Stendhal

Stendhal

Marie-Henri Beyle (January 23, 1783 – March 23, 1842), better known by his penname Stendhal, was a 19th century French writer. He is known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology and for the dryness of his writing-style. He is considered one of the foremost and earliest practioners of the realistic form, and his best novels are Le Rouge et le Noir (1830; The Red and the Black) and La Chartreuse de Parme (1839; The Charterhouse of Parma).

Biography

Born in Grenoble, France, he had a miserable childhood in stifling provincial France but blossomed in the military and theatrical worlds of the First French Empire. He travelled extensively in Germany and visited Russia (as part of Napoleon's army), but formed a particular attachment to Italy, where he spent much of the remainder of his career, serving as French consul and writing.

Beyle used the pseudonym "Stendhal", supposedly chosen as an anagram of "Shetland" (although Georges Perec may have invented this explanation - references to Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) feature extensively in Perec's unfinished last novel 53 jours). Alternatively, some scholars believe he borrowed his nom de plume from the German city of Stendal as a homage for Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

Contemporary readers did not fully appreciate Stendhal's realistic style during the Romantic period in which he lived; he was not fully appreciated until the beginning of the 20th century. He dedicated his writing to "the Happy Few", referring to those who would one day recognise his own genius. Today, Stendhal's works attract attention for their irony and psychological and historical aspects.

Stendhal was an avid fan of music, particularly the composers Cimarosa, Mozart, and Rossini, the latter of whom he wrote an extensive biography, Vie de Rossini (1824), now more valued for its wide-ranging musical criticism than for its historical accuracy.

He died in Paris in 1842 and is interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre.

Stendhal's brief, saucy memoir, Souvenirs d'Egotisme (Memoirs of an Egotist) was published posthumously in 1892.

Works

The Charterhouse of Parma (French: La Chartreuse de Parme) is one of Stendhal's two acknowledged masterpieces (and only complete novels) along with The Red and the Black.

The novel is often cited as an early example of realism, a stark contrast to the Romantic style popular while Stendhal was writing. It is considered by many authors to be a truly seminal work; Honoré de Balzac considered it the most significant novel of his time, André Gide thought it the greatest French novel ever. Tolstoy was heavily influenced by Stendhal's famous treatment of the Battle of Waterloo, where his protagonist wanders about in confusion as to whether or not he has been in "a real battle."

The Charterhouse of Parma tells the story of the young Italian noble Fabrizio del Dongo and his misadventures during the age of Napoleon. The events center in the town of Parma and a castle on Lake Como, both in Italy, but other sites across Europe are also featured, including the Battle of Waterloo, at which Fabrizio fights for Napoleon.

Fabrizio's aunt, the femme fatale Gina, Duchess of Sanseverina, and her inamorata, the scheming Prime Minister, Count Mosca, concoct a plot to advance Fabrizio's career in the court of Parma. Gina is subject to the unwelcome advances of the obnoxious Prince Ranuce-Erneste IV, which she is engaged in repelling. It could easily be argued that Gina and Count Mosca are the true heroes of the novel.

Fabrizio is arrested for murder and imprisoned in the Farnese tower, from which he escapes with a rope; he also has a difficult love affair with his jailer's daughter, Clelia.

Ostensibly a romantic thriller, interwoven with intrigue and military episodes, the novel also features Stendhal's acute grasp of human nature and psychology.

External links

• La Chartreuse De Parme, available for free via Project Gutenberg (in French)

Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) is a novel by Stendhal, published in 1830. The title has been translated into English variously as Scarlet and Black, Red and Black, and The Red and the Black. It is set in 1830s France relating a young man's attempts to rise above his plebeian birth through deception and hypocrisy, only to find himself betrayed by his own passions.

As in Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma (La Chartreuse de Parme), the protagonist, Julien Sorel, believes himself to be a driven and intelligent man, but is in reality a simpleton, a romantic, and a piece in a chess game played by others. Stendhal uses his addled hero to satirize French society of the time, particularly the hypocrisy and materialism of its aristocracy and the Catholic Church, and to foretell a radical change in French society that will remove both of those forces from their positions of power.

The most common and most likely explanation of the title is that red and black are the contrasting colors of the army uniform of the times and of the robes of priests, respectively. Alternative explanations include: red could stand for love, and black for death and mourning; red and black are the colors of the roulette wheel, and may indicate the unexpected changes in the hero's career.

Plot summary

The Red and the Black is the story of Julien Sorel, the aesthete son of a carpenter in the fictional French village of Verrières, and his attempts to overcome his poor birth through posturing and telling people what they want to hear. The novel comprises two “books,” but each book has two major stories within it.

The first book introduces Julien, who would rather spend his time with his nose in books or daydreaming about being in Napoleon’s (by then defunct) army than work with his carpenter father and brothers, who beat him for his pseudo-intellectual tendencies. Julien ends up becoming an acolyte for the local Catholic Abbé, who later secures him a post as tutor for the children of the Mayor of Verrières, M. de Rênal. Julien acts as a pious cleric, but in reality has little interest in the Bible beyond its literary value and the way he can use memorized passages to impress important people. Over time, Julien begins an affair with the wife of M. de Rênal, one that ends badly when the affair is exposed throughout the town by a servant, Eliza, who had designs of her own on Julien. M. de Rênal then banishes Julien, who moves on to a seminary that he finds cliquish and stifling. The director of the seminary, M. Pirard, takes a liking to Julien, and when M. Pirard leaves the seminary in disgust at the political machinations of the Church’s hierarchy, he recommends Julien as a candidate for secretary to the diplomat and reactionary M. de la Mole.

