Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis Prat de Lamartine (born October 21, 1790 in Mâcon , † February 28, 1869 in Paris ) was a French writer and politician . His place in literary history is principally that of a poet.
Life and work
The younger years
Lamartine (as he is simply called in France) was the eldest child and only son of a family belonging to the smaller landed gentry. He spent his childhood, mainly brought up by his strict Catholic mother, in Mâcon and on the family estate in nearby Milly. He spent his school days at a boarding school in Lyon , where he ran away at the age of twelve, and then at a former Jesuit college in Belley ( Département Ain ). Since his parents did not want him to serve the Emperor Napoleon after school , they paid (which was possible) a deputy for military service and also prevented him from a possible civil servant career. As a young country gentleman, he stayed at home with his family. In 1811/12 (i.e. in a relatively non-war year) he and a friend went on a long educational trip to Italy, which was then ruled by France. In particular, he stayed longer in Rome and even longer in Naples, where he had a romance with an Antoniella, which he later processed in the novel Graziella .
In 1812 he was appointed mayor of Milly and traveled to Paris for the first time. In 1814, after Napoleon's military defeat and abdication and the return of the Bourbons to the French throne, he served King Louis XVIII. as a guard officer in Beauvais and Paris. He spent Napoleon's reign of the Hundred Days (March to June 1815) in Switzerland and Savoy . After a short renewed service as a guard officer, he gave up his military career in the fall and lived again in Milly as a reading and writing privateer.
The beginnings as a poet and the first success
In October 1816, during a cure in Aix-les-Bains , he fell in love with Madame Julie Charles, who was also suffering from tuberculosis, who was also a little older and whom he followed to Paris, where he frequented her salon. The agreed new joint cure in Aix in autumn did not come because Mme Charles was too ill and died a little later. Lamartine was deeply shaken by her death and sang the memory of "Elvire", as he now called her, in wistful verses, for example in the well-known poems L'Isolement , Le Lac , or Le Temple , which are often found in school books . Back in Milly, he completed a tragedy, Saül , in 1818 , but it was not accepted.
In early 1819 he was introduced to a sister of the wealthy English Protestant Mary-Anne Birch at the wedding. After seeing her again in late summer, he asked for her hand and married her a year later.
At the beginning of 1820 he fell seriously ill and approached the piety of his childhood that had meanwhile been stripped off, albeit more in the sense of a catholicized pantheism . In March he published an anthology with poems from previous years: Méditations poétiques . Influences of the representatives of the English sensibility and early romantic natural poetry as well as Rousseau are unmistakable. The relatively narrow volume with 118 pages and 24 texts was astonishingly successful, made Lamartine well known and saw nine editions in two and a half years. It also meant the breakthrough of romantic lyric poetry in France , that is, a lyric poetry that was no longer primarily aimed at the educated intellect and sense of beauty, but instead expressed passions and moods, erotic and religious longings, dreams and impressions of nature and wanted to address feelings.
As a diplomat in the service of Louis XVIII.
Shortly after his wedding in the summer of 1820, Lamartine went to Naples, the capital of what was then the kingdom of the same name, for several months as an embassy attaché. During the return journey in early 1821, son Alphonse was born in Rome, but he died in 1822 shortly after a second child, Julie, had been born in Mâcon. In 1823 Lamartine tried to build on the success of the first collection with the volume Nouvelles méditations , which was only partially successful. The year 1824 was a dark year for him. His two sisters died in quick succession. His candidacy for the Académie française failed.
In 1825 he returned to the diplomatic service and worked for two and a half years as legation secretary in Florence, the capital of the then sovereign Duchy of Tuscany . As is customary with such posts, however, his activity left him idle, e.g. B. for reading and writing. During a lengthy visit to Paris in the summer of 1829, he met the recognized author Chateaubriand and came into contact with the young Victor Hugo and his circle.
Elected to the Académie française at the end of 1829, he was accepted at the beginning of 1830. In early summer his volume of poetry, Harmonies poétiques et religieuses , was published, which confirmed his role as one of the heads of the young romantic school. After the July Revolution and the abdication of King Charles X. in 1830, he resigned from diplomatic service because, like so many aristocrats, he did not consider the "citizen king" Louis-Philippe to be the rightful ruler. He decided to go into politics as a member of parliament, but failed in the 1831 elections, despite running (which was possible at the time) in three constituencies.
