Claude-Joseph Dorat

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait of Claude-Joseph Dorat

Claude-Joseph Dorat (born December 31, 1734 in Paris , † April 29, 1780 in Paris) was a French writer of the 18th century and an opponent of the philosophy of the Enlightenment . Known during his lifetime as the author of numerous plays , he is now valued primarily as the author of two letter novels.

life and work

Dorat came from a noble family of officials with roots in the Limousin region . An ancestor, Jean Dorat (1508–1588), had been a teacher of the poet Pierre de Ronsard for several years . The father envisaged a legal career for the young Dorat, but Dorat strived for military fame and joined the troop of the royal musketeers ( Mousquetaires du Roi ) at the age of 23 . A strictly religious ( Jansenist ) aunt intervened and asked her nephew to leave the army, which he did after a year, 1758.

Claude Joseph Dorat to the left and Alexandre-Frédéric-Jacques Masson de Pezay in the middle, in the uniform of the dragoons , dragon . Engraving by Charles Eisen from 1764

He then devoted himself entirely to writing and sought success with a wide variety of genres: with poems of various kinds, then with fictional letters, verse narratives, heroids, and finally with a whole series of theater pieces. The numerous publications drove him into financial ruin because he often had the works appear in lavishly furnished, richly illustrated editions. Although these activities brought only limited literary fame, Dorat achieved a certain degree of notoriety in cultured circles and in Parisian society. His publications have also been regularly reviewed in the Correspondance littéraire by Grimm and Meister and in L'année littéraire by Fréron, which testifies to the attention that was paid to Dorat. Dorat became the protégé of Fanny de Beauharnais , who from 1762 led a literary salon in which he was celebrated as a literary thought leader.

Dorat increasingly approached the conservative camp of Élie Catherine Fréron and distanced himself from the thinkers of the Enlightenment, especially from Voltaire and the circle around the Encyclopédie . As early as 1765, for example, he drew attention to himself with sharp-tongued satirical verses against Voltaire. In 1777 he had the comedy directed against the Enlightenment philosophers Les Prôneurs, ou le tartuffe littéraire performed, which attacked in particular Jean-François de La Harpe , Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert and Julie de Lespinasse .

These attacks meant that he had no chance in his numerous applications for a seat in the Académie française . For financial reasons he took over the management of the Journal des dames from 1777 . When he died in 1780, he left considerable debts, but also a work edition that had already been started in 1764 and now comprised 20 volumes.

reception

18th century

In the 18th century Dorat was best known as a prolific writer with a sharp pen and as a writer of plays, which, however, never went beyond short-lived popular success. The Correspondance littéraire by Friedrich Melchior Grimm, which is close to the encyclopedists, reviews his writings and plays mostly very critically and makes a tough overall judgment on Dorat: "You have to have the devil in your body to rhyme and write and to provide the printing presses with material if you can has absolutely nothing in his head. " The conservative magazine L'Année littéraire, on the other hand, headed by Élie Catherine Fréron , who is close to Dorat , is more benevolent of his work.

19th century

Towards the end of the 19th century, Louis Gustave Vapereau judged Dorat's literary work very critically, but praised certain aspects of Dorat's shorter verses: "These little poems saved Dorat's name from oblivion. They are poorly conceived and written, their style is often from an artificial and tiresome finesse; but they show pretty details, successful turns, fine and elegant expressions. He gave birth to a great number of little poets who are attributed to the 'école de Dorat'. " At the same time, the first somewhat half-hearted attempts to rehabilitate Dorat appear, for example through Desnoireterres; however, these companies have had limited success.

20th century

Only towards the end of the 20th century did the assessment of Dorat change more profoundly. In the Dictionnaire des lettres françaises , originally published in 1960, one reads: "What was missing was Dorat, who had absolutely taste, the belief in the seriousness of art and the necessity of hardship. His plays, tragedies and novels are neither well structured nor performed, and the characters are weak. " Winfried Engler wrote in 1984 that Dorat's writings were "original [...] wherever the poet satirized".

