François-René de Chateaubriand

Chateaubriand is a redirect to this article. Further meanings are listed under Chateaubriand (disambiguation) .

François-René de Chateaubriand (painting by Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson ). Chateaubriand's signature:

François-René de Chateaubriand

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (born September 4, 1768 in Saint-Malo , † July 4, 1848 in Paris ) was a French writer , politician and diplomat . He is considered to be one of the founders of literary romanticism in France.

biography

Youth and literary beginnings

Chateaubriand grew up in Saint-Malo and Castle Combourg / Bretagne as the youngest of ten children of a provincial aristocratic family and initially wavered between a career as a naval officer (the father's wish) or a priest (the mother's wish). In 1786 he finally became a lieutenant in a regiment not far from Paris and was introduced to the king (to which his family was traditionally entitled) by an older relative. At the same time he found access to salons in Paris, where he stayed frequently from 1787 and made his first literary attempts.

Like many liberal and enlightened nobles, he followed the beginnings of the revolution of 1789 with sympathy. Increasingly dissatisfied with the radicalization of political developments, he went on a nine-month trip to America in 1791. Here he mainly explored the then still French areas on the Mississippi , where he was impressed by their vastness and almost untouched beauty, but was depressed by their native American Indians because they appeared to him to be estranged from themselves through their contact with Europeans.

After his return in early 1792, Chateaubriand appropriately married a young noblewoman. But he left them immediately and joined the Armée des émigrés , a troop consisting mainly of refugee French nobles who fought against revolutionary France on the side of Austria and Prussia in order to win over King Louis XVI. and restore the monarchy to its absolute rights.

1793 - Ludwig had since been deposed and executed, but the war continued - Chateaubriand was wounded and after his recovery settled in London. Here he lived poorly as a French teacher and translator, but became a writer. He processed the extensive notes from his trip to America into two literary texts, Les Natchez and Voyage en Amérique (which he only published much later, in 1826 and 1827) and wrote the Essai historique, politique et moral sur les révolutions anciennes et modern (printed 1797), a work that combined political and personal reflections and dealt with his traumatization through the loss of his homeland, his social position and, above all, numerous executed or perished relatives and acquaintances.

The time of success

In 1798 Chateaubriand became pious and began the anti-Enlightenment book Le Génie du Christianisme ( The Spirit of Christianity ), in which he emphasized and transfigured the ethical, aesthetic and emotional aspects of the Catholic religion. He was able to publish it in Paris in 1802. In 1800 he followed Napoleon's call to the emigrated nobles to return to France and began a career as a high official. Le Génie was unexpectedly successful and became one of the triggers of the intellectual and literary movement of Romanticism. It contributed significantly to the rehabilitation of Christianity in France. When writing it, Chateaubriand certainly also had opportunistic motives : He was well aware that Napoleon was striving to re-establish the Church and create a political community with it and that this work could therefore be useful for his career.

Two longer stories, Atala (first printed separately as early as 1801) and René , which became cult books for an entire generation, were inserted into the work . Atala , the tragic story of a young half-Indian woman who resolves the conflict between her love and the chastity that she vowed to her pious French mother through suicide, was modeled above all by the atmospheric descriptions of nature that were interspersed. In the character of the title hero, René created the type of the “mal du siècle”, the “Weltschmerz”, torn romantic artist and intellectual - a type who then populated European literature for decades.

When in 1804 Napoleon kidnapped, sentenced and shot the young Duc d'Enghien , a Bourbon prince and potential heir to the throne, Chateaubriand was also outraged. He ostentatiously broke with the Napoleonic regime and resigned because he viewed this act as a blatant violation of the principle of freedom. At the same time, he thought it appropriate to finally live with his wife, but their relationship remained distant. However, the numerous affairs he always had on the side were not permanent and ultimately not very happy. Only his relationship with Madame Récamier , whom he got to know better in 1818, lasted longer, but was more of a friendship.

In 1806 Chateaubriand undertook a tour of several months through Italy, Greece, Palestine, North Africa and Spain. In Jerusalem he was made a knight of the Holy Sepulcher . He wrote his journey in the report Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem , partly portraying a picturesque, partly reflecting melancholy. Greece, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire , takes up a large part of the book . The Itinéraire not remained after its publication in 1811 without any effect on the enthusiasm of Europeans for the freedom struggle of the Greeks, who succeeded in 1821, to break away from the Turkish domination.

In 1807 Chateaubriand traveled again to Spain, this time to meet a friend, Natalie de Noailles, with whom he had fallen in love, although she was also married. Chateaubriand dealt with the constant separation of the couple with the prospect of inevitable renunciation (which also took place in 1812) in several works: in 1807/1808 he wrote the pathetic prose epic Les Martyrs, ou le Triomphe de la religion chrétienne , the plot of which in plays the wide-ranging Roman Empire of the late 3rd century (but has many contemporary references) and revolves around a pair of lovers who are also separated and who only meet as martyrs in Rome when they die together (published in 1809). From 1809 to 1810 he wrote the novella Les aventures du dernier Abencérage , set in Granada in the early 16th century , which is about a couple who finally renounced. (Printed only in 1826, but already known to many people from readings by the author.)

