|
French poet, playwright, and novelist who began a military career
but became a poet. Vigny's CHATTERTON (1835) is one of the most
important and influential plays of the romantic era. His poetry
is marked by stoical despair, pessimism, and a philosophical, meditative
tone. In his lyrics Vigny is more restrained about revealing his
inner feelings than his colleague, Lord Byron, but in his Journal
intime Vigny recorded his personal life.
"Silence alone is great; all else in weakness"
(from La Mort du Loup, 1864)
Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches, Indre-et-Loire the only son
of Léon Pierre de Vigny, former officer in the king's army. His
father had married a much younger woman whose family was Jansenist.
While still a student, he wrote and later 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 Napoleonic Empire was collapsing. Too his
disappointment military life was not glamorous wars and victories
in far flung countries, but life in the barrack and daily routine
manoeuvres. During this period he read such classics as Homer, Tacitus,
and Aeschylus, and wrote poems, among them 'La Dryade' and 'Symétha'.
When the French army stomped its way through the Spanish Civil War
in 1823, Vigny's regiment was in reserve in the Pyrenees. He became
friends with Victor Hugo, met Alexandre Dumas, and was enthusiastic
about the new Romantic winds in poetry. During this period he wrote
some of his best-known works, among them MOÍSE and ÉLOA, published
in the collection POÈMES ANTIQUES ET MODERNES (1826). CINQ-MARS
(1826) is an historical novel, inspired by Walter Scott, and was
well received by readers. Hugo's friend Charles-Augistin Sainte-Beuve
reviewed the novel in negative terms and Vigny wrote about his critic
in his Journal d'un poete in 1829: "He behaves very humbly
and had made himself a henchman of Victor Hugo, who encouraged him
to turn his hand to poetry... Though he addresses him like a master,
Hugo is Sainte-Beuve's pupil. He is well aware that Sainte-Beuve
is providing him with a literary education but he does not see to
what extent that clever young man dominates him politically."
Hugo 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 resigned in 1827. He had already published verse - POÉMES
appeared in 1822 - but in Paris he devoted himself to writing. Vigny
returned to his military career in GRANDEUR ET SERVITUDE MILITAIRES
(1835), an exploration on the contradictions inherent in the military
life. Vigny condemned the savagery of war, but he appreciated the
discipline and camaraderie of soldiers. Napoleon is for the author
more hero than fallen idol.
Vigny's mother resisted his idea to marry Delphine Gay, who twenty
years later inspired some of his poems. In 1829 he married Lydia
Bunbury. When 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). 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. During
this period his friendship with Hugo started to decline - Hugo was
the centre of a group of writers and artists that included Alfred
de Musset, Delacroix, and David d'Angers.
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. It
made Vigny famous and he was considered Hugo's literary rival. Although
Vigny gained great success as a writer, he also experienced great
frustrations: The French Academy rejected his candidacy five times,
and it was not until 1845 that he was accepted. Vigny's marriage
with Lydia Bunburry turned sour, and his liaison between 1831 and
1837 with Marie Dorval was stormy. From 1840 he lived a reclusive
life in Paris or in Le-Maine-Giraud in his country house, where
he cared for his sick wife and mother. His attempts to enter the
political scene failed and he only occasionally published poems
in the magazine Revue des Deux Mondes. Vigny died in Paris
on September 17, 1863, a few months after his wife. His poetical
testament, LES DESTINÉES, appeared in 1864, and JOURNAL D'UN POÈTE
in 1867. The unfinished novel, DAPHNÉ, was published in 1912.
(From Le Mont des Olives)
(...) Si le juste et le bien, si l'injuste et le mal
Sont de vils accidents en un cercle fatal,
Ou si de l'univers il sont lees deux grands pôles,
Soutenant terre et cieux sur leurs vastes épaules;
Et pourquoi les Esprits du mal sont triomphants
Des maux immérités, de la mort des enfants;
Et si les Nations sont des femmes guidées
Par les étoiles d'or des divines idées,
Ou de folles enfants sans lampes dans la nuit
Se heurtant et pleurant, et que rien ne conduit;
Et si, lorsque des temps l'horloge périssable
Aura jusqu'au dernier versé ses grains de sable,
Un regard de vos yeux, un cri de votre voix,
Un soupir de mon coeur, un signe de ma croix,
Pourra faire ouvrir l'ongle aux Peines éternelles,
Lâcher leur proie humaine et reployer leurs ailes.
-Tout sera révélé dès que l'homme saura
De quels lieux arrive et dans quels il ira. (...)
Chatterton (1835) - The plot is 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 intertwined. The English poet Chatterton
rents a room in the home of John Bell, a merchant. A secret sympathy
develops between the poet 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 and other disappointments, Chatterton
takes an overdose of opium, and Kitty dies heartbroken. - For
further reading: Alfred de Vigny by Arnold Whitridge (1933);
Alfred De Vigny Et La Comedie-Francaise 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)
|