However, a real reassessment and a change in focus did not take place until Dorat's novels were reassessed: the two previously neglected epistolary novels Les Sacrifices de l'amour and Les Malheurs de l'inconstance were reissued and as a bridge between the sentimental Julie or The new Heloise (1761) recognized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the ice-cold dangerous love affairs (1782) by Choderlos de Laclos . Alain Clerval, who re-edited the two novels in 1983 and 1996 respectively, notes: "In around twenty years [...] the indefatigable Dorat wrote an impressive number of works that have largely become illegible, with the exception of the novels that have survived mark a remarkable championship that Laclos heralds. "

Reception in Germany

In Germany, Dorat is already recognized in the 18th century. This is particularly evident from the fact that from the 1770s onwards some of Dorat's works were translated into German or several free adaptations were published. There is no clear preference for certain genres. Among these translations is one of Dorat's two epistolary novels, entitled The Sacrifice of Love, or Letters from the Vicomtesse von Senanges and the Chevalier von Versenay , which was translated in 1792 (see the bibliography ).

In particular, there was a connection between Christoph Martin Wieland and Dorat. On the one hand, Dorat was apparently influenced by Wieland. On the other hand, Wieland had Dorat's works in his library and would obviously have wanted him to translate some of his works into French.

Works (selection)

A comprehensive listing of Dorat's works can be found in the edition of Malheurs de l'inconstance by Peter Cryle.

theatre

tragedies

  • Zulica , 1760.
  • Régulus , 1765.
  • Les Deux Reines , 1769.
  • Zoramis , 1780.

Comedies

  • La Feinte par amour , 1773. ( Comedy of verse)
  • Le Célibataire , 1775.
  • Le Malheureux imaginaire , 1776.
  • Les Prôneurs, ou le tartuffe littéraire , 1777.

Narrative

Novels

  • Les Sacrifices de l'amour, ou Lettres de la vicomtesse de Senanges et du chevalier de Versenay . 2 vols., Amsterdam & Paris: Delalain, 1771. - Modern editions: ed. by Alain Clerval, Paris: Le Promeneur, 1995, and with a foreword by Raymond Trousson, Paris-Genève: Slatkine, 1996.
  • Les Malheurs de l'inconstance, ou Lettres de la Marquise de Circé et du comte de Mirbelle , 2 vols., Amsterdam & Paris: Delalain, 1771. - Modern editions: ed. by Peter Cryle, in: Romanciers libertins du XVIIIe siècle , vol. 2, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2005, pp. 409-590 as well as ed. by Alain Clerval, Paris: Déjonquères, 1983.

stories

  • Les Dévirgineurs et Combabus, contes en vers, précédés par des réflexions sur le conte, et suivis de Floricourt, histoire françoise . Amsterdam, 1765. (verse and prose)

Theoretical writings

  • Essai sur la déclamation tragique , 1758.
  • "Réflexions sur le conte", in: Les Dévirgineurs et Combabus, contes en vers, précédés par des réflexions sur le conte, et suivis de Floricourt, histoire françoise . Amsterdam, 1765.
  • La Déclamation théâtrale, poème didactique en trois chants , Paris: Sébastien Jorry, 1766. (New edition in: Écrits sur l'art théâtral (1753-1801) , edited by Sabine Chaouche, Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005, volume 1, p 163-254.)
  • "Idée sur la poésie allemande", in: Sélim et Sélima, poéme imité de l'allemand, suivi du Rêve d'un musulman, traduit d'un poete arabe; et précédé de quelques réfléxions sur la poësie allemande , Sébastien Jorry: Leipzig & Paris, 1769, p. 3-33. (Dorat particularly praises Haller and Gessner as "painters of nature").
  • "Idées sur les romans", in: Les Sacrifices de l'amour , 1771. (Dorat notes the superiority of the English novelists, whom he calls "Observateurs Britanniques", over the French novelists.)

Works published in German translation

Some works of various kinds were still translated into German in the 18th century, although the following list does not distinguish between translations and free arrangements.

