Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
Encyclopedia
Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (7 November 1838 – 19 August 1889) was a French
symbolist
writer.
, Brittany
, to a distinguished aristocratic family. His parents, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint and Marie-Francoise (née Le Nepvou de Carfort) were not rich, however, and were financially supported by Marie's aunt, Mademoiselle de Kerinou. His father became obsessed with the idea he could restore the family fortune by finding the lost treasure of the Knights of Malta (Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
, 16th century Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller
, was his ancestor), which had reputedly been buried near Quintin during the French Revolution. Consequently, he spent large sums of money buying land, excavating it and then selling it at a loss when he failed to find anything of value. The young Villiers' education was troubled (he attended over half a dozen different schools) but from an early age his family were convinced he was an artistic genius: as a child he composed poetry and music. The most important occurrence in these Breton years was probably the death of a young girl with whom Villiers was in love, an event which would deeply influence his literary imagination.
Villiers had made several trips to Paris in the late 1850s, where he became enthralled by artistic and theatrical life. In 1860, his aunt gave him enough money to allow him to live in the capital permanently. He had already acquired a reputation in literary circles for his inspired, alcohol-fuelled monologues. Villiers began living a Bohemian life, frequenting the Brasserie des Martyrs, where he met his idol Baudelaire, who encouraged him to read the works of Edgar Allan Poe
. Poe and Baudelaire would become the biggest influences on Villiers' mature style, but his first publication (at his own expense), was a book of verse, Premieres Poésies (1859). It made little impression outside Villiers' own small band of admirers. Around this time, Villiers began living with Louise Dyonnet, a woman whose reputation scandalised his family so much they made Villiers undergo a retreat at Solesmes Abbey. Villiers would remain a devout, if highly unorthodox, Catholic for the rest of his life.
Villiers finally broke with Dyonnet in 1864. His attempts at securing a suitable bride for himself would all end in failure. In 1867, he asked Théophile Gautier
for the hand of his daughter Estelle, but Gautier—who had turned his back on the Bohemian world of his youth and would not let his child marry a writer with few prospects—turned him down. Villiers' own family also strongly disapproved of the match. His plans for marriage to an English heiress, Anna Eyre Powell, were equally unsuccessful. Villiers finally took to living with Marie Dantine, the illiterate widow of a Belgian coachman. In 1881, she gave birth to Villiers' son, Victor (nicknamed "Totor").
A high point of Villiers' life was his trip to see his hero Richard Wagner
at Triebschen in 1869. Villiers read from the manuscript of his play La Révolte and the composer declared that the Frenchman was a "true poet". Another trip to see Wagner the next year was cut short by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War
, during which Villiers became a commander in the Garde Nationale. At first he was impressed by the patriotic spirit of the Commune and wrote articles in support of it in the Tribun du peuple under the pseudonym "Marius", but he soon became disgusted with its revolutionary violence.
Disaster came in 1871 with the death of Villiers' aunt, Mlle de Kerinou, and the end of her financial support. Though Villiers had many admirers in literary circles (the most important being his close friend Stéphane Mallarmé
), mainstream newspapers found his fiction too eccentric to be saleable and few theatres risked putting on his plays. Villiers was forced to take odd jobs to support his family: he gave boxing lessons and apparently worked in a funeral parlour and as a mountebank's assistant for a time. Another money-making scheme Villiers considered was reciting his poetry to a paying public in a cage full of tigers, but he later thought better of the idea. According to his friend Léon Bloy
, Villiers was so poor he had to write most of his novel L'Eve future lying on his belly on bare floorboards because the bailiffs had taken away all the furniture. His poverty only increased his sense of aristocratic pride. In 1875, he attempted to sue a playwright he believed had insulted one of his ancestors, Maréchal Jean de Villiers de l'Isle Adam. In 1881, Villiers stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a candidate for the legitimist party. By the 1880s, there was some change in fortune: Villiers' fame began to grow, but not his finances. The publishers Calmann-Lévy accepted his Contes cruels, but the sum they offered Villiers was negligible. The volume did, however, come to the attention of Joris-Karl Huysmans
, who praised Villiers' work in his highly influential novel A rebours
. But by this time, Villiers was dying of stomach cancer. On his deathbed, he finally married Marie Dantine, thus legitimising his beloved son "Totor". He is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery
.
