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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOS-NAN |
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MUSSET, LOUIS CHARLES ALFRED DE (1810-18S7) , French poet, play-writer and novelist, was born on the 11th of December 18,o in a house
Victor de Musset, who traced his descent back as far as 1140, held several ministerial posts of importance. He brought out an edition of J. J. Rousseau's works in 1821, and followed it soon after with a volume on the Genevan's life and writing.. In Alfred de Musset's childhood there were various things which fostered his imaginative power. He and his brother Paul (born 1804, died x88o), who afterwards wrote a biography of Alfred, delighted in reading old romances together, and in assuming the characters of the heroes in those romances. But it was not until about 1826 that Musset gave any definite sign of the mental force which afterwards distinguished him. In the summer of 1827 he won the second prize (at the College Henri IV.) by an essay on "The Origin of our Feelings." In 1828, when Eugene
house
Victor Hugo'$ house, where he met such men as Alfred de Vigny, Prosper Merimee, Charles Nodier and Sainte-Beuve. It was under Hugo's influence, no doubt, that he composed a play. The scene was laid in Spain, and some lines, showing a marked advance upon his first effort, are preserved. In 1828, when the war between the classical and the romantic school of literature was growing daily more serious and exiting, Musset had published some verses in a country newspaper, and boldly recited some of his work to Sainte-Beuve, who wrote of it to a friend, " There is amongst us a boy full of genius." At eighteen years old Musset produced a translation, with additions of his own, of De Quincey's " Opium-Eater." This was published by Mame, attracted no attention, and has been long out of print. His first original
In December 183o Musset was just twenty years old, and was already conscious of that curious double existence within him so frequently symbolized in his playsin Octave and Cello for instance (in Les Caprices de Marianne), who also stand for the two camps, the men of matter and the men of feelingwhich he has elsewhere described as characteristic of his generation. At this date his piece the Nuit venitienne was produced by Harel, manager of the Odeon. The exact causes of its failure might now be far to seek; unlucky stage accidents had something to do with it, but there seems reason to believe that there was a strongly organized opposition. However this may be, the result was disastrous to the French stage; for it put a complete damper on the one poet who, as he afterwards showed both in theoretical and in practical writings, had the fine insight which took in at a glance the merits and defects both of the classical and of the romantic schools. Thus he was strong and keen to weld together the merits of both schools in a new method which, but for the fact that there has been no successor to grasp the wand which its originator wielded, might well be called the school of Musset. The serious effect produced upon Musset by the failure of his Nuit venitienne is curiously illustrative of his character. A man of greater strength and with equal belief in his own genius might have gone on appealing to the public until he compelled them to hear him. Musset gave up the attempt in disgust, and waited until the public were eager to hear him without any invitation on his part. In the case of his finest plays this did not happen until after his death; but long before that he was fully recognized as a poet of the first rank and as an extraordinary master of character and language in prose writing. In his complete disgust with the stage after the failure above referred to there was no doubt something of a not ignoble pride
Musset now belonged, in a not very whole-hearted fashion, to the " Cenacle," but the connexion came to an end in 1832. In 1833 he published the volume called Un Spectacle clans un fauteuil. One of the most striking pieces in this" Namouna" was written at the publisher's request to fill up some empty space; and this fact is noteworthy when taken in conjunction with the horror which Musset afterwards so often expressed of doing anything like writing " to order "of writing, indeed, in any way or at any moment except when the inspiration or the fancy happened to seize him. The success of the volume seemed to be small in comparison with that of his Contes d'Espagne, but it led indirectly to Musset's beipg engaged as a contributor to the Revue des deux mondes. In this he published, in April 1833, Andre del Sarto, and he followed this six weeks later with Les Caprices de Marianne. This play afterwards took and holds rank as one of the classical pieces in the repertory of the Theatre Francais. After the retirement in 1887 from the stage of the brilliant actor Delaunay the piece dropped out of the Francais repertory until it was replaced on the stage by M. Jules Claretie, administrator-general of the Comedie Francaise, on the 19th of January 1906. Les Caprices de Marianne affords a fine illustration
