Antoine-François Prévost

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Antoine-François Prévost (1745)

Antoine-François Prévost d'Exiles (born April 1, 1697 in Hesdin , Pas-de-Calais department , † November 23, 1763 in Courteuil , Oise department ) was a French writer . Today he is only known for one of his numerous works, the relatively short novel Manon Lescaut .

Life

Youth and literary beginnings

Prévost (who simply figures under "L ' Abbé Prévost" in literary history ) grew up as the second son of a procureur du roi , d. H. of a royal judge, for whom his (bought) office granted nobility-like privileges, without, however, already ennobling him de jure . His happy childhood ended abruptly when he lost his mother and his younger favorite sister at the age of 14. A year later (1712) he apparently fell out with his father, broke off his studies at the local Jesuit college , hired himself as a soldier and took part in the War of the Spanish Succession . At the end of 1713 he left the military and completed the Jansenist oriented Parisian Collège d'Harcourt , the rhétorique called last school year. He then became a novice in the Jesuit order, but turned his back on him in 1715 to become a soldier again for a short time.

After another interlude with the Jesuits, he took part in the Franco-Spanish War as an officer aspirant from 1718 , but deserted in 1719 and, after a few unsteady and difficult months, fled to the Benedictine order in 1720 . Here he made his vows as a monk in 1721, allegedly with internal reservations.

In the next few years he lived in various, mostly Jansenist monasteries, studied theology , was ordained a priest and worked as a preacher. With his superiors, however, he seems to have been regarded as not very reliable. Whenever he could, he practiced his pen, which is why he was transferred to the Parisian monastery of Saint Germain-des-Prés in 1727 , where he was to work on a historiographical joint work of the Benedictines, the multi-volume Gallia Christiana . His own ideas, however, were visibly different: he had meanwhile started a novel, the first two volumes of which were published in 1728: Mémoires et Aventures d'un homme de qualité qui s'est retiré du monde (Memories and adventures of a nobleman who removed himself from the world has withdrawn).

Unsteady years

Prévost, who had had problems with his abbot for a long time, now tried, in order to get more time to write, to be transferred to a monastery with a more lax application of the rules. When this did not succeed, he secretly left his Paris monastery and completed Books III and IV of the Mémoires in a hiding place . With the fee he went to London via Holland in order to evade the royal arrest warrant, lettre de cachet , which his abbot had obtained against him for illegally leaving.

Title page of the Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité. (1728–1731)

In London, Prévost converted to Anglicanism and became a tutor to a young man from the best family, but forged marriage plans with his sister and was expelled at the instigation of the father. He went to Holland, where he published Books V and VI of the Mémoires in 1731 . To them he quickly added a seventh volume, which was only loosely connected to it: L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (The story of the knight des Grieux and Manon Lescauts). It is a novel that visibly processes the author's own, apparently passionate, frustrating and guilty love for the Hague courtesan Lenki Eckhardt, whom he had met shortly before.

Also in 1731 Prévost in Utrecht published four volumes of a novel that had already begun in England: Histoire de Cleveland, fils naturel de Cromwell (The story of Cleveland, an illegitimate son of Cromwell). He then completed and published a translation of the Latin memoirs of the anti- Richelieu conspirator François-Auguste de Thou (1607–1642) (1733), which had already begun .

In the meantime he and Lenki had accumulated debts and fled to London. Here he produced a one-man magazine modeled on Addison's Spectator : Le Pour et le Contre (The pros and cons). It appeared in Paris and was intended to satisfy the newly awakened interest in England among educated French readers. In 1734 he was briefly imprisoned for bill fraud and was expelled.

Prévost secretly went back to France (where a separate reprint by Manon Lescaut had just been banned and confiscated by the censors ). From a hiding place, he made contact with the Benedictine order and received forgiveness from the Pope for his apostasy (apostasy from the Catholic faith) and permission for a shortened second novitiate (1735).

The quiet last decades

Apparently the order was largely satisfied with keeping a pious note, because Prévost continued to write non-stop even as a novice: In addition to the fascicles of Le Pour et le Contre , the first volumes of the novel Le Doyen (= Dechant ) de Killérine appeared in 1735 . After his novitiate, Prévost became an almsman (aumônier) in Paris with the Prince of Conti, d. H. a kind of private pastor in a noble house.

Here he wrote and wrote: 1737/38 the last volumes of Cleveland , 1739/40 those of Doyen de Killérine , 1740 the 20th and last fascicle of Le Pour et le Contre . He then developed into a specialist in novel-like historical non-fiction books and biographies ( Mémoires pour servir […] l'histoire de Malte , Histoire de Marguerite d'Anjou , Histoire de Guillaume le Conquérant ). He then switched to travel reports ( Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade ) and began a Histoire générale des voyages in 1746 , initially as a translator of English travel books, then as an author. (1760, he stopped at Volume 15 and let other authors continue to write.)

In addition, he earned merits as a translator of works by one of the great authors of the European "sensitive novel", Samuel Richardson (1689–1761): 1751 Lettres anglaises, ou Histoire de Miss Clarisse Harlowe (original 1748), 1755 Nouvelles lettres anglaises, ou Histoire du chevalier Grandisson (original 1754). It is doubtful whether the Richardson translation Paméla, ou la vertu récompensée (original 1740) , published in 1742, also came from Prévost.

In 1753 he published a slightly revised and moralized version of the novel Manon Lescaut .

