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Stendhal

Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle
Marie-Henri Beyle

Birth name Marie-Henri Beyle
Other names Stendhal
Activity (s) Novelist
Birth 23 January 1783
Grenoble
Deaths 23 March 1842 (59 years)
Paris
Writing language French
Movement (s) Realism , Romanticism.

Marie-Henri Beyle Stendhal said, born 23 January 1783 at Grenoble and died on 23 March 1842 in Paris , is a writer French in the first half of the nineteenth century. Before signing Stendhal , and .

Enlisted in the Army in 1800, he held administrative functions primarily as military during the Russian campaign in 1812. Amateur arts and a passion for Italy where he made many visits, he wrote first trials aesthetic under his real name as The History of Painting (early 1817), but under the pseudonym "M. Stendhal, a cavalry officer "that he published in Rome, Naples, Florence in September 1817 . This pen name was inspired by a city of Germany " Stendal "birthplace of the art historian and archaeologist famous at the time Johann Joachim Winckelmann , but especially near where Stendhal lived in 1807 -1808 a moment of great passion with Wilhelmina of Grisheim. Having added an H to Germanize still called, he wanted it pronounced "Stendhal" .

His novels Training The Red and the Black (1830), The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) and Lucien Leuven (unfinished) made him, along with Balzac , Hugo , Flaubert and Zola , one of the leading exponents of the French novel nineteenth century. In his novels, characterized by a style thrifty and tightened, Stendhal seeks "the truth, the bitter truth" in the psychological and camped mostly young people with aspirations romantic vitality, strength of feeling and dreams of glory.

Summary

Biography

1783-1821: The Early Years

Henri Beyle born Jesuit Old Street (now rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau ) at Grenoble in a bourgeois family that enjoys little. His mother, Henriette Gagnon, he was very fond, died when he was eight years old. His father Joseph Cherubin Beyle (who later made a Knight of the Legion of Honour and he bequeathed his cross) gives her tutor for the abbot Raillane, and young Henry suffer from the tyranny of the latter:

"I hated the abbot, I hated my father, the source of the powers of the abbot, I hated even more the religion in whose name they tyrannized me . "

His hatred extends to her aunt Seraphie, probably his father's mistress. While the father becomes an anti-monarchist model, the grandfather Gagnon introduces children to the Enlightenment.

Former house of Stendhal in Grenoble with the trellis and terrace built on the Roman walls and overlooking the City Park.

In 1796 , he joined the Central School of Grenoble.

In October 1799 , he moved to Paris to take the examination of the cole Polytechnique. He gives up and appear to be very disappointed in the capital, where he fell ill.

He was 16 and then turned to a military career. His military career was made possible by his cousin Pierre Daru , general secretary of war. From 1800 to 1801 , he participated in the Italian campaign when he was appointed lieutenant in the 6th Regiment of Dragoons. The discovery of Italy leaves Beyle amazed.

Returned to Paris , the young man tries to get a place in the trading in the literary success (he wants to write "Molire comedies like") or attractive women.

In 1805 , he became the lover of actress Melanie Guilbert , he follows her to Marseilles and tries to trade without much motivation or much success. But these years of learning will have a great influence on the character of Julien Sorel in The Red and Black.

In 1806 again thanks to his cousin Pierre Daru, he enlisted again and was assigned to the stewardship he will shows exceptional organizational skills, his position within the "Great Army" will enable it to fulfill one of his greatest passions: travel. He visits and Germany, including Saxony , of Austria , the Russian.

He was appointed auditor at the State Council on 3 August 1810. He is 27 years.

In 1812 , he worked in the History of Painting in Italy. In August, he went to Moscow where he will witness the fire that ravaged the city after the entrance of the Grand Army in September. In November, during the retreat from Russia , he loses the manuscript of the History of Painting in Italy.

The Campaign of France in April 1814 caused the collapse of the Empire and ended his career after demobilization, he went to Italy and settled in Milan where he met his mistress Angela Pietragrua. Milan had won in 1800 became his chosen city to the point he claims as one epitaph "Arrigo Beyle, Milanese."

The following year he had engraved on his business cards:

" Waterloo is too bad. Six more months and I was appointed to the Le Mans prefect of the Sarthe.

