Isabelle Morel
Isabelle de Gélieu married Morel (born July 9, 1779 in Lignières , † October 18, 1834 in Corgémont ) was a French-speaking Swiss writer and translator.
Life
Isabelle de Gélieu was born in Lignières as the daughter of pastor Jonas de Gélieu and his wife Marguerite-Isabelle Frêne, daughter of pastor Théophile-Rémy Frêne . She learned to read and write in the parsonage there and at the age of ten convinced her father to teach her the Latin language, knowledge of which was considered unfeminine in the 18th century. When she was thirteen she was sent to Basel to study German in her aunt Esther Mieg's boarding school.
After her return to Colombier , where her father had held the parish office from 1790, she first came into contact with Isabelle de Charrière in 1795 , who recognized her talent and gave her English lessons in the following years. Together with Madame de Charrière, she published a French translation of the novel Nature and Art by Elizabeth Inchbald in 1797 .
Soon afterwards she began to write her own novel Louise et Albert , which appeared for the first time in Lausanne in 1803 and in the same year in a German translation in the journal Flora , which was provided by Ludwig Ferdinand Huber and was not very accurate .
She had previously been pressured by her family to get married. After breaking the engagement to the marriage candidate envisaged by her parents at the insistence of Isabelle de Charrière, she became engaged to the pastor Charles-Ferdinand Morel from Corgémont , whom both her grandfather Frêne and Isabelle de Charrière viewed as a suitable marriage candidate. The marriage was finally concluded in 1801.
After the birth of three children, Isabelle Morel found herself barely able to pursue her literary ambitions. In addition, there are repeated crises in the marriage, which are triggered by the fact that her husband lost his family fortune in the course of the economic crises after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the future of their children is therefore in question.
From 1820 Isabelle Morel-de Gélieu began to translate German-language literature into French, including Pestalozzi's Book of Mothers or: Instructions for Mothers to Notice Their Children and Teach them to Talk , the Alamontade of Zschokke , the historical novel Gertrud von Wart or Loyalty until the death of the Swiss pastor Johann-Conrad Appenzeller and the novel Annette and Wilhelm von Kotzebue . She also publishes a collection of Schiller's poems . In addition, through her husband's mediation, she translates official publications of the Bernese cantonal government and the canton's Protestant church.
The revolutionary movements of 1830 and 1831 opened the house of the Morel family to persecuted democrats from Switzerland and Poland , with Isabelle split between the royalist tradition of her family and the own liberal views shared by Charles-Ferdinand Morel. Her husband takes part in the deliberations on a new, democratic constitution for the canton of Bern.
In 1833 she developed breast cancer and died a year later.
plant
- La Nature et l'art par Mistriss Inchbald, traduction par Mlle de G *** et Mme de C *** , Paris 1797
- Louise et Albert ou Le Danger d'être trop exigeant , Lausanne 1803, new edition Neuchâtel 1999, ISBN 2-88080-005-6
- Gertrude de Wart ou l'épouse fidèle: roman historique; traduit de l'allemand par Madame Morel , Paris and Mulhouse 1819,
- Manuel des Mères, de Pestalozzi, traduit de l'allemand Geneva 1821
literature
- Fréderic-Alexandre Jeanneret, James-Henri Bonhôte: Biographies Neuchâteloises . Edition Couvoisier, Le Locle 1863, Volume 2, p. 123 ff.
- Dorette Berthoud: Mme de Charrière et Isabelle de Gélieu . In: Actes de la Société jurassienne d'Emulation. 1971.
- Dorette Berthoud: Le Journal d'Isabelle Morel-de Gélieu , in "Actes" de la Société jurassienne d'Emulation. 1973.
- Daniel Maggetti, La correspondance d'Isabelle de Charrière et d'Isabelle de Gélieu , in Isabelle de Charrière, une Européenne , 1994, 255-269
- Corinne Calame: Isabelle de Gélieu, Femme de lettres , in: Biographies Neuchâteloises, Volume 2. Hauterive 1998.
- Corinne Calame: Notes on the new edition by Louise et Albert . Neuchâtel 1999.
Web link
- Daniel Maggetti: Gélieu, Isabelle de. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Morel, Isabelle |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gélieu, Isabelle de (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss writer and translator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 9, 1779 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lignières NE |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 18, 1834 |
| Place of death | Corgémont |