Everything about Alfred De Vigny totally explained
Alfred Victor de Vigny (
March 27,
1797 –
September 17,
1863) was a French
poet,
playwright, and
novelist.
Life
Alfred de Vigny was born in
Loches (a town to which he never returned) into an aristocratic family. His father was an aged veteran of the
Seven Years' War who died before Vigny's 20th birthday; his mother, twenty years younger, was a strong-willed woman who was inspired by
Rousseau and took responsibility herself for Vigny's early education.
As was the case for every noble family, the
French Revolution diminished the family's circumstances considerably. After Napoléon's defeat at Waterloo, a Bourbon,
Louis XVIII, the brother of
Louis XVI, was restored to power. In 1814, Vigny enrolled in one of the privileged aristocratic companies of the
Maison du Roi.
Always attracted to letters and versed in French history and in knowledge of the
Bible, he began to write poetry. He published his first poem in 1820, published an ambitious narrative poem entitled
Eloa in 1824 on the popular romantic theme of the redemption of
Satan, and collected his recent works in January 1826 in
Poèmes antiques et modernes. Three months later, he published a substantial historical novel,
Cinq-Mars; with the success of these two volumes, Vigny seemed to be the rising star of the burgeoning
Romantic movement, though this role would soon be usurped by one of Vigny's best friends,
Victor Hugo. Prolonging successive leaves from the army, he settled in
Paris with his young English bride, Lydia Bunbury, whom he married in
Pau in 1825.
An English theater troupe visiting Paris in 1827 having revived French interest in Shakespeare, Vigny worked with Emile Deschamps on a translation of
Romeo and Juliet (1827). Increasingly attracted to liberalism, he was more relieved than anguished at the overthrow of Charles X in the July Revolution of 1830. In 1831, he presented his first original play,
La Maréchale d'Ancre, a historical
drama recounting the events leading up to the reign of
King Louis XIII. Frequenting the theater, he met the great actress
Marie Dorval, his mistress until 1838. (Vigny's wife had become a near invalid and never learned to speak French fluently; they'd no children, and Vigny was also disappointed when his father-in-law's remarriage deprived the couple of an anticipated inheritance.)
In 1835, he produced a drama titled
Chatterton, based on the life of
Thomas Chatterton, and in which Marie Dorval starred as Kitty Bell.
Chatterton is considered to be one of the best of the French romantic dramas and is still performed regularly. The story of Chatterton had inspired one of the three episodes of Vigny's luminous philosophical novel
Stello (1832), in which Vigny examines the relation of poetry to society and concludes that the poet, doomed to be regarded with suspicion in every social order, must remain somewhat aloof and apart from the social order.
Servitude et grandeur militaires (1835) was a similar tripartite meditation on the condition of the soldier.
Although Alfred de Vigny gained success as a writer, his personal life wasn't happy. His marriage was a disappointment; his relationship with Marie Dorval was plagued by jealousy; and his literary talent was eclipsed by the achievements of others. He grew embittered. After the death of his mother in 1838 he inherited the property of Maine-Giraud, near Angoulême, where it was said that he'd withdrawn to his '
ivory tower' (an expression
Sainte-Beuve coined with reference to Vigny). There Vigny wrote some of his most famous poems, including
La Mort du loup and
La Maison du berger. (Proust regarded
La Maison du berger as the greatest French poem of the 19th century.) In 1845, after several unsuccessful attempts to be elected, Vigny became a member of the
Académie française.
In later years, Vigny ceased to publish. He continued to write, however, and his
Journal is considered by modern scholars to be a great work in its own right. Vigny considered himself a thinker as well as a literary author; he was, for example, one of the first French writers to take a serious interest in Buddhism. His own philosophy of life was pessimistic and stoical, but celebrated human fraternity, the growth of knowledge, and mutual assistance as high values. In his later years he spent much time preparing the posthumous collection of poems now known as
Les Destinées (though Vigny's intended title was
Poèmes philosophiques) which concludes with Vigny's final message to the world,
L'Esprit pur.
Alfred de Vigny developed stomach cancer in his early sixties, which he endured with exemplary stoicism:
Quand on voit ce qu'on fut sur terre et ce qu'on laisse/Seul le silence est grand; tout le reste est faiblesse. ('When we see what we did on Earth and what we left behind/only silence is great; everything else is weakness.') Vigny died in Paris on September 17, 1863, a few months after the passing of his wife, and is buried beside her in the
Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, France.
Several of his works were published posthumously.
Selected works
Further Information
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