  • Barnwell in prison. Yariko in slavery. Two heroic poems . A prosaic translation. Braunschweig, 1766, 62 pages. (Original title: Lettre de Barnevelt, dans sa prison, à Truman, son ami .)
  • Dorat's attempt on the tales . Translated by CAS Leipzig, 1773.
  • My philosophy . From the French of Mr. Dorat. [sl]: [sn], 1773, 48 pages. (Original: Ma philosophie , name of the translator unknown.)
  • The cherries . By Wilhelm Heinse , after Claude-Joseph Dorat. Berlin, 1773, 80 pages. (Free German adaptation by Claude-Joseph Dorat, Les cerises .)
  • Peter the Great: A tragedy . From the French of the former Mousquetair's Mr. Dorat. Along with a strange fragment: The Czarowitz from Batan. Offenbach am Mayn, printed and available from Ulrich Weiß, 1777, 126 pages. (Name of translator unknown.)
  • The Eheschewer: A comedy in five acts . By Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter, after Claude-Joseph Dorat. Leipzig, published by the Dykische Buchhandlung, 1777.
  • The painted declaration of love : comedy in three acts to La Feinte par amour. Translated into German by Friedrich Ludewig Epheu and Garlieb Hanker. Berlin, 1782. (Available on microfiche, Munich: Saur, 1994, Bibliothek der deutschen Literatur.)
  • The sacrifice of love, or letters from the Vicomtesse de Senanges and the Chevalier de Versenay . From the French. Breslau, 1792.

literature

  • Desnoiresterres, Gustave. Le Chevalier Dorat et les Poètes légers au XVIIIe siècle . Paris: Perrin, 1887. (First monograph on Dorat and a cautious attempt to rehabilitate him. However, it is also criticized.)
  • Ferrand, Nathalie. "Livres et lectures dans quelques romans épistolaires: La Nouvelle Héloïse , Les Malheurs de l'inconstance , Les Liaisons dangereuses , L'Émigré ". In: L'Épreuve du lecteur. Livres et lectures dans le roman d'Ancien Régime , ed. by Jan Herman & Paul Pelckmans. Louvain et Paris: Peeters, 1995, pp. 367-377. (On the motif of reading in some epistolary novels.)
  • Fiaschi, Pascal. "De l'Ennui à la morale: Les Malheurs de l'inconstance de Dorat". In: Romance Journal for Literary History 23.3-4, 1999, pp. 311–329. (On the moral message of the letter novel.)
  • Robert E. Hallowell: "Claude-Joseph Dorat, Opponent of the Drame Bourgeois and Critic of the English Theater". In: The French Review , 25.5, 1952, pp. 355-363.
  • Hynes, Peter. "Literature and Society in the Work of Claude-Joseph Dorat: the Preface to Les Sacrifices de l'amour ". In: Actes du VIIe congrès international des Lumières . Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, SVEC, 265, 1989. (Analyzes Dorat's foreword on the history of the novel as the forerunner of the sociology of literature.)
  • Alan Menhennet: "Wieland and Claude-Joseph Dorat (1734-1780): A Footnote to the History of Franco-German Literary Relations in the Eighteenth Century". In: The Modern Language Review , 78.4, 1983, pp. 862-868.
  • Nori, Silvana. "You conte au roman, entre libertinage et sensibilité: Floricourt, histoire françoyse de Claude-Joseph Dorat". In: Quaderni di Lingue e Letterature , No. 20, 1995, pp. 173-186.
  • Raitière, Anna. L'art de l'acteur selon Dorat et Samson (1766-1863 / 65) . Genève: Droz, 1969. (Via Dorats La Déclamation théâtrale )

swell

  • Art. "Dorat (Claude-Joseph)", in: Dictionnaire universel des littératures , par Gustave Vapereau, Paris: Hachette, 1876, p. 650
  • Art. "Dorat", in: Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le XVIIIe siècle . Nouvelle édition, sous la direction de François Moureau. Paris: Fayard / LGF, 1995, pp. 416-417.
  • Art. Dorat, Claude-Joseph. In: Winfried Engler : Lexicon of French Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 388). 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-520-38802-2 , p. 317.
  • Peter Cryle, "Dorat", in: Romanciers libertins du XVIIIe siècle , Vol. II, ed. under the direction of Patrick Wald Lasowski, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2005, pp. 1451–1460. (Biographical note and catalog raisonné.)

