"im34b10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vigny Alfred De)

1826, 'Cinq-Mars, ou une Conjuration sans Louis XIII'. It met with the
most brilliant and decided success and was crowned by the Academy. Cinq-
Mars will always be remembered as the earliest romantic novel in France
and the greatest and most dramatic picture of Richelieu now extant. De
Vigny was a convinced Anglophile, well acquainted with the writings of
Shakespeare and Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, and
Leopardi. He also married an English lady in 1825--Lydia Bunbury.

Other prose works are 'Stello' (1832), in the manner of Sterne and
Diderot, and 'Servitude et Grandeur militaire' (1835), the language of
which is as caustic as that of Merimee. As a dramatist, De Vigny
produced a translation of 'Othello--Le More de Venice' (1829); also 'La
Marechale d'Ancre' (1832); both met with moderate success only. But a
decided "hit" was 'Chatterton' (1835), an adaption from his prose-work
'Stello, ou les Diables bleus'; it at once established his reputation on
the stage; the applause was most prodigious, and in the annals of the
French theatre can only be compared with that of 'Le Cid'. It was a
great victory for the Romantic School, and the type of Chatterton, the
slighted poet, "the marvellous boy, the sleepless soul that perished in
his pride," became contagious as erstwhile did the type of Werther.

For twenty years before his death Alfred de Vigny wrote nothing. He
lived in retirement, almost a recluse, in La Charente, rarely visiting
Paris. Admitted into L'Academie Francaise in 1845, he describes in his
'Journal d'un Poete' his academic visits and the reception held out to
him by the members of L'Institut. This work appeared posthumously in
1867.

He died in Paris, September 17, 1863.

CHARLES DE MAZADE
de l'Academie Francaise.




PREFACE

Considering Alfred de Vigny first as a writer, it is evident that he
wished the public to regard him as different from the other romanticists
of his day; in fact, in many respects, his method presents a striking
contrast to theirs. To their brilliant facility, their prodigious
abundance, and the dazzling luxury of color in their pictures of life he
opposes a style always simple, pure, clear, with delicacy of touch,
careful drawing of character, correct locution, and absolute chastity.
Yet, even though he had this marked regard for purity in literary style,
no writer had more dislike of mere pedantry. His high ideal in literary
art and his self-respect inspired him with an invincible repugnance
toward the artificialities of style of that period, which the
romanticists--above all, Chateaubriand, their master--had so much abused.