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Comte Alfred Victor de Vigny (1797-1863) |
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French poet, playwright, and novelist, who started first a military career but then became a poet. Alfred de Vigny's Chatterton (1835) is one of the most important and influential plays of the romantic stage. Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) was an English poet, whose life and early death at the age of eighteen fascinated the Romantics. Stoical despair, pessimism, and philosophical, meditative tone marked Vigny's work. In his lyrics Vigny was more restrained about his inner feelings than his great colleague, Lord Byron, but in his Journal intime Vigny openly revealed his personal thoughts. "The study of social progress is to-day not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart. We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements. France, for example, loves at the same time history and the drama, because the one explores the vast destinies of humanity, and the other the individual lot of man. These embrace the whole of life. But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity." ('Truth in Art,' in Cinq Mars:Vol. by Alfred de Vigny with a preface by Charles de Mazade and illustrations by A. Duvivier, New York: Current Literature Publishing Company, 1908, p. ix) Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches,
Indre-et-Loire, the only
son of Léon Pierre de Vigny, a former officer of the king's army. He
had been wounded in the Seven Years' War. He died in 1816. Vigny's
mother, Jeanne Amélie de Baraudin, died in 1838. She was of Italian
descend. Her father, Didier Honorat, marquis de Baraudin, had been an
officer in the navy. "Until I reached school age," Vigny said in his
diary, "I had in Paris all kinds of tutors whom my mother chose well
and directed better still. She had for me the grave severity of a
father . . . whereas my father never showed anything but maternal
tenderness toward me." (quoted in The Poetic Enigma of Alfred de Vigny: The Rosetta Stone of Esoteric Literature by Denise Bonhomme, Victoria; Canada: Trafford Publishing, 2003, p. 1) Vigny's aristocratic background gave him access to the highest circles of society. While still a student, Vigny wrote and afterward destroyed a series of neoclassical tragedies based on the figures of Roland, Julian the Apostate, and Anthony and Cleopatra. At the age of sixteen, he entered military service, the "Compagnies Rouges" – it was the time when the Napoleonic Empire was collapsing. For his disappointment, military life wasn't glamorous wars and victories in far countries, but life in the barracks and daily routine manoeuvres. To overcome boredom he started to read such classics as Homer, Tacitus, and Aeschylus, and wrote poems, among them 'La Dryade' and 'Symétha'. When the French army stamped its way through the Spanish Civil
War in 1823, Vigny's regiment was in reserve in the Pyrenees.
Enthusiastic about new, Romantic winds in poetry, Vigny wrote some of
his best known works, among them Moíse and Éloa,
about a fallen angel. They were published in the collection Poèmes
antiques et modernes (1826). The image of a fallen angel, with its associations of freedom and progress, fascinated also other British and French romantics, such as Byron, Thomas Moore, Lamartine, Constant, and Hugo. Vigny's Eloa descents from heaven to console and save Satan, but Satan seduces her and they fall to the depths of Hell. In some fragments of the poem Satan is redeemed. Referring to these versions, Vigny said that they "make me fearful of being immediately excommunicated." Vigny's historical novel dealing with a conspiracy against Cardinal de Richelieu, Cinq-Mars (1826), was inspired by the works of Walter Scott. Later Ford Madox Ford said that the work "is usually considered a more serious attempt at history than all the rest of the heap from Scott to Ponson de Terrail. But it is heavy, and if it is really historic enough in the episodes it selects to render, it selects historic events that are always of romantic coloring." (The March of Literature: From Confucious to Modern Times by Ford Madox Ford, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1938, p. 679) Cinq-Mars was well received by readers, but Victor Hugo's friend Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve reviewed it badly. Embittered Vigny labelled his critic in Journal d'un poete (1829) as a henchman of Victor Hugo, who in turn took a theme from the work and wrote a five-act play in verse, Un Duel sous Richelieu (retitled Marion de Lorme) in 1829. Vigny served "twelve long years of peace," resigning in 1827. He had already published verse – Poémes which came out in 1822 and went unnoticed – but in Paris he devoted himself to writing. To his military career Vigny returned in Grandeur et servitude militaires (1833-1835, Military Servitude and Grandeur), stories about contradictions of the military life. Vigny condemned the savagery of war, but he appreciated the discipline and camaraderie of soldiers. Napoleon was for the author somewhat more hero than a fallen idol. Vigny's mother resisted his idea to marry Delphine Gay, but she inspired 20 years later many of his poems. In 1825 he married Lydia Bunbury, a young English heiress; they had no children. Evil tongues spread the rumor that he married her just for money. Responding to these claims, Vigny insisted that he never asked his father-in-law for a penny. Sir Hugh Bunbury disinherited his daughter for having married a foreigner. Lydia Bunbury became a life-long invalid, but in spite of his extra marital relations, Vigny cared for her too. After an English troupe visited Paris in 1827 with a Shakespearean production, Vigny became interested in theatre. He wrote Alexandrine verse adaptations of Romeo and Juliet (1828), The Merchant of Venice (1830), which he retitled Shylock, and Othello (1829). Theatre was for Vigny a good means to reach his audience, the educated people. Also a theater ticket was less expensive than a book. Although Gervaus Charpentier published his works in a format, that provided twice as much text as a traditional octavo volume for half the price, 3,50 francs, the relatively well-made publications still did not reach a public of petit-bourgeois, craftsmen, or workers, who earned little more than 4 francs per day. Vigny's first original play was La