Web links

Wikisource: Claude-Joseph Dorat  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gustave Vapereau mentions this: "Dorat publia la plupart de ses ouvrages avec de nombreuses gravures de Marillier et Eisen, ce qui en fit des chefs-d'oeuvre d'art et de luxe typographique." (Gustave Vapereau, Art. "Dorat (Claude-Joseph)", in: Dictionnaire universel des littératures , Paris: Hachette, 1876, p. 650).
  2. ↑ FK Turgeon, "Fanny de Beauharnais: Biographical Notes and a Bibliography", in: Modern Philology , August 1932, p. 61.
  3. ↑ About Dorat's Essai sur la déclamation tragique the Correspondance littéraire writes on February 15, 1760, for example: "C'est l'ouvrage d'un écolier", ie: "It is the work of a pupil".
  4. ↑ Original quote: "il faut avoir le diable au corps pour rimer et écrire, et pour faire aller les presses d'imprimerie quand on n'a rien du tout dans la tête." (Quoted from Romans libertins du XVIIIe siècle , edited by Raymond Trousson, Paris: Robert Laffont, 1993, pp. 888–889)
  5. ↑ See on this Gustave Vapereau, Art. "Dorat (Claude-Joseph)", in: Dictionnaire universel des littératures , Paris: Hachette, 1876, p. 650.
  6. ↑ "Toutefois ces petits Poemes de l'ont sauvé oubli le nom de Dorat Ils sont faibelement Concus et composés, le style en est souvent d'une recherche et affectée fatigante;. Mais ils offrent de détails jolis, the tours heureux, the expressions fines et gracieuses. Il a suscité un grand nombre de petits poëtes qu'on a nommés l'école de Dorat. " (Gustave Vapereau, Art. "Dorat (Claude-Joseph)", in: Dictionnaire universel des littératures , Paris: Hachette, 1876, p. 650.)
  7. ↑ Gustave Desnoiresterres. Le Chevalier Dorat et les Poètes légers au XVIIIe siècle . Paris: Perrin, 1887.
  8. ↑ On this and in more detail on the history of reception: Peter Cryle, "Dorat", in: Romanciers libertins du XVIIIe siècle, Vol. II, ed. under the direction of Patrick Wald Lasowski, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2005, pp. 1451–1460, p. 1454.
  9. ↑ Original quote: "Il a manqué a Dorat, qui avait du goût, de croire au sérieux de l'art et à la nécessité du labeur. Ses pièces, tragédies et romans n'ont ni plan ni conduite et les caractères sont faibles." (Art. "Dorat", in: Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le XVIIIe siècle . Nouvelle édition, sous la direction de François Moureau. Paris: Fayard / LGF, 1995, pp. 416–417.)
  10. ^ Art. "Dorat, Claude-Joseph", in: Lexicon of French Literature , Stuttgart: Kröner, 1984, p. 317.
  11. ↑ Original quote: "En une vingtaine d'années [...] Dorat aura écrit, infatigable, un nombre impressionnant d'ouvrages, devenus illisibles pour la plupart, si l'on excepte ses romans, remarquables par une maîtrise qui annonce Laclos. " (Alain Clerval, "Préface", in: Les Malheurs de l'inconstance, roman , edited by Alain Clerval, Paris: Déjonquères, 1983, pp. I-xv).
  12. ↑ "He also gave justice to the German poets and borrowed from them, especially from Wieland." From: Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon , Vol. 1., Amsterdam 1809, p. 359 (also online ).
  13. ↑ Wieland writes: "If Dorat had been able to read me in the original and understand it completely, he and he alone would have been the man who could have translated Musarion and other works of this kind by me." (Wieland in a letter to Sophie La Roche, quoted from Alan Menhennet: "Wieland and Claude-Joseph Dorat (1734-1780): A Footnote to the History of Franco-German Literary Relations in the Eighteenth Century". In: The Modern Language Review , 78.4, 1983, pp. 862-868, here p. 862.)
  14. ↑ Peter Cryle, "Dorat", in: Romanciers libertins du XVIIIe siècle , Vol. II, ed. under the direction of Patrick Wald Lasowski, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2005, pp. 1457–1460.
  15. ↑ Turgeon calls this work "very incomplete and occasionally inaccurate"; see FK Turgeon: "Fanny de Beauharnais. Biographical Notes and a Bibliography". In: Modern Philology , 1932/33, p. 61.
personal data
SURNAME Dorat, Claude-Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1734
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1780
Place of death Paris