In 1811 Chateaubriand also tried his hand at playwright with the tragedy Moïse , which, however, was never performed. In the same year he was elected a member of the Académie française , not without difficulties because he was an opposition member .

The political career

After the fall of Napoleon and the Restoration of the Bourbons (1814/1815) he demonstratively entered the service of Louis XVIII. and was rewarded with the dignity of a Pair de France (i.e. a member of the Chambre des pairs , which functioned as the parliamentary upper house). He was also entrusted with missions as ambassador in Stockholm (1814), Berlin (1820) and London (1822). At the end of 1822 he was the French chief delegate at the Congress of Verona and had France commissioned with a military intervention in Spain , where liberal groups had wrested a constitution from the king, which was cashed in after the victory of the French troops. On December 27, 1823 he was given by King Friedrich Wilhelm III. awarded the Order of the Black Eagle. In 1823/1824 he was even foreign minister for a short time, but was dismissed by the new King Charles X , the younger brother of Louis XVIII. In 1828/1829 he acted again as ambassador, now in Rome.

In these fifteen politically active years he wrote less, but was active as a journalist, e. B. 1818-20 as editor of the magazine Le Conservateur . On the side he wrote notes and drafts for his memoirs, on which he had already started working in 1809.

After the July Revolution , which led to the abdication of Charles X in 1830 and to the establishment of Louis-Philippe d'Orléans , who came from a branch of the Bourbons, as the “citizen king”, Chateaubriand saw the nobility again marginalized. He therefore withdrew from politics, even if he occasionally still campaigned for the cause of the main Bourbon line, which was in exile. In 1830 the Bavarian Academy of Sciences accepted him as an honorary member.

The last few decades

Chateaubriand's tomb on the island of Grand Bé near Saint-Malo

After retiring from politics, he had more leisure to write. He wrote all kinds of historical matters, including a volume of Études historiques in 1831 , a two-volume Essai sur la littérature anglaise in 1836 , and in 1838 a two-volume history of the Congress of Verona. Above all, however, he edited his memories from five decades of deep political upheavals, as if he were already "beyond the grave": the extensive Mémoires d'outre-tombe . They should only be published posthumously (even if he cleverly sold the rights to a publisher in 1836 and to a newspaper in 1844). In 1842 he was accepted as a foreign member of the Prussian order Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts .

His last literary work was the Vie de Rancé in 1844 , a biography of the founder of the Trappist order Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Rancé (1625? –1700).

In the last few years of his life he was weakened by severe gout and could barely walk. He had to dictate the letters he wrote to Juliette Récamier every day and signed them with a trembling hand. After experiencing the February Revolution in 1848 and the suppression of the Paris workers' revolt in June, Chateaubriand died in Juliette Récamier's arms in early July 1848.

Because he had an intimate relationship with the sea, Chateaubriand chose the island of Grand Bé off the coast of his native Saint-Malo as his last resting place . His tomb is now a listed building and, at his own request, doesn't have a single inscription.

Language and values

Chateaubriand cultivates a language rich in images. According to Karl-Heinz Ott, it is revered for its clarity and linguistic elegance to this day. He does not understand life as a mere sequence of events, but lets whole worlds flash up in the moment. In his memories he comprehends the story in a complex manner, never judges summarily, but emphasizes the individual case and the special situation. With an abundance of sensual snapshots, it enables the reader to relive the world with their own senses. Chateaubriand is a free spirit, politically inconclusive. On the one hand, if he wants the monarchy to be preserved, on the other hand, he fights for unrestricted freedom of expression. If he condemns the violence of the revolution here, he knows how to appreciate its liberal achievements at the same time. He is the first European writer to report on the New World. His extravagant descriptions of landscapes are placed on a par with Alexander von Humboldt's travel descriptions. He sees people driven and unsatisfied. The soul always desires. “The whole universe does not satisfy them ... The imagination is rich, overflowing and wonderful, life poor, dry and sobering. You live with a full heart in an empty world ”.

Post fame

Chateaubriand's fame as an author is based primarily on his autobiography Mémoires d'outre-tombe ( Memories from Beyond the Grave ) and the short novels Atala and René , which have been printed together in one volume since 1805, but separately by Le Génie du Christianisme . He is considered one of the great authors of French literature and, in particular, one of the fathers of French romanticism. In France he is part of the school curriculum and is as well known as Goethe is here. The admiration of his contemporaries is shown by Victor Hugo's saying of 1816: “Je veux être Chateaubriand ou rien.” (I want to become Chateaubriand or nothing). Proust praised the flashes of memory in his research. Flaubert enjoyed "his wonderful style with the royal bow and his swaying movement". Roland Barthes spoke of “breathtaking beauty” in Chateaubriand's language.