Orient trip and years as a member of parliament
Disappointed, he embarked on his own ship with family, domestics and friends in 1832/33 on a voyage to the Orient that had a great influence on him , on which he lost his ten-year-old daughter to illness in Beirut . He processed his well-observed impressions in the extensive report Voyage en Orient (published in 1835), one of the numerous travelogues written by the writers of the time.
Before he returned home, he was elected a member of parliament in 1833, initially in northern France. From 1838 to 1848 he then represented the home constituency of Mâcon, constantly re-elected. Lamartine's political position in parliament, the Chambre des Députés, was initially that of a latently oppositional lone fighter, whereby he was close to the developing Catholic social doctrine. In other words, despite a patriarchal and conservative attitude, he was open to the humanitarian and social issues of the time, especially to the problem of poverty and the proletarianization of the increasing working masses in the rapidly growing cities.
The epic poet and historian
He had been working on an epic in Alexandrians since 1831 . In 1836 and 1838 he published two completed longer parts from it under the title Jocelyn and La Chute d'un ange ("The fall of an angel"). Jocelyn , the sad and sentimental story of a young man who sacrifices his love and with her becomes a lover, a priest and ends his life as a selfless philanthropist, was a great success. La Chute d'un ange, on the other hand, remained a slow seller, so Lamartine decided not to complete the work. In 1839 he published the volume of poetry Recueillements poétiques , with which he was only one of the meanwhile many other romantic poets. As a reaction to the anti-French mood in Germany, which was fueled by Ernst Moritz Arndt , Georg Herwegh and above all Nikolaus Becker (“Rheinlied”), he wrote a “ Marseillaise of Peace” in 1841 in the hope that the Rhine would unite the two peoples.
In 1843 he broke completely with the plutocratic , i.e. H. The regime of King Louis-Philippe , based on the rich in the country, developed into an opposition republican and a feared political speaker. He began his monumental Histoire des Girondins (printed 1847), d. H. a history of the party of moderate revolutionaries from 1791 to 1794.
The climax and end of the role as a politician
After the February Revolution of 1848 , which he had helped to break out with his speeches, Lamartine became Foreign Minister and at the same time head of the Provisional Government. In April he was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of the short-lived Second Republic . Political practice, however, did not suit him and more power-conscious colleagues like General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac crowded before him during the June uprising of the Parisian workers. When he ran for the new office of President at the end of 1848, he succumbed miserably to Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, the nephew of Emperor Napoléon I and soon to be Emperor Napoléon III.
After this defeat, Lamartine became a member of parliament again in 1849, but with Bonaparte's coup at the end of 1851 his political role was played out. Impoverished by his election campaigns (e.g. he had to sell Milly in 1860), he lived hard on his pen, u. a. of the multi-volume autobiographical Confidences ("Confidential Geständnisse", 1849–51), various historical non-fiction books, some socially committed but less successful novels (e.g. Geneviève, Histoire d'une servante , "G., Geschichte eines Dienstmädchen ", 1851) and his Cours familier de littérature (about: "generally understandable literature course"), which appears monthly in a magazine from 1856-69 .
The last few years
In 1867 he, widowed since 1863 and weakened by illness, made his peace with the regime of the Second Empire of Napoléon III. and accepted a state pension as well as a free apartment from the city of Paris.
The pretty and sad autobiographical little romance novel Graziella (conceived in 1844, published in 1849 as part of the Confidences and from 1852 also printed as an independent publication) only established itself as a successful book after Lamartine's death, which was reprinted many times as well as on a play, three operas and finally two Films was processed.
reception
In France the poet Lamartine is undisputedly one of the greats of Romanticism. His decades-long connection between literary and political activity has contributed to the fact that the type of author who is politically active in practice is not uncommon in France. In the German-speaking countries he seems to have hardly become known. The writer Michel Houellebecq remembered him in his acceptance speech at the award of the Frank Schirrmacher Prize.