After the Empire

Stendhal's literary talent in his work are openly Rome, Naples and Florence , published in 1817.

In 1818 , Stendhal working on a Life of Napoleon. It is also the year when he met one he will live a great passion, Matilda Dembowska (Metilde), it follows the following year at Volterra ( Grand Duchy of Tuscany ).

During this period he wrote Lives of Haydn, Mozart and Metastasio , and History of Painting in Italy.

In 1821 , because he is accused of sympathizing with the Carbonari - especially affection felt in the new Vanina Vanini - he was expelled from Milan by the Austrian administration. He is forced to leave Metilde he loves to return to Paris he dislikes.

1821-1834: The Rise literary

Tomb of Stendhal in the cemetery of Montmartre

Back in Paris , nearly ruined after the death of his father, he entered the literary world by attending salons. Thus, he has his inner circle and even has a disciple in the person of Prosper Merimee. He writes newspaper publishes essays. In 1822 he published Love, true test of psychology in which he outlines his theory of "crystallization". He agrees with ardor into the battle with his romantic Racine and Shakespeare in 1823. His eclectic talent to write and publish a Life of Rossini in 1823 and Walks in Rome in 1829.

In 1827 he published his first novel , Armance , followed in 1830 for his first masterpiece, The Red and Black. This novel, released in bookstores at the time of the Revolution of July , will experience a great success.

Count Mole, Minister of Louis Philippe, appointed consul at Trieste. His liberal ideas are not like, and is named in 1831 to Civitavecchia , where he writes the Memories of egotism and the unfinished novel Lucien Leuven.

1834-1842: recent works recent travels

At Civitavecchia , he gets bored and goes traveling. Leave from 1836 to 1839 allows him to return to Paris. He failed to finish the works he begins (Memories of egotism, Life of Henry Brulard Lucien Leuven ...). After completing his latest masterpiece, The Charterhouse of Parma , in 1839 , he died on the night of 22 to 23 March 1842 of a stroke. His body is buried in Montmartre cemetery in Paris. He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor by Guizot.

The novels of Stendhal

Stendhal's work is both texts autobiographical (Life of Henry Brulard example) only in novels that are among the finest in French literature: The Red and the Black , Lucien Leuven , The Charterhouse of Parma. This novel was hailed at its first publication in a eulogy of Honore de Balzac , another master of the novel realistic which Stendhal himself said happily surprised.

"This amazing article, I read (...) (...) with a laugh. Whenever I came to praise a bit strong (...) I saw the face that my friends would by reading . "

The Red and Black

The Red and the Black (1830) is the first major novel by Stendhal. It is the first novel to bind so subtly describing the social reality of his time and action novels by Erich Auerbach in his famous study Mimesis. Julien Sorel, the protagonist of the book is the product of his time in a sense, the hero of a rebellious and revolutionary France . Literally drunk with ambition because of the reading of the Memorial of St. Helena, Napoleon, conscious that since the Revolution is the merit and not birth alone that matters, he dreams of becoming itself a new Bonaparte. The draft of the novel had to be submitted to Paul-Louis Courier that Stendhal was for the best contemporary French writer. An echo of the difficulties encountered by the pamphleteer in Touraine is also evident through the character that appears Giraud St. to the first chapter of the second part of the novel. When Courier was assassinated, Stendhal suspected political motives in this package unsolved.

The Charterhouse of Parma

This major work, which earned him fame, was published in two volumes in March 1839. Balzac considered it a pure masterpiece and wrote in March 1839 to the author's admiration for the "superb and true description of battle I dreamed for scenes of military life " . In the first section of the ephemeral Parisian journal in 1840, he speaks of "recent masterpiece" Mr. Beyle, ending with these words: "I look at the author of The Charterhouse of Parma as one of the best writers of our time "and in the third and final issue is the large text which makes the novel by Stendhal's masterpiece felt like classic upon its release, as the archetype of the genre" novel " . Overhauled in 1842 shortly before the death of Stendhal, in fact he took a turn more "Balzac" but the original text, more purely Stendhal, who won today.

However, the work will be until the early twentieth century , relatively unknown outside a few circles of aesthetics, literary critics, visionaries and personalities ( Nietzsche ), it seemed that Stendhal calls for, dedicating his novel To the Happy Few.