Anecdotal

A classic French meat dish or a piece of beef cut in a certain way from the head of a fillet of beef was named after Chateaubriand : the steak Chateaubriand .

Works (selection)

Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem et de Jérusalem à Paris , 1821

• Essai on the Revolution. 1797
• Atala . 1801
  • Translated by Carl Friedrich Cramer, Atala or The love of two savages in the desert , Voss and Compagnie, Leipzig, 1801
  • Translated by Carl Cornelia Hasting, Atala , Dörlemann, Zurich, 2018
• Le Génie du christianisme. 1802
  • Translated from Hermann Kurtz: Geist des Christianenthums , Heerbrandt and Thämel, Ulm, 1844
  • Übers. JF Schneller: The Spirit of Christianity , Friedr. Wagner's bookstore, Freiburg, 1857
• René. 1802
• Les martyrs. 1809
  • Übers. Ludwig Anton Haßler, Die Martyrer, or Triumph of the Christian Religion , Herder, Freiburg 1811
  • Translated by K. v. Kronfels, The Martyrs or the Triumph of the Christian Religion , Wagner, Freiburg, 1829
• Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem. 1811
  • Transl. KLM Müller and WA Lindau, journey from Paris to Jerusalem through Greece and Asia Minor, and return journey to Paris through Egypt, North Africa and Spain , Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1811
  • Übers. LU Haßler, diary of a trip from Paris to Jerusalem through Greece and from Jerusalem through Egypt, through the states of barbarism and through Spain back to Paris , Herder, Freiburg, 1817
• De Buonaparte et des Bourbons. 1814 digitized
• About the Restoration and the Elective Monarchy, or answer to some public papers about my refusal to join the new government . Mayer, Aachen [a. a.] 1831 digitized
• Memoire about the captivity of the Duchess of Berry . translated by Andreas Neurohr. Müller, Mainz 1833 ( digitized version )
• Vie de Rancé . 1844
• Memoires d'outre-tombe. 1848
  • Übers. Sigrid von Massenbach: Memories . Munich 1968; Epilogue of the trans.
  • Übers. Sigrid von Massenbach: Memories from Beyond the Grave. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95757-331-5 .
• Childhood in Brittany . From the Mémoires d'outre-tombe . translated by Karl-Heinz Ott . Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 2018.

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  François-René de Chateaubriand. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 985-989.
• Edoardo Costadura: The nobleman at the desk. On the self-image of aristocratic writers between the Renaissance and the Revolution. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2006.
• Reinhold R. Grimm: Times of change, revolution and poetry: François-René de Chateaubriand in: Jenaer Universitätsreden 15, 2005, pp. 41–70.
• Manfred Lentzen : Francois-René de Chateaubriand. In: French literature of the 19th century. I. Romanticism and Realism. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1979, pp. 189-216.
• Friedrich Sieburg : Chateaubriand. Romance and politics. DVA in Sieburg's 1986 edition; first DVA 1959; most recently Ullstein in 1988
• Winfried Wehle : Kinesthetics. Writing in the image of Vesuvius. Goethe - Chateaubriand . In: Jörn Steigerwald, Rudolf Behrens (Hrsg.): Rooms of the Subject around 1800. On the imaginative self-localization of the individual between the Late Enlightenment and Romanticism. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 145–171. ISBN 978-3-447-06127-8 PDF

Web links

Commons : François-René de Chateaubriand  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: François-René de Chateaubriand  - Quotes

• Literature by and about François-René de Chateaubriand in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about François-René de Chateaubriand  in the German Digital Library
• Works by François-René de Chateaubriand at Zeno.org .
• Works by François-René de Chateaubriand in the Gutenberg-DE project
• Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)
• Names, titles and dates of French literature by Gert Pinkernell
• WGSebald to Chateaubriand

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Louis Schneider: Das Buch vom Schwarzen Adler, Duncker, Berlin, 1870.
2. ^ Orden Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts (ed.): The members of the order . tape 1: 1842-1881 . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7861-6189-5 ( orden-pourlemerite.de [PDF; 19.4 MB ; accessed on September 18, 2011]).
3. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. p. 222.
4. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. p. 224 f.
5. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. pp. 225 f.
6. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. pp. 229, 232.
7. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. p. 240.
8. ↑ Chateaubriand, cit. after Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. p. 241.
9. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. p. 221
10. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. p. 246.
11. ^ Karl-Heinz Ott. Epilogue in: Francois René de Chateaubriand: Childhood in Brittany. Hoffmann and Campe, 2018. p. 222.
12. ↑ 12 German issues in total; and 1 engl. Translated in 1961.
13. ↑ Main source for the section "Life and Creation"

predecessor	Office	successor
Mathieu de Montmorency-Laval	Foreign Minister of France December 28, 1822–4. August 1824	Ange Hyacinthe Maxence de Damas