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DUMAS, ALEXANDRE [" DUMAS FILS"] (182...
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See also:DUMAS, See also:ALEXANDRE [" DUMAS FILS"] (1824-1895) , See also:French dramatist and novelist, was See also:born in See also:Paris on the 27th of See also:July 1824, the natural son of Alexandre Dumas (see above) and the dressmaker See also:Marie Labay. His See also:father at that date was still a humble clerk and not much more than a boy. " Happily," writes the son, " my See also:mother was a See also:good woman, and worked hard to bring me up "; while of his father he says, " by a most lucky See also:chance he happened to be well-natured," and " as soon as his first successes as a dramatist " enabled him to do so, " recognized me and gave me his name." Nevertheless, the lad's earlier school-See also:life was made See also:bitter by his See also:illegitimacy. The cruel taunts and malevolence of his companions rankled through life (see See also:preface to La Femme de See also:Claude and L'Afaire See also:Clemenceau), and See also:left indelible marks on his See also:character and thoughts. Nor was his paternity, however distinguished, without peril. Alexandre the younger and See also:elder saw life together very thoroughly, and Paris can have had few mysteries for them. Suddenly the son, who had been led to regard his prodigal father's resources as inexhaustible, was rudely undeceived. Coffers were empty, and he had accumulated debts to the amount of two thousand pounds. Thereupon he pulled himself together. To a son of Dumas the use of the See also:pen came naturally. Like most See also:clever See also:young writers—and See also:report speaks of him as specially brilliant a.t that time—he opened with a See also:book of See also:verse, Peches de jeunesse (1847). It was succeeded in 1848 by a novel, La See also:Dame aux camelias, a sort of reflection of the See also:world in which he had been living. The book had considerable success, and was followed, in fairly See also:quick See also:succession, by Le See also:Roman d'une femme (1848) and Diane de Lys (1851). All this, however, did not deliver him from the load of See also:debt, which, as he tells us, remained odious. In 1849 he dramatized La Dame aux camelias, but for various reasons, the rigour of the censorship being the most important, it was not till the and of See also:February 1852, and then only by the intervention of See also:Napoleon's all-powerful See also:minister, See also:Morny, that the See also:play could be produced at the See also:Vaudeville. It succeeded then, and has held the See also:stage ever since, less perhaps from inherent superiority to other plays which have foundered than to the See also:great opportunities it affords to any actress of See also:genius. Thenceforward Dumas's career was that of a brilliant and prosperous dramatist. Diane de Lys (1853), Le Denti-Monde (1855), La Question d' argent (1857), Le Fils naturel (1858), Le Pere prodigue (1859) followed rapidly. Debts became a thing of the past, and Dumas a wealthy See also:man. The didactic See also:habit was always strong upon him. " Alexandre loves See also:preaching overmuch," wrote his father; and in most of his plays he assumes the attitude of a rigid and uncompromising moralist commissioned to impart to a heedless world lessons of deep import. The lessons them-selves are mostly concerned with the " eternal feminine," by which Dumas was haunted, and differ in ethical value. Thus in See also:Les Idees de Madame Aubray (1867) he inculcates the See also:duty of the seducer to marry the woman he has seduced; but in La Femme de Claude (1873) he argues the right of the See also:husband to take the See also:law into his own See also:hand and kill the wife who is unfaithful and worthless—a thesis again defended in his novel, L'Afaire Clemenceau, and in his pamphlet, L'Homme-femme; while in Diane de Lys he had taught that the betrayed husband was entitled to kill—not in a See also:duel, but summarily—the man who had taken his See also:honour; and in L'Etrangere (1876) the See also:bad husband is the victim. Nor did he preach only in his plays. He preached in voluminous introductions, and See also:pamphlets not a few. And when, in 1870 and 1872, See also:France was going through bitter See also:hours of humiliation, he called her to repentance and See also:amendment in a Nouvelle Lettre de See also:Junius and two Lettres sur les choses du jour. As a moralist Dumas fits took himself very seriously indeed. As a dramatist, didacticism apart, he had great gifts. He knew his business thoroughly, possessed the See also:art of situation, See also:interest, crisis—could create characters that were real and alive. His See also:dialogue also is admirable, the repartee See also:rapier-like, the wit most keen. He was singularly happy, too, in his dramatic interpreters. The See also:cast of L'Etrangere, for instance, comprised Sarah See also:Bernhardt, Sophie Croizette, Madeleine See also:Brohan, in the See also:female characters; and See also:Coquelin, Got, Mounet-See also:Sully and See also:Febvre in the male characters; and Aimee Desclee, whom he discovered, gave her genius to the creation of the parts of the heroine in Une Visite de notes, the Princes-se Georges and La Femme de Claude. His wit has been mentioned. He possessed it in abundance, of a singularly trenchant See also:kind. It shows itself less in his novels, which, however, do not contain his best See also:work; but in his introductions, whether to his own books or those of his See also:friends, and what may be called his " occasional " writings, there is an admirable brightness. At work of this kind he showed the highest See also:literary skill. His See also:style is that of the best French traditions. Towards his father Dumas acted a kind of See also:brother's See also:part, and while keeping strangely See also:free from his literary See also:influence, both loved and admired him. The father never belonged to the French See also:Academy. The son was elected into that See also:august See also:assembly on the 3oth of See also:January 1894. He died on the 27th of See also:November 1895. See also Jules See also:Claretie, A. Dumas fits (1883); See also:Paul See also:Bourget, Nouveaux Essais de psychologie contemporaine (1885) ; " La Comedie de meeurs," by Rene See also:Doumic, in L. See also:Petit de Julleville's Histoire de la langue et de la litterature francaise, viii. pp. 82 et seq. ; R. Doumic, Portraits d'ecrivains (1892) , Emile See also:Zola, Documents litteraires, etudes et portraits (1881). (F. T. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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