Lucien Leuven

Lucien Leuven is the second major novel by Stendhal, writing in 1834 , after the Red and Black. The novel remained unfinished.

Lucien Leuven, young Polytechnique , is expelled from his school because he is suspected of being a Saint-Simonian. His father, a wealthy Parisian businessman, allowed him to become lieutenant , which led him to leave for Nancy.

Realism in Stendhal

Stendhal did not just "applied" a certain aesthetic realistic he initially thought. The realism of Stendhal is also the desire to make the novel a "mirror" that is to say a simple reflection of social and political reality of an era in all its harshness. Stendhal also wrote that "the novel is a mirror that we walk along a path."

In Racine and Shakespeare , he assigns the duty to romantic art to an art that will match the tastes and trends of the people. Stendhal's realism is first the desire to paint the facts can be of interest to his contemporaries ( July Monarchy in Lucian Leuven, Food in The Red and the Black , and defeat of the Austrians back in The Charterhouse of Parma).

However, Stendhal depicts with great attention to psychological realism, the feelings of the main characters. He often draws the same theories about the love of his treatise love and trying to do rigorous work of psychologist.

His longtime friend Prosper Mrime considered him a remarkable observer of the human heart . And feelings of love are depicted with great care: the narrator describes at length the birth of passion and its vicissitudes, whether between Ms. de Renal and Julien, Julien and Mathilde de la Mole, Leuven and Mrs. Lucien de Chasteller or Fabrice and Clelia.

Realism in painting manners and society

The Red and the Black and Lucien Leuven is a painting of the acerbic company under the Restoration , as indicated by the subtitle of the novel The Red and the Black: Chronicle of 1830. "Lucien Leuven is the vast array of Monarchy July. The Charterhouse of Parma is a painting of political morality in the Italian monarchy of the nineteenth century. These novels are political, not by the presence of long political reflections (Stendhal, who has always refused to "oratory" rejects this method and compares it to "a pistol shot in the middle of a concert" in The Red and Black ) but by painting the facts.

The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma is also harsh criticism of the subordinate position of women: see interpretation feminist Simone de Beauvoir 's novels Stendhal (in The Second Sex ).

The painting of manners in Stendhal does not want an impartial but critical: it is not motivated by a desire sociological but by the desire to drop the pretense and show "the truth, the bitter truth" (the highlight first book of The Red and Black) of the society of his time.

Despite his concern for realism, there are no descriptions of the detailed material reality. The narrator, who is wary of the description hardly describes the scene. Description of Stained at the beginning of the novel takes just one page and serves as an introduction to a scathing critique of the inhabitants. We know nothing either of the Hotel de la Mole (The Red and Black) or Milan or the Castle of the Marquis del Dongo (The Charterhouse of Parma). Because the painting of the place is "functional." The narrator describes the world only to the extent necessary to understand the action. If the prison is described Fabrice carefully that it is an essential place for the action of The Charterhouse of Parma.

Belonging rather to a moderate trend of romanticism (as opposed to romanticism flamboyant represented by Victor Hugo ), the narrator, who said in Life of Henry Brulard abhor physical description, preferring descriptive elements , described the sentence characters: we know almost nothing about toilets Ms. de Renal, Mathilde nor required to Julien and Fabrice Lucien Leuven, just the hair color and some details about their appearance, mentioned very briefly. Thus, Mathilde de La Mole is "extremely fair and very well done," and Julian "thought he had never seen such beautiful eyes."

But painting the material reality is also discreet because of the peculiarities of Stendhal novel. Thus, the subject of money is often associated with secondary characters or hateful (M. de Renal, the Marquis del Dongo): the reader's attention turns instead to the main protagonists are far from such worries (Fabrice Ms. de Renal, Lucien Leuven). Stendhal's novel moves quickly, while the description creates a pause in the narrative.

The other limit of "realism" of the novel is Stendhal, which runs through all his novels. The hero is a figure Stendhal novel. The character of Julian is smart, ambitious to madness, and nourishes a deep hatred for his contemporaries. Fabrice is a young man excited and passionate. Lucien Leuven is idealistic and well done to him. These characters often have just 20 years.