style, are often fantastic in plot and filled with mystery and horror. Important among them are the drama Axel (1890), the novel L'Ève future ("Tomorrow's Eve") (1886), and the short-story collection, Contes cruels (1883, tr. Sardonic Tales, 1927). L'Ève future greatly helped to popularize the term "Android" (Androïde in French, although the character is named "Andréide").
Villiers believed the imagination has within it much more beauty than reality itself, existing at a level in which nothing real could compare.
Axël was the work Villiers considered his masterpiece, although critical opinion has often been reluctant to agree with him, placing far higher value on his fiction. Villiers began work on the piece around 1869 and had still not put the finishing touches to it when he died. It was first published posthumously in 1890. The play is heavily influenced by the Romantic
theatre of Victor Hugo
, as well as Goethe's Faust
and the music dramas of Richard Wagner
. The scene is set in Germany in 1828 and opens on Christmas Eve in the convent of Saint Apollodora, where the rich heiress Sara de Maupers is just about to take the veil. But when the archdeacon asks Sara whether she is ready to accept "light, hope and life", she replies "no". The religious authorities attempt to imprison Sara, but she manages to flee. The rest of the drama takes place in the castle of Axël d'Auersperg, a young nobleman distantly related to Sara. Axël's cousin Kaspar has learnt that a vast treasure is buried near the castle. He tries to persuade Axël to help him look for it but Axël refuses, the two quarrel and Axël kills Kaspar in a duel. In the third act, Axël's Rosicrucian tutor, Master Janus, prepares to initiate Axël into the occult mysteries. He asks his pupil whether he is ready to accept "light, hope and life", and Axël replies "no". In Act Four, Axël decides to leave the castle forever and goes down to the crypt to say farewell to the tombs of his ancestors. Here he surprises Sara, who has been led to the castle by an old manuscript which tells of the location of the buried treasure. A door opens and the treasure pours out. Axël and Sara fight then fall in love. They dream of the glorious future the treasure will bring them then declare their dreams are far too magnificent to be fulfilled in everyday, unimaginative reality. They decide to kill themselves and die as the sun rises. The play's most famous line is Axël's "Vivre? les serviteurs feront cela pour nous" ("Living? Our servants will do that for us"). Edmund Wilson
used the title Axel's Castle for his study of early Modernist literature.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
symbolist
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
writer.
Life
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was born in Saint-BrieucSaint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France.-History:Saint-Brieuc is named after a Welsh monk Brioc, who evangelized the region in the 6th century and established an oratory there...
, Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, to a distinguished aristocratic family. His parents, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint and Marie-Francoise (née Le Nepvou de Carfort) were not rich, however, and were financially supported by Marie's aunt, Mademoiselle de Kerinou. His father became obsessed with the idea he could restore the family fortune by finding the lost treasure of the Knights of Malta (Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
Fra' Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam was a prominent member of the Knights Hospitaller at Rhodes and later Malta. Having risen to the position of Prior of the Langue of Auvergne, he was elected 44th Grand Master of the Order in 1521.He commanded the Order during Sultan Suleiman's long and...
, 16th century Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller
Knights Hospitaller
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...
, was his ancestor), which had reputedly been buried near Quintin during the French Revolution. Consequently, he spent large sums of money buying land, excavating it and then selling it at a loss when he failed to find anything of value. The young Villiers' education was troubled (he attended over half a dozen different schools) but from an early age his family were convinced he was an artistic genius: as a child he composed poetry and music. The most important occurrence in these Breton years was probably the death of a young girl with whom Villiers was in love, an event which would deeply influence his literary imagination.
