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MAUPASSANT, HENRI RENE ALBERT GUY DE ...
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See also:MAUPASSANT, See also:HENRI RENE See also:ALBERT See also:GUY DE (1850-1893) , See also:French novelist and poet, was See also:born at the See also:Chateau of Miromesnil in the See also:department of See also:Seine-Inferieure on the 5th See also:August 1850. His grandfather, a landed proprietor of a See also:good See also:Lorraine See also:family, owned an See also:estate at See also:Neuville-Champ-d'Oisel near See also:Rouen, and bequeathed a moderate See also:fortune to his son, a See also:Paris stockbroker, who married Mademoiselle Laure Lepoitevin. Maupassant was educated at See also:Yvetot and at the Rouen lycee. A copy of verses entitled Le Dieu createur, written during his See also:year of See also:philosophy, has been preserved and printed. He entered the See also:ministry of marine, and was promoted by M. See also:Bardoux to the See also:Cabinet de 1'Instruction publique. A pleasant See also:legend says that, in a See also:report by his See also:official See also:chief, Maupassant is mentioned as not reaching the See also:standard of the department in the See also:matter of See also:style. He may very well have been an unsatisfactory clerk, as he divided his See also:time between See also:rowing expeditions and attending the See also:literary gatherings at the See also:house of Gustave See also:Flaubert, who was not, as he is often alleged to be, connected with Maupassant by any See also:blood tie. Flaubert was not his See also:uncle, nor his See also:cousin, nor even his godfather, but merely an old friend of Madame de Maupassant, whom he had known from childhood. At the literary meetings Maupassant seldom shared in the conversation. Upon those who met him—Tourgenieff, See also:Alphonse See also:Daudet, Catulle Mendes, Jose- Maria de See also:Heredia and Emile See also:Zola—he See also:left the impression of a See also:simple See also:young See also:athlete. Even Flaubert, to whom Maupassant submitted some sketches, was not greatly struck by their See also:talent, though he encouraged the youth to persevere. Maupassant's
first See also:essay was a dramatic piece twice given at See also:Etretat in 1873
before an See also:audience which included Tourgenieff, Flaubert andMeilhac. In this indecorous performance, of which nothing more is heard, Maupassant played the See also:part of a woman. During the next seven years he served a severe See also:apprenticeship to Flaubert, who by this time realized his See also:pupil's exceptional gifts. In 188o Maupassant published a See also:volume of poems, See also:Des Vers, against which the public prosecutor of See also:Etampes took proceedings that were finally withdrawn through the See also:influence of the senator Cordier. From Flaubert, who had himself been prosecuted for his first See also:book, Madame Bovary, there came a See also:letter congratulating the poet on the similarity between their first literary experiences. Des Vers is an extremely interesting experiment, which shows Maupassant to us still hesitating in his choice of a See also:medium; but he recognized that it was not wholly satisfactory, and that its chief deficiency—the See also:absence of verbal See also:melody—was fatal. Later in the same year he contributed to the Soirees de Medan, a collection of See also:short stories by MM. Zola, J.-K. See also:Huysmans, See also: In Mademoiselle Fifi (1883) he repeated his previous triumphs as a conteur, and in this same year he, for the first time, attempted to write on a larger See also:scale. Choosing to portray the See also:life of a blameless girl, unfortunate in her See also:marriage, unfortunate in her son, consistently unfortunate in every circumstance of existence, he leaves her, ruined and prematurely old, clinging to the tragic See also:hope, which time, as one feels, will belie, that she may find happiness in her See also:grandson. This picture of an See also:average woman undergoing the See also:constant agony of disillusion Maupassant calls Une See also:Vie (1883), and as in modern literature there is no finer example of cruel observation, so there is no sadder book than this, while the effect of extreme truthfulness which it conveys justifies its sub-See also:title—L'Humble verite. Certain passages of Une Vie are of such a See also:character that the See also:sale of the volume at railway bookstalls was forbidden throughout See also:France. The matter was brought before the chamber of deputies, with the result of See also:drawing still more See also:attention to the book, and of advertising the Conies de la becasse (1883), a collection of stories as improper as they are See also:clever. Au soleil (1884), a book of travels which has the eminent qualities of lucid observation and exact description, was less read than Clair de lune, See also:Miss Harriet, See also:Les Sceurs Rondoli and Yvette, all published in 1883–1884 when Maupassant's See also:powers were at their highest level. Three further collections of short tales, entitled Conies et nouvelles, See also:Monsieur See also:Parent, and Conies du jour et de la nuit, issued in 1885, proved that while the author's See also:vision was as incomparable as ever, his fecundity had not