Moreover, politics in The Charterhouse of Parma is significantly lower than in The Red and the Black and Lucien Leuven. Especially the history that plays a role ( Waterloo , arrival of French troops in Milan in 1796). And yet it is inseparable from the action of the novel. The Charterhouse of Parma has a romantic character much more pronounced than the other two great novels (see the characters of the Duchess Sanseverina or Clelia). Stendhal realism is therefore limited to minor characters (the characters predictable) and not its main characters, the characters real, beyond the description , which is not the case in Zola.

Subjective Realism in Stendhal

But realism in Stendhal is also subjective realism without it being a contradiction. By subjective realism means one of the fundamental processes driving the narrative in Stendhal. Georges Blin , in Stendhal and problems of Roman, is one of those who put forward this process. Stendhal think everyone is locked in his subjectivity and can not perceive the world within the limits of his eyes .

The originality of Stendhal is the extensive use of " focusing internally "(to borrow the terminology of Gerard Genette ) to narrate the events. The events are largely seen by the protagonists or even one of them. Stendhal refuses the perspective of the omniscient narrator but practical "field restriction". In The Red and the Black and Lucien Leuven events are seen in the radius of Julien Sorel, Lucien. In The Charterhouse of Parma, the narrator has recognized the right of scrutiny of other characters (Clelia Mosca Sanseverina) Fabrice Del Dongo but keeps the main focus (the scene of the battle of Waterloo is seen exclusively through his eyes). We can therefore speak of a field restriction in Stendhal (Blin). Stendhal has indeed cut his stories of "interior monologues" and brought the romance to biography of the hero. The three great novels begin with the youth of the hero or even before (see The Charterhouse of Parma) and end with his death (see The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma).

One consequence of the restriction of the field: the descriptions are brief in Stendhal. They are the work of an outside narrator who sees the appearance of outside characters or a narrator who observes nature. Such a narrator is incompatible with the "constraint field" and it plays a secondary role in Stendhal.

The choice of the restriction of the field also explains that some characters appear and disappear so quickly over the action (as the Count de la Mole in The Red and the Black and Rassi in The Charterhouse of Parma) because everything is seen through the eyes of a central character.

Third consequence of the use of restricted scope, the events unfold gradually. Stendhal's heroes are a bit surprised by what they see and fail to understand the meaning gradually. Only gradually did Julien see why Mademoiselle de La Mole is a day of mourning clothes when nobody has died around her. He later discovers that she mourns death of an ancestor in the sixteenth century.

The autobiographical

Stendhal by Felix Vallotton.

Stendhal's work is deeply autobiographical. Even his novels as they are inspired by his own life but also because they are an ideal autobiography of Stendhal. Julien Sorel , Lucien Leuven and Fabrice del Dongo is what Stendhal would have dreamed of being.

Stendhal's autobiographical works are of three kinds. First Stendhal held for very many years a newspaper in which he tells As the events of his life. One could speak of a decision on the spot of his own life. On the other hand Stendhal wrote two other major autobiographical works: the Life of Henry Brulard and Recollections of egotism. They pursue the same project as the Journal but also that of the Confessions of Rousseau : getting to know oneself. However they differ from the Journal because they were written after the fact. Finally, the autobiography is a very specific form in Stendhal: he liked to write on the margins of his books (and even his novels but so cryptic) or clothes (eg on a belt as in the Life of Henry Brulard ).

The Stendhal's autobiographical work is distinguished not so much by his project (Rousseau pursued the same) as the importance it takes. It is expressed by both novels as autobiographies. Even the art critic Stendhal is autobiography.

Design Stendhal art

Art critic

Stendhal was not only a novelist and autobiographer, but also an astute art critic whose thinking influenced aesthetic romantic work (especially with his theory of ideal beauty), and the appreciation of art and music. Include History of Painting in Italy , Rome, Naples and Florence , Walks in Rome , Memoirs of a tourist.

True specialist, false dilettante

Opera buff, lover of Italy , as evidenced by his writings, he made it known that Rossini in Paris and France. The work of the second half of the twentieth century showed his expertise in painting and music , his familiarity with its painters, his extensive experience in the music world of his time both instrumental than lyrical , German or Italian. But it was mostly a true specialist in opera Italian and painting Italian. Although he presented himself as a dilettante , he has very fine analysis of Rossini and Mozart. He grabbed the melancholy of Leonardo da Vinci , the chiaroscuro of Correggio , or violence Michelangelo .