Book II chronicles Julien’s time in Paris with the family of M. de la Mole. Julien tries to participate in the high society of Paris, but the nobles look down on him as something of a novelty – a poor-born intellectual. Julien, meanwhile, finds himself torn between his ambitions to rise in society and his disgust at the base materialism and hypocrisy of the Parisian nobility.

Mathilde de la Mole, the daughter of Julien’s boss, seduces Julien, and the two begin a comical on-again, off-again affair, one that Julien feeds by feigning disinterest in Mathilde at one point and using the letters written by a lothario he knows to woo a widow in the de la Mole’s social circle. Eventually, Julien and Mathilde reunite when she reveals she is pregnant with his child. M. de la Mole is livid at the news, but relents and grants Julien a stipend, a place in the army, and his grudging blessing to marry his daughter. But M. de la Mole relents when he receives a letter from Mme. de Rênal warning him that Julien is nothing but a cad and a social climber who preys on vulnerable women. (In a perfect example of irony, Julien had suggested to M. de la Mole that he write to Mme. de Rênal for a character reference.) On learning of this treachery and M. de la Mole’s decision to rescind all he had granted the couple, Julien races back to Verrières, buys bullets for his pistols, heads to the Church, and shoots Mme. de Rênal twice – missing once and hitting her shoulder blade the second time – during Mass. Although Mme. de Rênal lives, Julien is sentenced to death, in part due to his own rambling, anti-patrician speech at his trial. Mathilde attempts to bribe a high official to sway the judgment against Julien, but the trial is presided over by a former romantic rival for Mme. de Rênal’s affections.

The last few chapters show Julien in prison, reconsidering all of his actions over the three years during which the story takes place and considering his place in the world and the nature of society. Mme. de Rênal forgives Julien, and she and Mathilde both attempt to bribe and cajole local officials to overturn Julien’s death sentence. Julien’s affections, meanwhile, have returned to Mme. de Rênal. The novel closes with Julien’s execution; Mme. de Rênal, who pledged to Julien that she would not take her own life and that she would care for Mathilde’s baby, dies three days later, most likely of grief.

Literary significance

A "writer's writer," Stendhal is known more in literary circles than to the public at large. Many writers have acknowledged his influence on their work and used his technique of detailed psychological description in their own stories. Leo Tolstoy considered Stendhal an enormous influence. André Gide felt that The Red and the Black was a novel far ahead of its time, and called it a novel for readers in the 20th century. Emile Zola and his fellow French realists considered Stendhal the founder of their movement.

At the time Stendhal wrote The Red and the Black, the prose in novels included dialogue or omniscient descriptions, but Stendhal's great contribution was to spend much of the novel inside the characters' heads, describing their feelings and emotions and even their inner conversations. As a result of this book, Stendhal is considered the inventor of the psychological novel.

Stendhal's style was highly allusive, with copious references to the works of Voltaire, Friedrich Schiller, and William Shakespeare; quotes from Racine's play Phèdre and Don Juan de Marco; and to philosophers and thinkers who influenced Stendhal, such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Trivia

Most of the chapters begin with epigrams that appear to be quotes from literature, poetry, or from famous personages. In reality, Stendhal himself wrote the majority of these epigrams, but attributed them to writers whom he thought capable of writing or saying such things.

Stendhal left the last four chapters untitled. These are also the only four chapters that lack epigrams.

The novel ends with Stendhal's standard closing quote, "To the Happy Few." This is either a reference to the few who could understand his writing, or a sardonic reference to the happy few who are born into prosperity.

See also

• Burt, Daniel S. The Novel 100. Checkmark Books, 2003. ISBN 0816045585

External links

• (French) Free Audio Book (mp3) of the red and the black incipit
• Le Rouge et Le Noir, available for free via Project Gutenberg
• The Red and the Black English translation

Novels:

• Armance (1827)
• Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) (variously translated as Scarlet and Black, Red and Black, The Red and the Black)
• La Chartreuse de Parme (1839) (The Charterhouse of Parma)
• Lucien Leuwen (1835-) (unfinished, published 1894)
• Lamiel (1840-) (unfinished, published 1889)
• The Life of Henry Brulard (1835-1836) (published 1890)

Novellas:

• L'Abbesse de Castro (1832)
• The Duchess of Palliano
• Vittoria Accoramboni
• Vanina Vanini
• The Cenci

Nonfiction

• De L'Amour (1822) (On Love)
• Souvenirs d'Égotisme (published 1892) (Memoirs of an Egotist)

His other works include short stories, journalism, travel books (among them Rome, Naples et Florence and Promenades dans Rome), a famous collection of essays on Italian painting, critical essays on Racine and Shakespeare, and biographies of several prominent figures of his time, including Napoleon, Haydn, Mozart, and Metastasio.

External links

• French site on Stendhal
• Le Rouge et le Noir
• Works by Stendhal from Project Gutenberg
• The Red and the Black English translation

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