improved his impeccable See also:form. To 1885 also belongs an elaborate novel, See also:Bel-ami, the cynical history of a particularly detestable, brutal See also:scoundrel who makes his way in the See also:world by means of his handsome See also:face. Maupassant is here no less vivid in realizing his literary men, financiers and frivolous See also:women than in dealing with his favourite peasants, boors and servants, to whom he returned in Toine (1886) and in La Petite See also:rogue (1886). About this time appeared the first symptoms of the malady which destroyed him; he wrote less, ' and though the novel Mont-Oriol (1887) shows him apparently in undiminished See also:possession of his See also:faculty, Le Horla (1887) suggests that he was already subject to alarming hallucinations. Restored to some extent by a See also:sea-voyage, recorded in Sur l'eau (1888), he went back to short stories in Le Rosier de Madame Husson (1888), a burst of Rabelaisian See also:humour equal to anything he had ever written. His novels See also:Pierre et See also:Jean (1888), Fort comme la morl (1889), and Notre cceur (1890) are penetrating studies touched with a profounder sympathy than had hitherto distinguished him; and this softening into pity for the tragedy of life is deepened in some of the tales included in Inutile beaute (1890). One of these, Le Champ d'Oliviers, is an unsurpassable example of
poignant, emotional narrative. With La Vie errante (189o), a (1894); an introduction by Henry See also: A See also:correspondence, called Amitie anaoureuse (1897), and dedicated to his See also:mother, is probably unauthentic. Among the prefaces which he wrote for the See also:works of others, only one—an introduction to a French prose version of Mr See also:Swinburne's Poems and See also:Ballads—is likely to interest See also:English readers. Maupassant began as a follower of Flaubert and of M. Zola, but, whatever the masters may have called themselves, they both remained essentially romantiques. The pupil is the last of the " naturalists ": he even destroyed See also:naturalism, since he did all that can be done in that direction. He had no See also:psychology, no theories of See also:art, no moral or strong social prejudices, no disturbing See also:imagination, no wealth of perplexing ideas. It is no See also:paradox to say that his marked limitations made him the incomparable artist that he was. Undisturbed by any See also:external influence, his marvellous vision enabled him to become a supreme observer, and, given his literary sense, the See also:rest was simple. He prided himself in having no invention; he described nothing that he had not seen. The peasants whom he had known as a boy figure in a See also:score of tales; what he saw in See also:Government offices is set down in L'Heritage; from See also:Algiers he gathers the material for Maroca; he drinks the waters and builds up Mont-Oriol; he enters journalism, constructs Bel-ami, and, for the See also:sake of precision, makes his See also:brother, Herve de Maupassant, sit for the infamous See also:hero's portrait; he See also:sees fashionable society, and, though it wearied him intensely, he transcribes its life in Fort comme la mort and Notre c vur. Fundamentally he finds all men alike. In every grade he finds the same ferocious, cunning, See also:animal instincts at See also:work: it is not a See also:gay world, but he knows no other; he is possessed by. the dread of growing old, of ceasing to enjoy; the horror of See also:death haunts him like a spectre. It is an extremely simple outlook. Maupassant does not prefer good to See also:bad, one See also:man to another; he never pauses to argue about the meaning of life, a senseless thing which has the one See also:advantage of yielding materials for art; his one aim is to discover the hidden aspect of visible things, to relate what he has observed, to give an See also:objective rendering of it, and he has seen so intensely and so serenely that he is the most exact transcriber in literature. And as the substance is, so is the form: his style is exceedingly simple and exceedingly strong;, he uses no rare or superfluous word, and is content to use the humblest word if only it conveys the exact picture of the thing seen. In ten years he produced some See also:thirty volumes. With the exception of Pierre et Jean, his novels, excellent as they are, scarcely represent him at his best, and of over two See also:hundred contes a proportion must be rejected. But enough will remain to vindicate his claim to a permanent See also:place in literature as an unmatched observer and the most perfect master of the short See also:story. See also F. Brunetiere, Le See also:Roman naturaliste (1883); J. Lemaltre, Les Contemporains (vols. i. v. vi.) ; R. See also:Doumic, Ecrivains d'aujourd'hui r91) ; a See also:critical See also:preface by the, See also:earl of See also:Crewe to Pierre and Jean 02); A. See also:Symons, Studies in Prose and See also:Verse (1904). There are many references to Maupassant in the See also:Journal des See also:Goncourt, and some correspondence with See also:Marie See also:Bashkirtseff was printed with Further See also:Memoirs of that See also:lady in 1901. (J. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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