The principles of his criticism

His criticism is based on the consistent expression, which dismisses the forms adopted and the Beautiful Ancient Modernity artistic invention that involves a public changing, and the subordination of beauty to the view alone, which gives useful real pleasure to a society, individuals, and the dilettantism that relies on pure emotion of criticism . Stendhal based and historical criticism (Art is an expression of time), and claims the right to subjectivity, he admits the convergence of arts and their importance as they provide physical pleasure or not, that they open the mind to freedom of imagination and the passion they generate (basic principle). Stendhal is an art critic who is a milestone in the understanding of all the arts .

Works

Posthumous Works

Notes

References

  1. also cited as Stendal in the BNF
  2. Year Stendhal, Volume 4 , Klincksieck, 224 p. p. 203: Louis, Alexander, Andre, Cesar Bombet to sign translations of music reviews on Haydn, Mozart and Metastasio in 1814
  3. Marie-Rose Corredor, Yves Ansel, Stendhal Cosmopolis , ELLUG, 2007, 366 p. ( ISBN 9782843101038 ) p. 37
  4. Biography on Studyrama
  5. Rene Servoise, " Stendhal and Europe "
  6. Stendhal, Life of Henry Brulard , published posthumously in 1890
  7. Correspondence, Paris, Le Divan, 1954 TX, p. 288
  8. Prosper Duvergier Hauranne of Michel Crouzet 1996 , p. 14
  9. Prosper Duvergier Hauranne of Michel Crouzet 1996 , p. 24
  10. Prosper Duvergier Hauranne of Michel Crouzet 1996 , p. 26-27
  11. Prosper Duvergier Hauranne of Michel Crouzet 1996 , p. 333
  12. Prosper Duvergier Hauranne of Michel Crouzet 1996 , p. 47
  13. The Red and the Black - Second Book - Chapter XXII
  14. Mary Gandt 1998 , p. 67
  15. p. 97
  16. Mary Gandt 1998 , p. 80
  17. (1917 -?) Professor at College de France
  18. Mary Gandt 1998 , p. 75
  19. Philippe Berthier, Stendhal and Italian painters, Geneva, Droz, 1977, and Francis Claudon, The Idea and the influence of music in some romantic French including Stendhal, University of Lille, 1965.
  20. Michel Crouzet, Dictionary of Literature in French, t. 3, p 211, and Michel Crouzet, Stendhal and the Italian character, Jos Corti, 1982.
  21. Michel Crouzet, Dictionary of Literature in French, Op cit.

Bibliography

  • Paul Leautaud : Preface to the most beautiful pages of Stendhal. Paris. 1908
  • David Maurice , Stendhal's life his work, Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Critique, Paris, 1931
  • Jean Prevost : The Creation in Stendhal. Marseille 1942. Gallimard edition 1975
  • Alain , Stendhal, Paris, PUF, 1948. Also in Alain, The Arts and the Gods, The Pleiades, 1958, pp. 745-817. Alain reread Stendhal's lifetime.
  • Maurice Bardeche : novelist Stendhal, Paris, The Roundtable, 1947, reprint 1983.
  • Georges Blin: Stendhal and the problems of the novel. Jose Corti.1954 editions (the relationship of aesthetics with Stendhal's novels.)
  • Stendhal (Henri Beyle), Italian Schools of Painting , Vol 1 School of Florence - Roman School - School of Mantua - School of Cremona, Parma 2 School - School of Venice - School of Bologna, Bologna 3 School, The Divan 1932, 420 p. Establishment of the text and foreword by Henri Martineau. In this connection see Italian schools of painting.

Related articles

External Links

Work by Stendhal
Major novels The Red and the Black The Charterhouse of Parma Leuven Lucien (unfinished) Portrait of Stendhal by Johan Olaf Sodermark, 1840.
Juvenile Fiction Armance Lamiel (unfinished)
Tests Of love History of Painting in Italy Racine and Shakespeare
Other articles Memories of egotism Lives of Haydn, Mozart and Metastasio Rome, Naples and Florence Italian Chronicles ( Vittoria Accoramboni , Vanina Vanini ) Memoirs of a tourist Walks in Rome Life of Henry Brulard
Characters Julien Sorel


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