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ALFRED DE VIGNY (1797-1863)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 62 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ALFRED DE See also:VIGNY (1797-1863)  , See also:French poet, was See also:born at See also:Loches (See also:Indre-et-See also:Loire) on the 27th of See also:March 1797 . Sainte-Beuve, in the rather See also:ill-natured See also:essay which he devoted to See also:Vigny after his See also:death, expresses a doubt whether the See also:title of See also:count which the poet See also:bore was well authenticated, and hints that no very See also:ancient proofs of the See also:nobility of the See also:family were forthcoming; but it is certain that in the 18th See also:century persons of the name occupied positions which were not open to any but men of See also:noble See also:birth . For generations the ancestors of See also:Alfred de Vigny had been soldiers, and he himself joined the See also:army, with a See also:commission in the See also:Household Troops, at the See also:age of sixteen . But the Revolutionary and See also:Napoleonic See also:wars were over, and after twelve years of See also:life in See also:barracks he retired, preserving, however, a very high estimate of the duties and career of the soldier . While still serving he had made his VIGNY 61 See also:mark, if as yet unrecognized, by the publication in 1822 of a See also:volume of poems, and in 1826 by another, together with the famous See also:prose See also:romance of Cinq-See also:Mars . Sainte-Beuve asserts that the poet antedated some of his most remarkable See also:work . This may or may not be the See also:case; he certainly could not ante-date the publication . And it so happens that some of his most celebrated pieces—Eloa, Dolorida, Moise—appeared (1822-23) before the work of younger members of the Romantic school whose productions strongly resemble these poems . Nor is this originality limited to the point which he himself claimed in the See also:Preface to his collected Poems in 1837—that they were " the first of their See also:kind in See also:France, in which philosophic thought is clothed in epic or dramatic See also:form." Indeed this claim is disputable in itself, and has misled not a few of Vigny's See also:recent critics . It is in poetic, not philosophic quality, that his See also:idiosyncrasy and precursorship are most remarkable . It is quite certain that the other Alfred—Alfred de See also:MussetSee also:felt the See also:influence of his See also:elder namesake, and an impartial critic might discern no insignificant marks of the same effect in the work of See also:Hugo himself . Even Lamartine, considerably Vigny's elder and his predecessor in See also:poetry, seems rather to have been guided by Vigny than Vigny by him .

No one can read Doloride or Le See also:

Cor without seeing that the author had little to learn from any of his French contemporaries and much to See also:teach them . At the same See also:time Vigny, from whatever cause, hardly made any further public See also:appearance in poetry proper during the more than See also:thirty years of his life, and his entire poems, including See also:posthumous fragments, form but one very small See also:pocket volume . Cinq-Mars, which at least equalled the poems in popularity, will hardly stand the See also:judgment of posterity so well . It had in its favour the support of the Royalist party, the immense See also:vogue of the novels of See also:Walter See also:Scott, on which it was evidently modelled, the advantages of an exquisite See also:style, and the See also:taste of the See also:day for the romance as opposed to the novel of See also:analysis . It therefore gained a See also:great name both in France and abroad . But any one who has read it critically must acknowledge it to be disappointing . The See also:action is said to be dramatic; if it be so, it can only be said that this proves very conclusively that the action of See also:drama and the action of the novel are two quite different things . To the reader who knows Scott or See also:Dumas the See also:story is singularly uninteresting (far less interesting than as told in See also:history); the characters want life; and the See also:book generally stagnates . Its author, though always as a kind of outsider (the phrase constantly applied to him in French See also:literary essays and histories being that he shut himself up in a tour d'ivoire), attached himself more or less to the Romantic See also:movement of 1830 and the years immediately preceding and following it, and was stimulated by this movement both to drama and to novel-See also:writing . In the See also:year before the revolution of See also:July he produced at the See also:Theatre See also:Francais a See also:translation, or rather See also:paraphrase, of Othello, and an See also:original piece, La Marechale d'Ancre . In 1832 he published the curious book Stello, containing studies of unlucky youthful poets—See also:Gilbert, See also:Chatterton, See also:Chenier—and in 1835 he brought out his drama of Chatterton, which, by the See also:hero's See also:suicide, shocked French taste even after five years of Romantic See also:education, but had a considerable success . The same year saw the publication of See also:Servitude et grandeur militaires, a singular collection of sketches rather than a connected work in which Vigny's military experience, his See also:idea of the soldier's duties, and his rather poetical views of history were all worked in .

