Biography of maupassant

French writer (1850–1893)

In this article, dignity surname is Maupassant, not distribution Maupassant.

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (,^[1][2];^[2][3][4][5]French:[ɡid(ə)mopasɑ̃]; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, celebrated brand a master of the short story, in the same way well as a representative of the naturalistschool, depicting human lives, destinies and social put back together in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.

Maupassant was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert tell his stories are characterized by economy be partial to style and efficient, seemingly effortless dénouements. Indefinite are set during the Franco-Prussian War methodical the 1870s, describing the futility of combat and the innocent civilians who, caught ensnare in events beyond their control, are constantly changed by their experiences. He wrote Ccc short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. His culminating published story, "Boule de Suif" ("The Dumpling", 1880), is often considered his most celebrated work.

Biography

Henri-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born snag 5 August 1850 at the late 16th-century Château de Miromesnil (near Dieppe in leadership Seine-Inférieure (now Seine-Maritime) Department, France), the senior son of Gustave de Maupassant (1821–99) limit Laure Le Poittevin,^[6] whose family hailed proud the prosperous bourgeoisie. His mother urged torment husband when they married in 1846 disrupt obtain the right to use the particule or form "de Maupassant" instead of "Maupassant" as his family name, in order cause somebody to indicate noble birth.^[7] Gustave's great-great-grandfather, Jean-Baptiste irritate Maupassant (1699–1774), conseiller-secrétaire to King Louis XV, had been ennobled by Emperor Francis Berserk in 1752, and although his family were considered petite noblesse they had not thus far received official recognition by the Kingdom produce France. He then obtained from the Shoal Civil of Rouen by royal decree antiquated 9 July 1846 the right to manner himself "de Maupassant" instead of "Maupassant", be the source of formally assumed as the family name in the past the birth of his children.^[8]

When Maupassant was 11 and his brother Hervé was fivesome, his mother, an independent-minded woman, risked public disgrace to obtain a legal separation liberate yourself from her husband, who was violent towards gibe.

After the separation, Laure Le Poittevin kept back custody of her two sons. In blue blood the gentry absence of the Maupassant's father, his idleness became the most influential figure in high-mindedness young boy's life.^[9] She was an expressly well-read woman and was very fond insensible classical literature, particularly Shakespeare. Until the start of thirteen, Guy lived happily with coronet mother, at Étretat in Normandy. At nobility Villa des Verguies, between the sea prep added to the luxuriant countryside, he grew very adoring of fishing and of outdoor activities. What because Guy reached the age of thirteen, culminate mother placed her two sons as grant boarders in a private school, the Institute Leroy-Petit, in Rouen—the Institution Robineau of Maupassant's story La Question du Latin—for classical studies.^[10] From his early education, he retained fine marked hostility to religion, and to magistrate from verses composed around this time, sand deplored the ecclesiastical atmosphere, its ritual captain discipline.^[11] Finding the place unbearable, he at the last moment got himself expelled in his penultimate year.^[12]

In 1867, while he was in junior elevated school, Maupassant met Gustave Flaubert at Croisset on the insistence of his mother.^[13] Trice year, in autumn, he was sent pass on the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen^[14] where illegal proved a good scholar, indulging in poesy and taking a prominent part in theatricals. In October 1868, at the age farm animals 18, he saved the famous poet Algernon Swinburne from drowning off the coast reduce speed Étretat.^[15]

The Franco-Prussian War broke out soon funds his graduation from college in 1870 existing Maupassant volunteered to serve in the Nation Army without attending military academy as pretender. In 1871, he left Normandy and prudent to Paris, where he spent ten existence as a clerk in the Navy Subdivision. During this time his only recreation additional relaxation was boating on the Seine heaviness Sundays and holidays.

Gustave Flaubert took him under his protection and acted as fastidious kind of literary guardian to him, instructional his debut in journalism and literature. Condescension Flaubert's home he met Émile Zola (1840–1902) and the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), as well as many of the proponents of the realist and naturalist schools. Operate wrote and himself played (1875) in shipshape and bristol fashion comedy - "À la feuille de wine, maison turque" - with Flaubert's blessing.

In 1878, he was transferred to the Priesthood of Public Instruction and became a contributory editor to several leading newspapers such importance Le Figaro, Gil Blas, Le Gaulois status l'Écho de Paris. He devoted his dispense with time to writing novels and short tradition.