Villiers had made several trips to Paris in the late 1850s, where he became enthralled by artistic and theatrical life. In 1860, his aunt gave him enough money to allow him to live in the capital permanently. He had already acquired a reputation in literary circles for his inspired, alcohol-fuelled monologues. Villiers began living a Bohemian life, frequenting the Brasserie des Martyrs, where he met his idol Baudelaire, who encouraged him to read the works of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
. Poe and Baudelaire would become the biggest influences on Villiers' mature style, but his first publication (at his own expense), was a book of verse, Premieres Poésies (1859). It made little impression outside Villiers' own small band of admirers. Around this time, Villiers began living with Louise Dyonnet, a woman whose reputation scandalised his family so much they made Villiers undergo a retreat at Solesmes Abbey. Villiers would remain a devout, if highly unorthodox, Catholic for the rest of his life.
Villiers finally broke with Dyonnet in 1864. His attempts at securing a suitable bride for himself would all end in failure. In 1867, he asked Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
for the hand of his daughter Estelle, but Gautier—who had turned his back on the Bohemian world of his youth and would not let his child marry a writer with few prospects—turned him down. Villiers' own family also strongly disapproved of the match. His plans for marriage to an English heiress, Anna Eyre Powell, were equally unsuccessful. Villiers finally took to living with Marie Dantine, the illiterate widow of a Belgian coachman. In 1881, she gave birth to Villiers' son, Victor (nicknamed "Totor").
A high point of Villiers' life was his trip to see his hero Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
at Triebschen in 1869. Villiers read from the manuscript of his play La Révolte and the composer declared that the Frenchman was a "true poet". Another trip to see Wagner the next year was cut short by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
, during which Villiers became a commander in the Garde Nationale. At first he was impressed by the patriotic spirit of the Commune and wrote articles in support of it in the Tribun du peuple under the pseudonym "Marius", but he soon became disgusted with its revolutionary violence.
Disaster came in 1871 with the death of Villiers' aunt, Mlle de Kerinou, and the end of her financial support. Though Villiers had many admirers in literary circles (the most important being his close friend Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
), mainstream newspapers found his fiction too eccentric to be saleable and few theatres risked putting on his plays. Villiers was forced to take odd jobs to support his family: he gave boxing lessons and apparently worked in a funeral parlour and as a mountebank's assistant for a time. Another money-making scheme Villiers considered was reciting his poetry to a paying public in a cage full of tigers, but he later thought better of the idea. According to his friend Léon Bloy
Léon Bloy
Léon Bloy , was a French novelist, essayist, pamphleteer and poet.-Biography:Bloy was born in Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, in the arondissement of Périgueux, Dordogne. He was the second of six sons of Voltairean freethinker and stern disciplinarian Jean Baptiste Bloy and his wife Anne-Marie Carreau,...
, Villiers was so poor he had to write most of his novel L'Eve future lying on his belly on bare floorboards because the bailiffs had taken away all the furniture. His poverty only increased his sense of aristocratic pride. In 1875, he attempted to sue a playwright he believed had insulted one of his ancestors, Maréchal Jean de Villiers de l'Isle Adam. In 1881, Villiers stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a candidate for the legitimist party. By the 1880s, there was some change in fortune: Villiers' fame began to grow, but not his finances. The publishers Calmann-Lévy accepted his Contes cruels, but the sum they offered Villiers was negligible. The volume did, however, come to the attention of Joris-Karl Huysmans
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans . He is most famous for the novel À rebours...
, who praised Villiers' work in his highly influential novel A rebours
À rebours
À rebours is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans...
. But by this time, Villiers was dying of stomach cancer. On his deathbed, he finally married Marie Dantine, thus legitimising his beloved son "Totor". He is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
.
Writings
Villiers' works, in the romanticRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
style, are often fantastic in plot and filled with mystery and horror. Important among them are the drama Axel (1890), the novel L'Ève future ("Tomorrow's Eve") (1886), and the short-story collection, Contes cruels (1883, tr. Sardonic Tales, 1927). L'Ève future greatly helped to popularize the term "Android" (Androïde in French, although the character is named "Andréide").