Works
German editions
- 1824: The death of Socrates. A painting based on the French of Herr v. Lamartine . F. Kaufmann's widow ( Google )
- 1826: Selected poems by Alphonse de Lamartine. Metrically translated by Gustab Schwab . With attached French text. Stuttgart - Tübingen: JG Cotta ( Google )
- 1826: Johann Gabriel Seidl : Songs of the Night. Elegies from Alfons von Lamartine. The interpretation . Vienna: JP Sollinger ( Google )
- 1831: Poetic and Religious Harmonies. Translated from the French . 2 parts. Munich: Joseph Rösl (Google: Volume I - Volume II )
- 1835: Alphons von Lamartine's journey to the Orient in 1832 and 1833. Memories, sensations, thoughts and landscape paintings. Translated by Gustav Schwab and Franz Demmler . 3 volumes. Stuttgart: JB Metzler (Google: Volume I - Volume II - Volume III )
- 1839–1843: A. von Lamartine's complete works . G. Herwegh. 6 volumes. Stuttgart: LF Rieger & Comp.
- Volume I: On the Determination of Poetry . First poetic reflections. New poetic reflections. Mixed Poems ( Google )
- Volume II: Memories, sensations, thoughts and paintings of nature, during a trip to the Orient in 1832 and 1833, or comments from a traveler Part I ( Google )
- Volume III: Memories, sensations, thoughts and nature paintings, during a trip to the Orient in the years 1832 and 1833, or comments from a traveler Part II ( Google )
- Volume IV: Memories, sensations, thoughts and paintings of nature, during a trip to the Orient in 1832 and 1833, or comments from a traveler Part III ( Google )
- Volume V: Jocelyn ( Google )
- Volume VI: The Fall of an Angel. Episode. Translated by Gustav Diezel ( Google )
- 1847: History of the Girondins. From the French . 8 volumes. Leipzig: Brockhaus & Avenarius (Google: Volume I - Volume II - Volume III - Volume IV - Volume V - Volume VI - Volume VII - Volume VIII )
- 1849: History of the February Revolution in France according to Alphons de Lamartine . Leipzig: Carl B. Lorck (= Historical House Library Volume 12) ( Google )
- 1854–1855: History of Turkey. German by Johannes Nordmann . 8 volumes. Vienna: JB Wallishausser (Google: Volume I / II - Volume III / IV - Volume V / VIII )
- 1859: The stonecutter of Saint-Point. Rural narrative . Leipzig: Voigt & Günther ( Google )
Original editions
- Saul (1818)
- Méditations poétiques (1820, published anonymously, expanded version 1841)
- Nouvelles Méditations (1823)
- Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1830)
- Sur la politique rationnelle (1831)
- Voyage en Orient (1835)
- Jocelyn (1836)
- La chute d'un ange (1838)
- Recueillements poétiques (1839)
- Histoire des Girondins (1847)
- Histoire de la révolution de 1848 (1849)
- Raphaël (1849)
- Confidences (1849-51); included therein in 1849 Graziella
- Geneviève, histoire d'une servante (1851)
- Le Tailleur de pierre de Saint-Point (1851)
- Graziella (1852); first separate publication
- Les visions (1853)
- Histoire de la Turquie (1854)
- Cours familier de littérature (1856–1869)
- La Vigne et la Maison (1857)
Collected Works (fr.)
- Oeuvres de Lamartine de l'Académie française. Paris 1840 full text in the google book search
literature
- Portraits from the French Chamber of Deputies. A. de Lamartine . In: Illustrirte Zeitung . No. 38 . J. J. Weber, Leipzig March 16, 1844, p. 182-184 ( books.google.de ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Alphonse de Lamartine in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Alphonse de Lamartine in the German Digital Library
- Works by Alphonse de Lamartine in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Article in Gert Pinkernell, name, title and dates of the French Literature , part II (main source)
- Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)
- Biblioweb: Biography, Bibliography, Analysis ( Memento of January 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (French)
- Poems by Alphonse de Lamartine at deutsche-liebeslyrik.de (translated by Gustav Schwab and Heinrich Leuthold )
- Lamartine on the Internet Archive
Individual evidence
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| François Guizot |
Foreign Minister of France February 24, 1848 - May 11, 1848 |
Jules Bastide |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lamartine, Alphonse de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis Prat de (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French poet, writer and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 21, 1790 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mâcon |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 28, 1869 |
| Place of death | Paris |