illustration
The appearance of Les Caprices de Marianne in the Revue (1833) was followed by that of " Rolla," a symptom of the maladie du siecle. Rolla, for all the smack which is not to be denied of Wertherism, has yet a decided individuality. The poem was written at the beginning of Musset's liaison with George Sand, and in December 1833 Musset started on the unfortunate journey to Italy. It was well known that the rupture of what was for a time a most passionate attachment had a disastrous effect upon Musset, and brought out the weakest side of his moral character. He was at first absolutely and completely struck down by the blow. But it was not so well known until Paul de Musset pointed it out that the passion expressed in the Nuit de decembre, written about twelve months after the journey to Italy, referred not to George Sand but to another and quite a different woman. The story of the Italian journey and its results are told under the guise of fiction from two points of view in the two volumes called respectively Elie et lui by George Sand, and Lui et elle by Paul de Musset. As to the permanent effect on Alfred de Musset, whose irresponsible gaiety was killed by the breaking off of the connexion, there can be no doubt. During Musset's absence in Italy Fanlasio was published in the Revue, Lorenzaccio is said to have been written at Venice, and not long after his return On ne badine pas avec Parlour was written and published in the Revue. In 1835 he produced Lucie, La Null de mai, La Quenouille de Barberine, Le Chandelier, La Loi sur la presse, La Nuit de decembre, and La Confession d'un enfant dusiecle, wherein is contained what is probably a true account of Musset's relations with George Sand. The Confession is exceptionally interesting as exhibiting the poet's frame of mind at the time, and the approach to a revulsion from the Bonapartist ideas amid which he had been brought up in his childhood. To the supreme power of Napoleon he in this work attributed that moral sickness of the time which he described. " One man," he wrote, " absorbed the whole life of Europe; the rest of the human race struggled to fill their lungs with the air that he had breathed." When the emperor fell, " a ruined world was a resting-place for a generation weighted with care." The Confession is further important, apart from its high literary merit, as exhibiting in many passages the poet's tendency to shun or wildly protest against all that is disagreeable or difficult in human lifea tendency to which, however, much of his finest work was due. To 1836 belong the Nuit d'aoilt, the Lettre a Lamartine,the Stances a la Malibran, the comedy Il ne Taut jurer de rien, and the beginning of the brilliant letters of Dupuis and Cotonet on ro anticism. Il ne faut jurer de rien is as typical of Musset's comedy work as is Les Caprices de Marianne of the work in which a terrible fatality underlies the brilliant dialogue and keen polished characterization. In 1837 was published Un Caprice, which afterwards found its way to the Paris stage by a curious road. Mme Allan-Despreaux, the actress, heard of it in St Petersburg
series of reflections headed with the words "A trente ans," which Paul de Musset published in his Life. In 1841 there came out in the Revue de Paris Musset's " Le Rhin allemand," an answer to Becker's poem which appeared in the Revue des deux mondes. This fine war-song made a great deal of noise, and brought to the poet quantities of challenges from German officers. Between this date and 1845 he wrote comparatively little. In the last named year the charming " proverbe " 11 faut qu'une porte soil ouverte ou fermee appeared. In 1847entered the public service at an early age and rose rapidly, becoming ambassador at Paris in 1834 and in London 1836, minister for foreign affairs 1837, again ambassador in London 1838, and in Paris 1841. Appointed vali of Adrianople in 1843, he returned as ambassador to Paris in the same year. Between 1845 and 1857 he was six times grand vizier. One of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of his time, thoroughly acquainted with European politics, and well versed in affairs, he was a convinced if somewhat too ardent partisan of reform and the principal author of the legislative remodelling of Turkish administrative methods known as the Tanzimat. His ability was recognized alike by friend and by foe. In the settlement of the Egyptian question in 184o, and during the Crimean War and the ensuing peace negotiations, he rendered valuable services to the state.End of Article: MUSSET, LOUIS CHARLES ALFRED DE (1810-18S7) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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