Frédéric Soulié

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Etching from 1848

Frédéric Soulié (born December 23, 1800 in Foix , Ariège department , † September 23, 1847 in Bièvres , Essonne department ) was a French playwright , novelist , critic and journalist. Together with Honoré de Balzac , Eugène Sue and Alexandre Dumas the Elder , he formed the team of four great columnists at the time of the so-called July Monarchy (1830–1848). The greatest successes of the now largely forgotten author were the novel Les Mémoires du Diable and the drama La Closerie des genêts .

life and work

Frédéric Soulié's father, François Melchior Soulié, was a professor of philosophy at the University of Toulouse and then joined the army, where he served in the rank of Colonel (colonel) or Lieutenant-Colonel (lieutenant colonel) from 1790 to 1818 . He left the army because of malaria. Frédéric stayed in Mirepoix with his mother until he was four , then followed his father to Nantes and Poitiers , where he graduated from high school in 1815. He studied law in Paris until he was transferred to Rennes because of his liberal convictions and his alleged sympathy for the Carbonari movement . In 1824 he returned to Paris with his father.

Under the stage name F. Soulié de Lavelanet , he published earlier poems in the poetry book Amours françaises, poèmes, suivis de trois chants élégiaques . The audience success was low, but he found it entry into the circle of authors of the capital, to which his mentor Casimir Delavigne belonged. Soulié earned his living as director of a sawmill. His first stage work was a translation and adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Roméo et Juliette) on June 10, 1828 in the Théâtre National de l'Odéon . The next year he published his own romantic work Christine à Fontainebleau , which was also staged in Odéon on October 13, 1829. Since the drama was a failure, he turned away from the theater in disappointment and began writing novellas. However, his next drama, Une Nuit du duc de Montfort , had success on June 17, 1830. In the July Revolution of 1830 he fought on the side of the insurgents and was decorated with the Ordre de la Croix de Juillet . After the restoration of calm, he wrote with Balzac and Eugène Sue for newspapers such as La Presse , La Mode and Le Voleur , as well as some small plays.

Gravestone in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris

His popular success began with the drama Clothilde and the novel Les Deux Cadavres . Clothilde was premiered on September 11, 1832 in the Théâtre-Français , today's Comédie-Française . In quick succession he wrote dramas and novels that were very well received. However, this was interrupted by a serious heart disease from which he died in Bièvres, in his country house l'Abbaye-aux-Bois on September 23, 1847. When he was laid out in l'Église Sainte-Élisabeth du Temple and buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery , he was accompanied by a large number of mourners; the funeral orations were given by Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.

Catalog of works (excerpts)

  • Christine à Fontainebleau , drama, 1829
  • Clothilde , Drama, 1832
  • Les Deux Cadavres , novel, 1832
  • La Librairie à Paris , 1832
  • Le Comte de Toulouse , Roman, 1835
  • Le Vicomte de Béziers , Roman, 1835
  • Sathaniel , Roman, 1837
  • Les Mémoires du diable , feuilleton novel , 1837–1838
  • Diane de Chivry , drama, 1839
  • Le Lion amoureux , novel, 1841
  • La Maîtresse de maison de santé , 1841
  • Le Second Mari , 1841
  • Le Cocher du Maréchal C… , 1843
  • Au Jour le Jour , feuilleton novel, 1843–1844
  • La Closerie des genêts , drama, 1846
  • Le Rêve de Villebois , 1858?

literature

  • Maurice Champion: Frédéric Soulié, sa vie et ses ouvrages . Moquet, Paris 1847.
  • Harold March: Frédéric Soulié. Novelist and dramatis of the romantic period . AMS Press, New York 1973, ISBN 0-404-53203-9 (reprint of the New York edition 1931; also dissertation, University of Yale 1929).
  • Anette Pieper-Branch: The image of women in the moral novels by Frédéric Soulié (Bonn Romance Works; 26). Lang, Frankfurt / M. 1988, ISBN 3-8204-1384-7 (also dissertation, University of Bonn 1987)
  • Margarethe Tanguy Baum: The historical novel in France during the July monarchy. An investigation based on works by the authors Frédéric Soulié and Eugène Sue (Bonn Romance Works; 9). Lang, Frankfurt / M. 1981, ISBN 3-8204-6175-2 (also dissertation, University of Bonn 1979).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Not this novel, as sometimes mistakenly assumed, but the Comédie-Vaudeville Les Mémoires du Diable by Étienne Arago and Paul Vermond was the model for Johann Nestroy's play The Devil's Papers
  2. ↑ This novel was the model for Johann Nestroy's piece Heimliches Geld, secret love with music by Carl Binder
personal data
SURNAME Soulié, Frédéric
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soulié de Lavelanet, F.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French playwright, poet, journalist and critic
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Foix , Ariège department
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1847
Place of death Bièvres , Essonne department