|
See also:MARIVAUX, See also:PIERRE CARLET DE CHAMBLAIN DE (1688-1763) , See also:French novelist and dramatist, was See also:born at See also:Paris on the 4th,of See also:February 1688. His See also:father was a financier of See also:Norman extraction whose real name was Carlet, but who assumed the surname of Chamblain, and then superadded that of Marivaux. M. Carlet de Marivaux was a See also:man of See also:good reputation, and he received the See also:appointment of director of the See also:mint at See also:Riom in See also:Auvergne, where and at See also:Limoges the See also:young Pierre was brought up. It is said that he See also:developed See also:literary tastes See also:early, and wrote his first See also:play, the Pere prudent et equitable, when he was only eighteen; it was not, however, published till 1712, when he was twenty-four. His See also:chief See also:attention in those early days was paid to novel See also:writing, not the See also:drama. In the three years from 1713 to 1715 he produced three novels—Effets surprenants de la sympathie; La Voiture embourbee, and a See also:book which had three titles—Pharsamon, See also:Les Folies romanesques, and Le See also:Don Quichotte moderne. All these books were in a curious See also:strain, not in the least resembling the pieces which See also:long after-wards were to make his reputation, but following partly, the See also:Spanish romances and partly the heroic novels of the preceding See also:century, with a certain intermixture of the marvellous. Then Marivaux's literary ardour took a new phase. He See also:fell under the See also:influence of See also:Antoine Hondar [d] de La Motte, and thought to serve the cause of that ingenious paradoxer by travestying See also:Homer, an ignoble task, which he followed up (perhaps, for it is not certain) by performing the same See also:- OFFICE (from Lat. officium, " duty," " service," a shortened form of opifacium, from facere, " to do," and either the stem of opes, " wealth," " aid," or opus, " work ")
office in regard to See also:Fenelon. His friendship for La Motte, however, introduced him to the Mercure, the chief newspaper of See also:France, where in 1717 he produced various articles of the " Spectator " See also:kind, which were distinguished by much keenness of observation and not a little literary skill. It was at this See also:- TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
- TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
- TIME, STANDARD
time that the See also:peculiar See also:style called Marivaudage first made its See also:appearance in him. The See also:year 1720 and those immediately following were very important ones for Marivaux; not only did he produce a See also:comedy, now lost except in small See also:part, entitled L' Amour et la verite, and another and far better one entitled Arlequin poli See also:par t'amour, but he wrote a tragedy, Annibal (printed 1737), which was and deserved to be unsuccessful. Meanwhile his wordly affairs underwent a sudden revolution. His father had See also:left him a comfortable subsistence, but he was persuaded by See also:friends to See also:risk it in the See also:Mississippi See also:- SCHEME (Lat. schema, Gr. oxfjya, figure, form, from the root axe, seen in exeiv, to have, hold, to be of such shape, form, &c.)
scheme, and after vastly increasing it for a time lost all thathe had. His prosperity had enabled him to marry (perhaps in 1721) a certain Mlle See also:- MARTIN (Martinus)
- MARTIN, BON LOUIS HENRI (1810-1883)
- MARTIN, CLAUD (1735-1800)
- MARTIN, FRANCOIS XAVIER (1762-1846)
- MARTIN, HOMER DODGE (1836-1897)
- MARTIN, JOHN (1789-1854)
- MARTIN, LUTHER (1748-1826)
- MARTIN, SIR THEODORE (1816-1909)
- MARTIN, SIR WILLIAM FANSHAWE (1801–1895)
- MARTIN, ST (c. 316-400)
- MARTIN, WILLIAM (1767-1810)