Maréchale d'Ancre (1831), a historical drama focusing
on the events leading to the rule of Luis XIII. Because his mistress,
the actress Marie Dorval, did not get the planned leading part, Vigny
composed for her Quitte pour la peur
(1833). Vigny's Chatterton, considered one of the best of the
French Romantic dramas, was also written for Mlle. Dorval. Its premiere was a
major theatrical event. Vigny was recognized as Victor Hugo's rival in literature. His friendship with Hugo, the center of a group of writers and artists, the Cénacle, that included Alfred de Musset, Delacroix, and David d'Angers, became strained, although already in 1829 he had noticed: "The Victor I loved is no more. He used to be a touch fanatical in his royalism and religion, chaste as a young girl and rather timid, too. It suited him quite well . . . But now he likes to make saucy remarks and is turning to a liberal, which does not suit him – but it's only to be expected!" (quoted in Victor Hugo by Graham Robb: London: Picador, 1997, p. 133) Toward the end of his life, Vigny allied himself with conservative forces, expressing his willingness to collaborate with the government of Napoleon III. Chatterton (1835) - The plot was taken from one of the stories in Vigny's short story collection Stello (1832), in which the fates of the poets Nicolas-Joseph Gilbert, André de Chéhier, and Thomas Chatterton are related. The English poet Chatterton was commemorated by Wordsworth as "the marvelous boy that perished in his pride". (English Literature by Roy Bennett Pace, Boston; New York; Chicago: Allyn and Bacon, 1918, p. 371) Chatterton, an 18-years old poet, rents a room in the home of John Bell, a merchant. A secret sympathy develops between him and Bell's terrorized wife Kitty. Bell starts to suspect them. Chatterton writes to Lord Mayor Beckford, his father's old friend, asking for financial aid. Beckford shows little sympathy for either the poet or poetry. Unable to cope with accusations of plagiarism, debts and other disappointments, Chatterton takes an overdose of opium, and Kitty dies heartbroken. Although
Vigny had gained success as a writer, he experienced
great frustrations: The French Academy rejected his candidacy for five
times, and it was not until 1845 when he was accepted. Moreover, Count
Molé's welcoming address was more or less mean. Vigny's marriage with
Lydia Bunburry turned sour, and his liaison with Marie Dorval between
the years 1831 and 1837 was stormy; both knew that they never could
live
together, but they were unable to leave each other. When she
left him for George Sand,
Vigny wrote the poem 'La Colère de Samson'. "Vigny's Dalila, like the
biblical one, turns out to be a bit of a stinker; his Samson screams to
us for sympathy." (Alfred de Vigny by James Doolittle, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967, p. 97) Marie Dorval died in 1849;
Dumas and Hugo raised the money for her funeral expenses. Vigny was
also credited with other mistressess: Louise Colet, Julia and Maria
Battlegang, the poetess Augusta Holmes, and Augusta Bouvard, a young
teacher. From 1840 Vigny lived a reclusive life in Paris or in Le-Maine-Giraud in his country house, where he took care of his sick wife and his mother. His attempts to enter the political scene failed. Occasionally Vigny contributed poems to the magazine Revue des Deux Mondes. "Silence alone is great; all else in weakness" (Seul le silence est grand; tout le reste est faiblesse), he once wrote. Much preoccupied with his own and other people's sorrows and pain, Vigny was called "a poet of pessimism." Alfred de Vigny died of cancer in Paris on September 17, 1863, a few months after his wife. "Pray for me, pray to God for me," were his last words. (quoted in Last Words of Notable People: Final Words of More Than 3500 Noteworthy People Throughout History, compiled by William B. Brahms, Haddonfield, N.J.: Reference Desk Press, 2010, p. 599) Vigny was buried in the Montmartre cemetery. His poetical testament, Les Destinées, appeared in 1864, and Journal d'un poète in 1867. It was edited by his literary executor Louis Ratisbonne. The unfinished novel, Daphné, was published in 1912. For further reading: 'Aristocracy without illusions: Alfred de Vigny,' in The Nature of Evil by Radoslav A. Tsanoff (1931); Alfred de Vigny by Arnold Whitridge (1933); 'Alfred de Vigny and Julia' by Blanche A. Price, in MLN, Vol. 77, No. 5, General Issue (1962); Alfred de Vigny by James Dolittle (1967); 'Conscience and Antimilitarism in Vigny's Servitude et grandeur militaires' by Stirling Haig, PMLA, Volume 89, Issue 1 (1974); Vigny's Cinq-Mars: Dialogue on Political Power by Virginia Boggs Gunn (1975); Alfred de Vigny et la Comédie-Française by Fernande Bassan (1984); Vigny: Les Destinees by Keith Wren (1985); Paradigm and Parody: Images of Creativity in French Romanticism by Henry F. Majewski (1989); The Novels of Alfred De Vigny: A Study of Their Form and Composition by Elaine K. Shwimer (1991); The Poetic Enigma of Alfeed de Vigny: The Rosetta Stone of Esoteric Literature by Denise Bonhomme (2006); Alfred de Vigny by Jean-Pierre Lassalle (2010); Alfred de Vigny: poète, dramaturge, romancier by André Jarry (2010); Vigny, homme de pensée et poète by Lise Sabourin (2020); Incarner la poésie: théories et pratiques d'écriture d'Alfred de Vigny by Pierre Dupuy (2022) Selected works:
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