The subjects of Chatterton and Othello naturally suggest a certain familiarity with See also:

English, and in fact Alfred de Vigny knew English well, lived in See also:England for some time and married in 1828 an Englishwoman, See also:Lydia See also:Bunbury . His See also:father-in-See also:law was, according to French See also:gossip, so conspicuous an example of insular eccentricity that he never could remember his son-in-law's name or anything about him, except that he was a poet . By this fact, and the kindness of casual Frenchmen who went through the See also:list of the See also:chief living poets of their See also:country, he was sometimes able to discover his daughter's See also:husband's designation . In 1845 Alfred de Vigny was elected to the See also:Academy, but made no See also:compromise in his " discourse of reception," which was unflinchingly Romantic . Still, he produced nothing See also:save a few scraps; and, beyond the work already enumerated, little has to be added except his See also:Journal d'un poete and the poems called See also:Les Destinies, edited, with a few fragments, by See also:Louis See also:Ratisbonne after his death . Among his dramatic work, however, should be mentioned Quitte pour la peur and an See also:adaptation of the See also:Merchant of See also:Venice called Shylock . Les Destinies excited no great admiration in France, but they contain some exceedingly beautiful poetry of an austere kind, such as the magnificent speech of Nature in " La Maison du berger " and the remarkable poem entitled " La Colere de See also:Samson." Vigny died at See also:Paris on the 17th of See also:September 1863 . His later life was almost wholly uneventful, and for the most See also:part, as has been said, spent in retirement . His reputation, however, is perfectly secure . It may, and probably will, See also:rest only on his small volume of poems, though it will not be lessened, as far as qualified literary See also:criticism is concerned, should the reader proceed to the rest of the work . The whole of his non-dramatic See also:verse does not amount to 5000 lines; it may be a See also:good See also:deal less . But the range of subject is comparatively wide, and extraordinary felicity of See also:execution, not merely in See also:language, but in thought, is evident throughout .

Vigny, as may be seen in the speech of Nature referred to above, had the See also:

secret—very uncommon with French poets—of attaining solemnity without grandiosity, by means of an almost classical precision and gravity of form . The defect of volubility, of never leaving off, which mars to some extent his great contemporary Hugo, is never See also:present in him, and he is equally See also:free from the looseness and disorders of form which are sometimes blemishes in Musset, and from the effeminacy of Lamartine, while once more his nobility of thought and plentifulness of See also:matter save him from the reproach which has been thought to rest on the technically perfect work of See also:Theophile See also:Gautier . The dramatic work is, perhaps, less likely to See also:interest English than French readers, the See also:local See also:colour of Chatterton being entirely false, the sentiment conventional in the extreme, and the real pathos of the story exchanged for a See also:commonplace devotion on the poet's part to his See also:host's wife . In the same way, the finest passages of Othello simply disappear in Vigny's version . In his remaining See also:works the defect of skill in managing the See also:plot and characters of prose fiction, which has been noticed in Cinq-Mars, reappears, together (in the case of the Journal d'un pate and elsewhere) with signs of the fastidious and slightly affected See also:temper which was Vigny's chief See also:fault as a See also:man . In his poems proper none of these faults appears, and he is seen wholly at his best . It should be said that of his posthumous work not a little had previously appeared piecemeal in the Revue See also:des deux mondes, to which he was an occasional contributor . The prettiest of the See also:complete See also:editions of his works (of which there are several) is to be found in what is called the Petite bibliothigueCharpentier . For many years the See also:critical See also:attention paid to him was not great . Recently there has been a revival of interest as shown by mono-graphs: M . Paleologue's " Alfred de Vigny " in the Grands ecrivains francais (1891); L . Dorison's Alfred de Vigny, poete-philosophe (1892) and Un symbole social (189g); G .

Asse's Alfred de Vigny et les editions originates de sa poesie (1895); E . See also:

Dupuy's La Jeunesse des Romantiques (1905) ; and E . Lauvnere's Alfred de Vigny (Paris, 1910) . But in most of these rather excessive attention has been paid to the " See also:philosophy " of a pessimistic kind which succeeded Vigny's See also:early See also:Christian Romanticism . This, though not unnoteworthy, is separable from his real poetical quality, and concentration on it rather obscures the latter, which is of the rarest kind . It should be added that an interesting sidelight has been thrown on Vigny by the publication (1905) of his Fragments inedits sur P. et T . See also:Corneille . (G .

End of Article: ALFRED DE VIGNY (1797-1863)
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