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BANVILLE, THEODORE FAULLAIN DE (1823-...

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 363 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BANVILLE, See also:THEODORE FAULLAIN DE (1823-1891) , See also:French poet and See also:miscellaneous writer, was See also:born at See also:Moulins in the Bourbonnais, on the 14th of See also:March 1823. He was the son of a See also:captain in the French See also:navy. His boyhood, by his own See also:account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycee in See also:Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no See also:part in the amusements of his companions. On leaving school with but slender means of support, he devoted himself to letters, and in 1842 published his first See also:volume of See also:verse (See also:Les Cariatides), which was followed by Les See also:Stalactites in 1846. The poems encountered some adverse See also:criticism, but secured for their author the approbation and friendship of See also:Alfred de See also:Vigny and Jules See also:Janin. Henceforward Banville's See also:life was steadily devoted to See also:literary See also:production and criticism. He printed other volumes of verse, among which the Odes funambulesques (Alengon, 1857) received unstinted praise from See also:Victor See also:Hugo, to whom they were dedicated. Later, several of his comedies in. verse were produced at the See also:Theatre See also:Francais and on other stages; and from 1853 onwards a stream of See also:prose flowed from his industrious See also:pen, including studies of Parisian See also:manners, sketches of well-known persons (Granges parisiennes, &c.), and a See also:series of tales (Conies See also:bourgeois, Conies heroiques, &c.), most of which were republished in his collected See also:works (1875--1878). He also wrote freely for reviews, and acted as dramatic critic for more than one newspaper. Throughout a life spent mainly in Paris, Banville's genial See also:character and cultivated mind won him the friendship of the See also:chief men of letters of his See also:time. He was also intimate with See also:BAPHOMET 363 See also:Frederick-See also:Lemaitre and other famous actors. In 1858 he was decorated with the See also:legion of See also:honour, and was promoted to be an officer of the See also:order in 1886.

He died in Paris on the 15th of March 1891, having just completed his sixty-eighth See also:

year. Banville's claim to remembrance rests mainly on his See also:poetry. His plays are written with distinction and refinement, but are deficient in dramatic See also:power; his stories, though marked by fertility of invention, are as a See also:rule conventional and unreal. Most of his prose, indeed, in substance if not in manner, is that of a journalist. His lyrics, however, See also:rank high. A careful and loving student of the finest See also:models, he did even more than his greater and somewhat older comrades, Victor Hugo, Alfred de See also:Musset and See also:Theophile, See also:Gautier, to See also:free French poetry from the fetters of See also:metre and mannerism in which it had limped from the days of See also:Malherbe. In the Odes funambulesques and elsewhere he revived with perfect See also:grace and understanding the See also:rondeau and the See also:villanelle, and like Victor Hugo in Les Orientales, wrote pantoums (pantuns) after the See also:Malay See also:fashion. He published in 187 2 a See also:Petit traite de versification francaise in exposition of his metrical methods. He was a See also:master of delicate See also:satire, and used with much effect the difficult See also:humour of sheer See also:bathos, happily adapted by him from some of the See also:early folk-songs. He has somewhat rashly been compared to See also:Heine, whom he profoundly admired; but if he lacked the supreme See also:touch of See also:genius, he remains a delightful writer, who exercised a See also:wise and See also:sound See also:influence upon the See also:art of his See also:generation. Among his other works may be mentioned the poems, fdylles prussiennes (1871), and Trente-six ballades joyeuses (1875); the prose tales, Les Saltimbanques (1853); Esquisses prrssiennes (1859) and Conies feeriques; and the plays, Le See also:Feuilleton d'Aristophane (1852), See also:Gringoire (1866), and Deidamia (1876). See also J.

Lemaitre, Les Contemporains (first series, 1885) ; Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. xiv.; See also:

Maurice Spronck, Les Artistes litteraires (1889).

End of Article: BANVILLE, THEODORE FAULLAIN DE (1823-1891)

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