Martin, of whom much good is said, and to whom he was deeply attached, but who died very shortly. His See also:pen now became almost his See also:sole resource. He had a See also:con-. nexion with both the fashionable theatres, for his Annibal had been played at the Comedie Francaise and his Arlequin poli at the Comedie Italienne, where at the time a See also:company who were extremely popular, despite their imperfect command of French, were established. He endeavoured too to turn his newspaper practice in the Mercure to more See also:account by starting a weekly Spectaleur See also:Francais (1722-1723), to which he was the sole contributor. But his habits were the See also:reverse of methodical; the See also:paper appeared at the most irregular intervals; and, though it contained some excellent See also:work, its irregularity killed it. For nearly twenty years the See also:theatre, and especially the See also:Italian theatre, was Marivaux's chief support, for his pieces, though they were not See also:ill received by the actors at the Francais, were rarely successful there. The best of a very large number of plays (Marivaux's theatre See also:numbers between See also:thirty and See also:forty items) were the Surprise de l'amour (1722), the Triomphe de See also:Plutus (1728), the Jeu de l'amour et du hasard (1730), Les Fausses confidences (1737), all produced at the Italian theatre, and Le Legs (1736), produced at the French. Meanwhile he had at intervals returned to both his other lines of See also:composition. A periodical publication called L'Indigent philosophe appeared in 1727, and another called Le See also:Cabinet du philosophe in 1734, but the same causes which had proved fatal to the Spectateur pre-vented these later efforts from succeeding. In 1731 Marivaux published the first two parts of his best and greatest work, Marianne, a novel of a new and remarkable kind. The eleven parts appeared in batches at intervals during a See also:period of exactly the same number of years, and after all it was left unfinished. In 1735 another novel, Le Paysan parvenu, was begun, but this also was left unfinished. He was elected a member of the See also:Academy in 1742. He survived for more than twenty years, and was not idle, again contributing occasionally to the Mercure, writing plays, " reflections " (which were seldom of much See also:worth), and so forth. He died on the 12th February 1763, aged seventy-five years.
The See also:personal See also:character of Marivaux was curious and somewhat contradictory, though not without analogies, one of the closest of which is to be found in See also:Goldsmith. He was, however, unlike See also:Gold-See also:- SMITH
- SMITH, ADAM (1723–1790)
- SMITH, ALEXANDER (183o-1867)
- SMITH, ANDREW JACKSON (1815-1897)
- SMITH, CHARLES EMORY (1842–1908)
- SMITH, CHARLES FERGUSON (1807–1862)
- SMITH, CHARLOTTE (1749-1806)
- SMITH, COLVIN (1795—1875)
- SMITH, EDMUND KIRBY (1824-1893)
- SMITH, G
- SMITH, GEORGE (1789-1846)
- SMITH, GEORGE (184o-1876)
- SMITH, GEORGE ADAM (1856- )
- SMITH, GERRIT (1797–1874)
- SMITH, GOLDWIN (1823-191o)
- SMITH, HENRY BOYNTON (1815-1877)
- SMITH, HENRY JOHN STEPHEN (1826-1883)
- SMITH, HENRY PRESERVED (1847– )
- SMITH, JAMES (1775–1839)
- SMITH, JOHN (1579-1631)
- SMITH, JOHN RAPHAEL (1752–1812)
- SMITH, JOSEPH, JR
- SMITH, MORGAN LEWIS (1822–1874)
- SMITH, RICHARD BAIRD (1818-1861)
- SMITH, ROBERT (1689-1768)
- SMITH, SIR HENRY GEORGE WAKELYN
- SMITH, SIR THOMAS (1513-1577)
- SMITH, SIR WILLIAM (1813-1893)
- SMITH, SIR WILLIAM SIDNEY (1764-1840)
- SMITH, SYDNEY (1771-1845)
- SMITH, THOMAS SOUTHWOOD (1788-1861)
- SMITH, WILLIAM (1769-1839)
- SMITH, WILLIAM (c. 1730-1819)
- SMITH, WILLIAM (fl. 1596)
- SMITH, WILLIAM FARRAR (1824—1903)
- SMITH, WILLIAM HENRY (1808—1872)
- SMITH, WILLIAM HENRY (1825—1891)
- SMITH, WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1846-'894)
smith, at least as brilliant in conversation as with the pen. He was extremely good-natured, but fond of saying very severe things, unhesitating in his See also:acceptance of favours (he See also:drew a See also:regular See also:annuity from Helvetius), but exceedingly touchy if he thought himself in any way slighted. He was, though a See also:great See also:cultivator of sensibilile, on the whole decent and moral in his writings, and was unsparing in his See also:criticism of the rising Philosophes. This last circumstance, and perhaps See also:jealousy as well, made him a dangerous enemy in See also:Voltaire, who lost but few opportunities of speaking disparagingly of him. He had good friends, not merely in the See also:rich, generous and amiable Helvetius, but in Mme de See also:Tencin, in See also:Fontenelle and even in Mme de See also:Pompadour, who gave him, it is said, a considerable See also:pension, of the source of which he was ignorant. His extreme sensitiveness is shown by many stories. He had one daughter, who took the See also:veil, the See also:duke of See also:- ORLEANS
