Alfred Capus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred Capus (1911)

Alfred Capus (born November 25, 1858 in Aix-en-Provence , † November 1, 1922 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ; pseudonyms: Canalis and Graindorge ) was a French journalist, novelist and playwright. As an employee of the newspaper Le Figaro , he also published under the pseudonyms Canalis and Graindorge .

Life

The son of a lawyer grew up in Toulon until he was 14 , then in Paris . He first studied at a mining school, but did not obtain a diploma there. After an interlude as an industrial draftsman, he decided to try his hand at being a journalist. With the support of his friends Paul Hervieu and Marcel Prévost , he started working for the newspaper Le Clairon in 1882 , for which he wrote an obituary for Charles Darwin as the first article . In 1883 he worked with Hervieu on Octave Mirbeau's short-lived satirical magazine Les Grimaces . In 1884 Capus started with Gaulois and made a name for himself in the following years with short dialogues, everyday scenes and political satires for L'Écho de Paris and L'Illustration . In 1894 he became an employee of Figaro and in 1914 editor-in-chief.

Capus was president of the Association of Sociétés des autuers dramatiques and Knight of the Legion of Honor . He was admitted to the Académie française on February 12, 1914 .

Literary work

Alfred Capus, caricatured by Hermann Paul (1903)

As early as 1878 he had published a volume of short stories together with L. Venoven, and in 1879 a one-act act of the two was performed in the Cluny Theater. From 1890 to 1895, Capus published three novels, which are devoted to the fortunes of young men at the beginning of their careers as journalists, dramatists and engineers. After the great public success of his novels, Capus processed the material of the first novel into his first comedy Brignol et sa fille (1894). He celebrated his greatest stage success in 1901 with La Veine , which finally established him as the leading French comedy writer. His more serious pieces, on which he tried his hand at later years, were far less popular.

Reception in Germany

Alfred Capus' dramas were also played in German-speaking countries. So were Luck ( La Veine ) 1901 and The Lady of the House in 1903 at the German National Theater , The Bank Director ( La Bourse ou la vie ) in 1903 at the Joseph City Theater listed. Luck and also the play Der Spiellächter ( Monsieur Piégois ) were translated by Theodor Wolff . Heinrich Mann , who oriented himself towards French literature at the beginning of the 20th century and valued Capus 'frivolity and astute analyzes, translated Capus' novel Who last laughs ( Qui perd gagne ) in 1901 .

The tabloid comedy in the style of Capus received only limited approval from the critics. Hermann Bahr complained in 1903: “After the théâtre rosse das théâtre rose - that is the new formula. ... [M] an simply turns the theater over for the last ten years and the Antoine school becomes the Capus school. If one was cruel and raw there, one now becomes tolerant and gentle. There they looked for the écriture artiste, now they prefer the light tone of the causer. At that time the main thing was que ça fasse peur au bourgeois, now it is again a matter of preparing the bourgeois in a mood in which he can digest. It was le parti pris pessimiste back then, the whole world was inhabited by villains and cretins, a pessimism which at last became so banal that it could be called Lemaître une sagesse de commis voyaguer; now it's le parti pris optimiste, everyone is suddenly nice and everything always turns out well. "

The critic Alfred Kerr wrote in 1917: “Tired city dwellers. Compatible egoists. Bankruptcy before the struggle for life. That is the core of Alfred Capus. ... Capus is an enervated friend of the truth, a technically clumsy truth friend; but at least a friend of the truth. One would like to say that he has the will to Germanic: without the strength of an unconsumed race. A poor, smiling, plucked late boy who means it honestly - and whose blood has gotten too thin. ”Kerr's judgment may also be read in the context of the First World War , in which Capus excelled as editor-in-chief of Le Figaro with patriotic articles. Heinrich Mann criticized Capus' new patriotism as early as April 1914 in his essay The Peasant in the Touraine : “And of course the violence of his faith is in proportion to the depth of his earlier unbelief; and of course he's such a great patriot because he was such a great boulevardier for a long time. "

Robert Wiene filmed Capus' play Les Maris de Leontine in 1928 under the title Leontine's Husbands .

Works

Alfred Capus' autograph (manuscript page)

Pieces

  • Innocent (1896) with Alphonse Allais
  • Petites folles (1897)
  • Raisin (1897)
  • Mariage bourgeois (1898)
  • Les Maris de Leontine (1900)
  • La Bourse ou la vie (1900)
  • La Veine (1901)
  • La Petite Fonctionnaire (1901)
  • Les Deux Ecoles (1902)
  • La Châtelaine (1902)
  • L'Adversaire (1903) with Emmanuel Arène
  • Notre Jeunesse (1904)
  • Monsieur Piegois (1905)
  • L'Attentat (1906) with Lucien Descaves

Novels

  • Qui perd gagne (1890)
  • Faux départ (1891)
  • Années d'aventures (1895)
  • Robinson (1910)

Translations into German

  • Who laughs last ... Roman. The only legitimate translation from the French by Heinrich Mann. Munich 1901.
  • Brignol and his daughter. Comedy in 3 acts . by Franz Maria La Violette. Berlin [u. a.] 1902.
  • The lady of the castle. Play in 4 acts . German by Theodor Wolff. Berlin 1903.
  • The opponent. Play in 4 acts . German by Theodor Wolff. Berlin 1904.
  • The game tenant. Comedy in 3 acts . German by Theodor Wolff. Berlin 1906.

literature

  • Édouard Quet: Alfred Capus . Paris 1904.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Bahr: The lady of the castle. (Comedy in four acts by Alfred Capus. First performed in the Deutsches Volkstheater on September 26, 1903) . In: Hermann Bahr. Glosses. To the Vienna Theater (1903 to 1906) . Berlin 1907, pp. 157-162, cit. 157.
  2. ↑ Alfred Kerr: The late Latin . In: Alfred Kerr: Collected Writings , Series 1, Vol. 1, Die Welt im Drama . Berlin 1917, pp. 389-395, cit. 395.
  3. ↑ Heinrich Mann: The farmer in the Touraine . In: Heinrich Mann: Power and Man . Munich 1919, pp. 27-40, cit. P. 30.
personal data
SURNAME Capus, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Canalis (pseudonym); Graindorge (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French journalist, playwright and novelist
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Aix-en-Provence , France
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1922
Place of death Neuilly-sur-Seine , France