Villiers believed the imagination has within it much more beauty than reality itself, existing at a level in which nothing real could compare.
Axël was the work Villiers considered his masterpiece, although critical opinion has often been reluctant to agree with him, placing far higher value on his fiction. Villiers began work on the piece around 1869 and had still not put the finishing touches to it when he died. It was first published posthumously in 1890. The play is heavily influenced by the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
theatre of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, as well as Goethe's Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
and the music dramas of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. The scene is set in Germany in 1828 and opens on Christmas Eve in the convent of Saint Apollodora, where the rich heiress Sara de Maupers is just about to take the veil. But when the archdeacon asks Sara whether she is ready to accept "light, hope and life", she replies "no". The religious authorities attempt to imprison Sara, but she manages to flee. The rest of the drama takes place in the castle of Axël d'Auersperg, a young nobleman distantly related to Sara. Axël's cousin Kaspar has learnt that a vast treasure is buried near the castle. He tries to persuade Axël to help him look for it but Axël refuses, the two quarrel and Axël kills Kaspar in a duel. In the third act, Axël's Rosicrucian tutor, Master Janus, prepares to initiate Axël into the occult mysteries. He asks his pupil whether he is ready to accept "light, hope and life", and Axël replies "no". In Act Four, Axël decides to leave the castle forever and goes down to the crypt to say farewell to the tombs of his ancestors. Here he surprises Sara, who has been led to the castle by an old manuscript which tells of the location of the buried treasure. A door opens and the treasure pours out. Axël and Sara fight then fall in love. They dream of the glorious future the treasure will bring them then declare their dreams are far too magnificent to be fulfilled in everyday, unimaginative reality. They decide to kill themselves and die as the sun rises. The play's most famous line is Axël's "Vivre? les serviteurs feront cela pour nous" ("Living? Our servants will do that for us"). Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
used the title Axel's Castle for his study of early Modernist literature.
Works
- Premières Poésies (early verse, 1859)
- Isis (novel, uncompleted, 1862)
- Elën (drama in three acts in prose, 1865)
- Morgane (drama in five acts in prose, 1866)
- La Révolte (drama in one act, 1870)
- Le Nouveau Monde (drama, 1880)
- Contes Cruels (stories, 1883; translated into English as Sardonic Tales by Hamish Miles in 1927, and as Cruel Tales by Robert BaldickRobert BaldickRobert Baldick was a British scholar of French literature, writer, joint editor of the Penguin Classics series with Betty Radice and a well-known translator. He was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford....
in 1963) - L'Ève future (novel, 1886; translated into English as Tomorrow's Eve by Robert Martin Adams)
- L'Amour supreme (stories, 1886; partially translated into English by Brian StablefordBrian StablefordBrian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
as The Scaffold and The Vampire Soul) - Tribulat Bonhomet (fiction including "Claire Lenoir", 1887; translated into English by Brian Stableford as The Vampire Soul ISBN 1-932983-02-3)
- L'Evasion (drama in one act, 1887)
- Histoires insolites (stories, 1888; partially translated into English by Brian Stableford as The Scaffold and The Vampire Soul)
- Nouveaux Contes cruels (stories, 1888; partially translated into English by Brian Stableford as The Scaffold and The Vampire Soul)
- Chez les passants (stories, miscellaneous journalism, 1890)
- AxëlAxël (drama)Axël is a drama by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam published in 1890. It was influenced by his participation in the Paris Commune, as well as the works of Goethe and Victor Hugo. It begins in an occult castle. The Byronic hero Axël meets a Germanic princess. After an initial conflict they fall in...
(published posthumously 1890; translated into English by June Guicharnaud)
Sources
- Jean-Paul Bourre, Villiers de L'Isle Adam: Splendeur et misère (Les Belles Lettres, 2002)
- Natalie Satiat's edition of L'Ève future (Garnier-Flammarion)
External links
- Black Coat Press, publisher of American translations of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.