The novel Manon Lescaut

content

The novel is now considered Prévost's masterpiece. It is the story of the young petty aristocrat Des Grieux, who, before starting his planned theology studies, meets the handsome Manon Lescaut, who is destined for the monastery, runs off to Paris with her and out of love for her (who consumes a lot of money) gradually all of his Notions of decency and honor had to be thrown overboard until, after Manon's tragic death in joint exile in the colonies ( Louisiana ), he was found again by his old friend Tiberge and moved to France to a more moral life (in the original version of 1731 even to the priesthood ) is returned.

Current issues

literature

  • Franz Pauli: The basic philosophical views in the novels of the Abbé Prévost in particular in the Manon Lescaut . Marburg 1912, online  - Internet Archive .

Settings

Prévosts Manon Lescaut has inspired several important opera composers to create settings:

ballet

Manon (Kenneth MacMillan): the work was written in 1973/74 in London when MacMillan was ballet director at the Royal Ballet (1970-1986). The narrative structure of the ballet is similar to MacMillan's earlier choreography for Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev . Just as the novel by Abbé Prévost, the subject of which was later processed in operas by Auber ( Manon Lescaut ), Massenet ( Manon ), Puccini ( Manon Lescaut ) and Henze ( Boulevard Solitude ) , the London premiere was also celebrated enthusiastically received by the audience. Further performances were given by the ballet companies of the opera houses in Paris (1991 and 2015), Milan (2014/15), Oslo (2015) and Budapest (2015). The piece premiered in Dresden on November 7, 2015 at the Semperoper , with soloists Melissa Hamilton from the Royal Ballet London and Jiří Bubeníček . The conductor was Paul Connelly.

In 2007 the choreographer Wang Xinpeng and the dramaturge and writer Christian Baier designed the ballet Manon Lescaut to the music of Giacomo Puccini. (WP Ballet Dortmund 2007)

Film adaptations

Prévost's Manon Lescaut has been filmed several times:

Work editions

  • Oeuvres de Prévost. 39 volumes. Précédées des Eloges de Le Sage qui ont partagé le Prix d'éloquence décerné par l'Académie française dans sa séance du 24 août 1822 par Mm. Malitourne and Godmother. Volumes 1, 2, 3: Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité, suivis de Manon L'Escaut; Volumes 4, 5, 6, 7: Histoire de M. Cleveland; Volumes 8, 9, 10: Le doyen de Killerine: Tome 11: Histoire d'une Grecque modern; Volume 12: Campagnes philosophiques ou, Mémoires de M. de Montcal; Volume 13: Histoire de la jeunesse du Commandeur De *** ou Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Malte; Volume 14: Histoire de Marguerite D'Anjou; Volume 15: Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade et sa famille; Volume 16: Histoire de Guillaume le conquérant; Volumes 17, 18: Pamela ou La vertu récompensée; Volumes 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 et 24: Histoire de Miss Clarisse Harlove [Harlowe]; Volumes 25, 26, 27, 28: Histoire du chevalier Grandisson; Volume 29: Le monde moral ou Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du coeur humain; Volumes 30, 31, 32: Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la vertu; Volume 33: Mémoires d'un honnête homme; Tout pour l'amour et le monde bien perdu; ou, la mort d'Antoine et de Cléopatre; Volume 34: Almoran et Hamet. Lettres de mentor à un jeune seigneur; Volume 35: Aventures et anecdotes; Volumes 36, 37, 38 et 39: Histoire de la vie de Cicéron. Bon ensemble (frott. En dos du tome premier, bon exemplaire par ailleurs), rare ainsi bien complet des 39 tomes des oeuvres de l'abbé Prévost. Un ensemble impressionnant parmi lequel on découvrira son chef-d'oeuvre (Manon Lescaut) mais également sa célèbre traduction du roman de Samuel Richardson "Histoire de Clarisse Harlowe". Chez Boulland-Tardieu, Paris, 1823.
  • Oeuvres de Prévost. 8 volumes, Grenoble, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble , 1978–1986 (I. Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité qui s'est retiré du monde. Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (texts établi par Pierre Berthiaume et Jean Sgard). II. Le philosophe anglais ou histoire de Monsieur Cleveland (texts établi par Philippe Stewart). III. Le doyen de Killerine. Histoire morale (texts établi par Aurelio Principato). IV. Histoire d'une grecque modern. Mémoire pour servir à l'histoire de Malte. Campagnes philosophiques (Textes établis par Allan Holland, Henri Coulet et Jean Oudart). V. Histoire de Guillaume le Conquérant. Histoire de Marguerite d'Anjou (Textes établis par Henri Duranton). VI. Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade. Mémoires d'un honnête homme. Le monde moral (Textes établis par John Abioyé, Peter Tremewan, Robert Favre et Jean Sgard). VII. Les aventures de Pomponius. Contes singuliers. Préfaces et opuscules. Avertissements de l'histoire des voyages. Critique du roman da ns le pour et contre. Correspondance (Textes établis par Jean Sgard, Pierre Berthiaume, Jean-Paul Mas et Jean-Paul Sermain). VIII. Commentaires et notes (Sous la direction de Jean Sgard)).

Web links

Wikisource: Antoine-François Prévost  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Antoine François Prévost  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Prévost, Antoine-François
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prévost d'Exiles, Antoine-François (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1697
PLACE OF BIRTH Hesdin , Pas-de-Calais department
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1763
Place of death Courteuil , Oise department