a long yard by which it is suspended to the mast. a "lateener" is a vessel rigged with a lateen sail and yard. this rig was formerly much used, and is still the typical sail of the _felucca_ of the mediterranean, and _dhow_ of the arabian sea. la tene (lat. _tenuis_, shallow), the site of a lake-dwelling at the north end of lake neuchatel, between marin and prefargier. according to some, it was originally a helvetic _oppidum_; according to others, a gallic commercial settlement. r. forrer distinguishes an older semi-military, and a younger civilian settlement, the former a gallic customs station, the latter, which may be compared to the _canabae_ of the roman camps, containing the booths and taverns used by soldiers and sailors. he also considers the older station to have been, not as usually supposed, helvetic, but pre- or proto-helvetic, the character of which changed with the advance of the helvetii into switzerland (c. 110-100 b.c.). la tene has given its name to a period of culture (c. 500 b.c.-a.d. 100), the phase of the iron age succeeding the hallstatt phase, not as being its starting-point, but because the finds are the best known of their kind. the latter are divided into early (c. 500-250 b.c.), middle (250-100 b.c.) and late (100 b.c.-a.d. 100), and chiefly belong to the middle period. they are mostly of iron, and consist of swords, spear-heads, axes, scythes and knives, which exhibit a remarkable agreement with the description of the weapons of the southern celts given by diodorus siculus. there are also brooches, bronze kettles, torques, small bronze ear-rings with little glass pearls of various colours, belt-hooks and pins for fastening articles of clothing. the la tene culture made its way through france across to england, where it has received the name of "late celtic"; a remarkable find has been made at aylesford in kent. see f. keller, _lake dwellings of switzerland_, vi. (eng. trans., 1878); v. gross, _la tene un_ oppidum _helvete_ (1886); e. vouga, _les helvetes a la tene_ (1886); p. reinecke, _zur kenntnis der la tene denkmaler der zone nordwarts der alpen_ (mainzer festschrift, 1902); r. forrer, _reallexikon der prahistorischen ... altertumer_ (1907), where many illustrations are given.