- ORLEANS, CHARLES, DUKE OF (1391-1465)
- ORLEANS, DUKES OF
- ORLEANS, FERDINAND PHILIP LOUIS CHARLES HENRY, DUKE OF (1810-1842)
- ORLEANS, HENRI, PRINCE
- ORLEANS, HENRIETTA, DUCHESS
- ORLEANS, JEAN BAPTISTE GASTON, DUKE
- ORLEANS, LOUIS
- ORLEANS, LOUIS PHILIPPE JOSEPH
- ORLEANS, LOUIS PHILIPPE ROBERT, DUKE
- ORLEANS, LOUIS PHILIPPE, DUKE OF (1725–1785)
- ORLEANS, LOUIS, DUKE OF (1372–1407)
- ORLEANS, PHILIP I
- ORLEANS, PHILIP II
Orleans, the See also:regent's successor, furnishing her with her See also:dowry.
The so-called Marivaudage is the See also:main point of importance about Marivaux's literary work, though the best of the comedies have great merits, and Marianne is an extremely important step in the legitimate development of the French novel—legitimate, that is, in opposition to the brilliant but episodic productions of Le See also:Sage. Its connexion, and that of Le Paysan parvenu, with the work not only of See also:Richardson but of See also:Fielding is also an interesting though a difficult subject. The subject See also:matter of Marivaux's peculiar style has been generally and with tolerable exactness described as the metaphysic of love-making. His characters, in a happy phrase of See also:Claude Prosper Jolyot See also:Crebillon's, not only tell each other and the reader everything they have thought, but everything that they would like to persuade themselves that they have thought. The style chosen for this is justly regarded as derived mainly from Fontenelle, and through him from the Precieuses, though there are traces of it even in La BruyerY It abuses See also:metaphor somewhat, and delights to turn off a metaphor itself in some unexpected and bizarre See also:fashion. Now it is a See also:familiar phrase which is used where dignified See also:language would be expected; now the reverse. In the criticism of Crebillon's already quoted occurs another happy description of Marivaux's style as being " an introduction to each other of words which have never made acquaintance, and which think that they
will not get on together," a phrase as happy in its See also:imitation as in its See also:satire of the style itself. This kind of writing, of course, recurs at several periods of literature, and did so remarkably at the end of the 19th century in more countries than one. Yet this fantastic See also:embroidery of language has a certain See also:charm, and suits perhaps better than any other style the somewhat unreal gallantry and sensibilite which it describes and exhibits. The author possessed, moreover, both thought and observation, besides considerable command of pathos.
The best and most See also:complete edition of Marivaux is that of 1781 in 12 vols. reprinted with additions 1825-1830. The plays had been published during the author's lifetime in 174o and 1748. There are See also:modern See also:editions by See also:Paul de See also:Saint Heylli See also:Victor (1863), by G. d'Heylli (1876) and by E. See also:Fournier (1878), while issues of selections and See also:separate plays and novels are numerous. Of See also:works concerning him J. See also:Fleury's Marivaux et le Marivaudage (Paris, 1881), G. Larroumet's Marivaux, sa See also:vie et ses oeuvres (1882; new ed., 1894), the See also:standard work on the subject, and G. See also:Deschamps's Marivaux (1897), in the Grands ecrivains francais, are the most important. Separate articles on him will be found in the collected essays of the chief modern French critics from Sainte-Beuve onwards. (G.
End of Article: MARIVAUX, PIERRE CARLET DE CHAMBLAIN DE (1688-1763)
Additional information and Comments
There are no comments yet for this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.
Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.
|
del.icio.us it!