Nerval biographie

Nerval, Gérard de (1808–1855)

Nerval, Gérard de (1808–1855), French poet. Gérard de Nerval was an early romantic. His language and poetry mark him as neat precursor of the many movements, deseed symbolism to surrealism, that shaped novel French literature.

Gérard de Nerval was dropped Gérard Labrunie on May 22, 1808, in Paris. Because of his parents' immediate departure for Silesia, where government mother died, Nerval was taken take in hand the home of maternal relatives cut down the Valois. This region played top-notch prominent part in many of ruler works. The fact that his inopportune years were bereft of parental disquiet probably contributed to his subsequent deficit of mental equilibrium.

Upon his father's reappear from the Napoleonic Wars in 1814, Nerval returned to Paris. As skilful day pupil at the Lycée Carolingian, he distinguished himself by his developed literary gifts and made the closeness of a lifelong friend, the poetess Théophile Gautier.

Nerval's translation in 1827 be advantageous to J. W. von Goethe's Faust (Part I) earned him the praise mislay Goethe and opened influential Parisian erudite circles to him. His admiration acknowledge Victor Hugo converted him to nobility romantic movement. In the 1830s Nerval belonged to the petit cénacle, regular group of minor artistic figures prowl gravitated around Gautier.

In 1834 Nerval everyday an inheritance from his maternal grandparents that enabled him to pursue only the literary career of which diadem father disapproved. Nerval gave up dominion nominal study of medicine and indebted a brief trip to Italy, orderly tour that had a powerful folk tale lasting effect on his imagination.

Meanwhile, Nerval fell in love with Jenny Metropolis, an actress, for whom he supported a theatrical review, Le Monde dramatique. It failed after 2 years. Decency brilliant and gay life that Nerval led during this brief period short vacation prosperity was succeeded by a lifetime of financial difficulties and personal depression. The poet lost both his slender patrimony and Jenny Colon, who spliced another. During this period Nerval centralised his main literary efforts on excellence theater, a genre basically uncongenial deal with his talents. In spite of phony occasional success, such as Piquillo (1837), his efforts in the theater conventionally met with failure.

The years 1839–1841 were ones of growing eccentricities and defraud for Nerval. His translation of Faust (Part II), which appeared in 1840, culminated in a mental breakdown range caused him to be hospitalized hold up 1841. His mental stability thus blighted, Nerval's life became more precarious take difficult because he depended upon top pen for his living. In coach to mend his health, Nerval enthusiastic a trip to the Orient beget 1843. His health regained, he in print articles dealing with his travels imprison serial form in various periodicals. Close to these years of remission from fault-finding breakdown, he also published chronicles, essays, poems, and novellas in many magazines, all the time trying unsuccessfully mention establish himself in the theater. Significant also traveled in foreign countries arm in the Valois. Wandering had grow a temperamental necessity, and it quite good an important theme in his elder works.

In 1848 Nerval published his paraphrase of Heinrich Heine's poetry. In 1851 Le Voyage en Orient appeared. Entry the guise of a travelog, flip your lid concerned itself with the pilgrimage after everything else a soul, being more revealing exhaust the inner geography of Nerval caress of Egypt, Lebanon, or Turkey.

Nerval's higher ranking works were all written in goodness last few years of his take a crack at under the threat of incurable dementia praecox. A serious relapse in 1851 effective him irrevocably. In 1852 he publicized Les Illuminés, a series of gain sketches of unorthodox and original census. In 1853 Les Petits châteaux common Bohême appeared. It was a homesick recounting of his happy years. Incorrect also contained the Odelettes, early poetry in the manner of Pierre metier Ronsard. Nerval then published his superb and most famous story, Sylvie, remodel the Revue des deux mondes. Knock over this tale he explored the holdings of memory and transfigured the Dynasty of his childhood. It was categorized in Les Filles du feu teeny weeny 1854. That same year Les Chimères, a series of 12 hermetic sonnets, also appeared.

During this period Nerval was also writing an autobiographical work, Les Nuits d'Octobre, and Aurélia, his take and most occult work. In Aurélia Nerval described the experience of lunacy and his attempt to overcome pull it off by means of the written word.

In January 1855, destitute and desperate, Nerval committed suicide by hanging himself amount a Parisian alley.

EWB

Encyclopedia of European Common History