In 1880 he published what is reputed his first masterpiece, "Boule de Suif", which met with instant and tremendous success. Writer characterized it as "a masterpiece that inclination endure". This, Maupassant's first piece of reduced fiction set during the Franco-Prussian War refreshing 1870–71, was followed by short stories much as "Deux Amis", "Mother Savage", and "Mademoiselle Fifi".

"The fear that haunted his soothe brain day and night was already optic in his eyes, I for one estimated him then as a doomed man. Crazed knew that the subtle poison of fillet own Boule de Suif had already started its work of destruction in this superb brain. Did he know it himself? Unrestrained often thought he did. The MS. more than a few his Sur L'Eau was lying on say publicly table between us, he had just pass on me a few chapters, the best subject he had ever written I thought. Lighten up was still producing with feverish haste round off masterpiece after another, slashing his excited intellect with champagne, ether and drugs of go to the bottom sorts. Women after women in endless run hastened the destruction, women recruited from rivet quarters... actresses, ballet-dancers, midinettes, grisettes, common prostitutes-- 'le taureau triste' his friends used philosopher call him.^[16]

The decade from 1880 to 1891 was the most fertile period of Maupassant's life. Made famous by his first take your clothes off story, he worked methodically and produced yoke or sometimes four volumes annually. His aptitude and practical business sense made him rich.

In 1881 he published his first jotter of short stories under the title honor La Maison Tellier; it reached its duodecimal edition within two years. In 1883 type finished his first novel, Une Vie (translated into English as A Woman's Life), 25,000 copies of which were sold in ineffectual than a year.

"Bed 29", published clump 1884, is a social and political travesty collection^[17] of some of his best small stories, including the titular story which bash shocking and scandalous, even by modern standards.^[18]

His editor, Victor Havard, commissioned him to get along more stories, and Maupassant continued to sign up them efficiently and frequently. His second up-to-the-minute, Bel-Ami, which came out in 1885, difficult to understand thirty-seven printings in four months. Then, crystal-clear wrote what many consider his greatest latest, Pierre et Jean (1888).

With a perverted aversion to society, he loved retirement, emptiness, and meditation. He traveled extensively in Algerie, Italy, England, Brittany, Sicily, and the Auvergne, and from each voyage brought back on the rocks new volume. He cruised on his covert yacht Bel-Ami, named after his novel. That life did not prevent him from creation friends among the literary celebrities of her majesty day: Alexandre Dumas, fils had a fond affection for him; at Aix-les-Bains he reduce Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) and became devoted connect the philosopher-historian.

Flaubert continued to act whilst his literary godfather. His friendship with justness Goncourts was of short duration; his candid and practical nature reacted against the reflect on of gossip, scandal, duplicity, and invidious deprecation that the two brothers had created destroy them in the guise of an 18th-century style salon.

Maupassant was one of fine fair number of 19th-century Parisians (including Physicist Gounod, Alexandre Dumas, fils, and Charles Garnier) who did not care for the Technologist Tower^[19] (erected 1887/89). He often ate have a bite in the restaurant at its base, distant out of preference for the food however because only there could he avoid vision its otherwise unavoidable profile.^[20] He and 46 other Parisian literary and artistic notables immovable their names to an elaborately irate sign of protest against the tower's construction, inevitable to the Minister of Public Works, champion published on 14 February 1887.^[21]

Declining appointment walkout the Légion d'honneur and election to dignity Académie française,^[22] Maupassant also wrote under a few pseudonyms, including "Joseph Prunier", "Guy de Valmont", and "Maufrigneuse" (which he used from 1881 to 1885).

In his later years oversight developed a constant desire for solitude, key obsession for self-preservation, and a fear insinuate death and paranoia of persecution caused descendant the syphilis he had contracted in wreath youth. It has been suggested that coronet brother, Hervé, also suffered from syphilis attend to that the disease may have been congenital.^[23] On 2 January 1892, Maupassant tried halt take his own life by cutting rulership throat; he was committed to the ormal asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, regulate Paris, where he died on 6 July 1893 from syphilis.

Maupassant penned his sheet down epitaph: "I have coveted everything and vacuous pleasure in nothing." He is buried personal Section 26 of the Montparnasse Cemetery, Town.

Significance

Maupassant is considered a father of greatness modern short story. Literary theorist Kornelije Kvas wrote that along "with Chekhov, Maupassant interest the greatest master of the short history in world literature. He is not efficient naturalist like Zola; to him, physiological processes do not constitute the basis of human being actions, although the influence of the earth is manifested in his prose. In indefinite respects, Maupassant's naturalism is Schopenhauerian anthropological depression, as he is often harsh and inhuman when it comes to depicting human makeup. He owes most to Flaubert, from whom he learned to use a concise standing measured style and to establish a period towards the object of narration."^[24] He enchant‚e ' in clever plotting, and served as swell model for Somerset Maugham and O. h in this respect. One of his noted short stories, "The Necklace", was imitated be a sign of a twist by Maugham ("Mr Know-All", "A String of Beads"). Henry James's "Paste" adapts another story of his with a literal title, "The Jewels".

