Alexandre Dumas the Younger

Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas the Younger, also Dumas fils , ( Paris July 27, 1824 – Marly-le-Roi November 27, 1895 ) was a French novelist and dramatic poet . He was the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas the Elder and Marie-Catherine Labay, a seamstress.

Life

At the age of 17, after leaving the Collège Bourbon , Dumas embarked on a career as a writer with the volume of poetry Péchés de jeunesse (“The Sins of Youth”). He accompanied his father on his journey through Spain and North Africa and on his return published the six-volume novel Histoire de quatre femmes et d'un perroquet (1847), which aroused public curiosity.

In the novel The Lady of the Camellias ( La dame aux camélias , 1848 ), Dumas realistically tells the story of a Parisian courtesan who dies of consumption at an early age . In the two later plays , Diane de Lys (1853) and Le demi-monde (1855), the poet treats almost the same subject, but with a far more satirical purpose and more to hold up a mirror, in the manner of the comedic poet of his time.

Dumas is considered one of the founders of social drama and he dealt with social and societal problems in almost all of his plays. The position of women played a special role. In his novel L'affaire Clémenceau (1864) and in several pamphlets such as Lettres sur les choses du jour , L'homme-femme , Tue-la , he dealt with the rights and duties of women and the errors of the relevant legislation and social attitudes ! Les femmes qui tuent et les femmes qui votent (1872–1880) and in the larger polemic Le divorce (1880).

In 1875 Dumas was admitted to the Académie française , in 1894 he became a member of the Legion of Honour .

Reputed to be undemanding and helpful to his friends, Dumas enjoyed general popularity personally. In 1864 he married Nadezhda Naryschkina von Knorring (1826-1895), with whom he had two daughters. After Naryshkina's death in 1895, he married Henriette Régnier de La Brière and died in Marly-le-Roi on 27 November that same year .

factories

The camellia lady

Dumas' best-known work is the 1848 novel The Lady of the Camellias ( La dame aux camélias ), which describes the fate of a Parisian courtesan and her suitor. Despite difficulties with censorship , the novel was an exceptional success. After the work was adapted into a stage play, its popularity continued to grow: the work, first performed in 1852 at the Théâtre du Vaudeville , saw more than 100 performances without interruption. In 1853 Giuseppe Verdi adopted the theme for his opera La traviata .

The French actress Sarah Bernhardt played the camellia lady in the stage play from 1880 and was very successful in Europe and the USA . The piece is characterized by extremely keen observation of social conditions, confident handling of the dramatic form and a lively, tingling dialogue; but according to the view of the time, the glorification and rehabilitation of vice was morally questionable.

In 1911, Dumas' Lady of the Camellias starring Sarah Bernhardt was filmed for the first time. Greta Garbo starred in another film version by director George Cukor in 1937.

list of works

• Aventures de quatre femmes et d'un perroquet. 1847
• Le roman d'une femme. 1848
• Cesarine. 1848
• La dame aux camelias . (The Lady of the Camellias) 1848.
• Le Doctor Servans. 1849
• antonines 1849
• Trois hommes continued. 1850
• Tristan le Roux. 1850
• Diane deLys. 1851
• Les Revenants. 1852
• Le Regent Mustel. 1852
• Contes et nouvelles. 1853
• Sophie Printemps. 1853
• Le Demi-Monde . 1855
• La boîte d'argent. 1855
• Vie a vingt ans. 1856
• Le fils naturel. 1858
• Pere prodigue. 1859
• L'ami des femmes. 1864
• L'affaire Clemenceau. (The Polish Countess) 1864.
• Le supplice d'une femme. 1865
• Heloise Paranquet. 1866
• Les idées de Madame Aubray. 1867
• Une visite de noces. 1871
• La Princesse Georges. 1871
• La femme de Claude. 1873.
• Monsieur Alphonse. 1873.
• L'etrangere. 1877.

literature

• Charles Potvin: De la corruption littéraire en France. Brussels 1873.
• Léopold Lacour: Three theaters : Émile Augier, Alexandre Dumas fils, Victorien Sardou. Paris 1880.
• Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. 4th edition. Bibliographic Institute, Leipzig/Vienna 1885–1892.
• Hans-Jörg Neuschäfer : Popular novels in the 19th century. From Dumas to Zola. Fink, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-7705-1336-3 .

web links

Wikisource: Alexandre Dumas fils  – sources and full texts

Commons : Alexandre Dumas  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Alexandre Dumas the Younger in the German National Library catalogue
• Works by and about Alexandre Dumas the Younger  in the German Digital Library
• Literature by and about Alexandre Dumas the Younger in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Works by Alexandre Dumas the Younger in Project Gutenberg-DE
• Short biography and list of works from the Académie française (French)