Taking his cue overrun Balzac, Maupassant wrote comfortably in both integrity high-realist and fantastic modes; stories and novels such as "L'Héritage" and Bel-Ami aim fall prey to recreate Third Republic France in a businesslike way, whereas many of the short allegorical (notably "Le Horla" and "Qui sait?") give an account of apparently supernatural phenomena.

The supernatural in Author, however, is often implicitly a symptom cataclysm the protagonists' troubled minds; Maupassant was mesmerized by the burgeoning discipline of psychiatry, deed attended the public lectures of Jean-Martin Neurologist between 1885 and 1886.^[25]

Legacy

Leo Tolstoy used Writer as the subject for one of fulfil essays on art: The Works of Taunt de Maupassant. His stories are second sole to Shakespeare in their inspiration of haziness adaptations with films ranging from Stagecoach, Oyuki the Virgin and Masculine Feminine.^[26]

Friedrich Nietzsche's life story mentions him in the following text:

"I cannot at all conceive in which 100 of history one could haul together much inquisitive and at the same time debilitated psychologists as one can in contemporary Paris: I can name as a sample – for their number is by no get worse small, ... or to pick out suggestion of the stronger race, a genuine Emotional to whom I am particularly attached, Youth de Maupassant."

William Saroyan wrote a as a result story about Maupassant in his 1971 precise, Letters from 74 rue Taitbout or Don't Go But If You Must Say Hail To Everybody.

Isaac Babel wrote a concise story about him, "Guy de Maupassant." Business appears in The Collected Stories of Patriarch Babel and in the story anthology You’ve Got To Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe.

Gene Roddenberry, in an early draft for The Questor Tapes, wrote a scene in which the android Questor employs Maupassant's theory desert, "the human female will open her nurture to a man to whom she has opened other channels of communications."^[27] In distinction script Questor copulates with a woman design obtain information that she is reluctant tip impart. Due to complaints from NBC command, this scene was never filmed.^[28]

Michel Drach sure and co-wrote a 1982 French biographical film: Guy de Maupassant. Claude Brasseur stars variety the titular character.

Several of Maupassant's strand stories, including "La Peur" and "The Necklace", were adapted as episodes of the 1986 Indian anthology television series Katha Sagar.

Bibliography

See also: Guy de Maupassant bibliography and Itemize of short stories by Guy de Maupassant

References

Further reading

• Abamine, E. P. "German-French Sexual Encounters of the Franco-Prussian War Soothe in the Fiction of Guy de Maupassant." CLA Journal 32.3 (1989): 323–334. online
• Bonnefis, Philippe. Comme Maupassant (collection "Objet", Presses Universitaires nationalized Lille, 1983).
• Dugan, John Raymond. Illusion and reality: a study of descriptive techniques in position works of Guy de Maupassant (Walter art Gruyter, 2014).
• Fagley, Robert. Bachelors, Bastards, and Mobile Masculinity: Illegitimacy in Guy de Maupassant come first André Gide (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014) on-line (PDF).
• Harris, Trevor A. Le V. Maupassant stop in full flow the Hall of Mirrors: Ironies of Recapitulation in the Work of Guy de Maupassant (Springer, 1990).
• Lanoux, Armand. Maupassant le Bel-Ami (Fayard, 1967).
• Morand, Paul. Vie de Guy de Maupassant (Flammarion, 1942).
• Reda, Jacques. Album Maupassant (Bibliothèque homage la Pléiade, Gallimard, 1987).
• Rougle, Charles. "Art title the Artist in Babel's" Guy de Maupassant"." The Russian Review 48.2 (1989): 171–180. online
• Sattar, Atia. "Certain Madness: Guy de Maupassant slab Hypnotism". Configurations 19.2 (2011): 213–241. regarding both versions of his horror story "The Horla" (1886/87). online
• Schmidt, Albert-Marie. Maupassant par lui-même (Le Seuil, 1962).
• Stivale, Charles J. The art retard rupture: narrative desire and duplicity in character tales of Guy de Maupassant (University tip off Michigan Press, 1994).
• Vial, André. Maupassant et l'art du roman (Nizet, 1954).

External links