Jacques Cazotte
Jacques Cazotte (born October 7, 1719 in Dijon , Département Côte-d'Or , † September 25, 1792 in Paris ) was a French novelist who is said to have predicted the French Revolution .
Life
Cazotte was born in Dijon in 1719 and studied at the Jesuit college in his hometown. He then began a career in the French naval administration, which in 1747 transferred him to Martinique as ship paymaster , where he became prosperous. In Martinique he made his first literary attempts in addition to his official duties. In 1757 he returned to Dijon, resigned and retired as a freelance novelist into private life.
He wrote poems, fantastic stories and a number of fantastic oriental fairy tales such as La patte du chat ("Katzenpfote", 1741) and humoresques such as Mille et une fadaises, Contes à dormir debout ("A thousand and one stupidities." 1742). With the help of the Syrian priest Dom Denis Chavis , he translated some Arabic legends into French for the fairy tale anthology Le Cabinet des Fées (1788–1790). With its 1772 first published fantastic novella The enamored devil "Fantastique", which four years later built reworked in his collection "a joke and moral works," explained Cazotte in France, the new literary genre in the elements of science fiction , horror and fantasy were incorporated . Characteristic of his new narrative style are fantastic, sometimes surreal events that invade the real world, whereby it is at the discretion of the reader to consider them real or the narrator's imaginations.
A complete edition of his works was published under the title Œuvres badines et morales, historiques et philosophiques de Jacques Cazotte (4 vols, 1816–1817). Cazotte's work influenced authors such as ETA Hoffmann , Gérard de Nerval and Théophile Gautier .
Shortly before his death, he became a follower of the Martinist mysticisms of Martinez de Pasqually .
From 1775 he sympathized with the ideas of illuminism , broke with his original Catholic faith, turned to the occult and prophetically predicted future events. In 1778 he is said to have predicted the coming French Revolution and the death of some guests at a banquet .
On August 10, 1792, he was arrested as a supporter of the Martinist monarchists and because of the discovery of some of his counter-revolutionary letters. In a very short process, Cazotte was sentenced to death and guillotined on September 25, 1792 .
reception
Cazotte became famous for the slumber song "Tout au beau milieu des Ardennes", which he composed for the nurse of the Duke of Burgundy and which was sung all over France.
Works
- 1741: La Patte du Chat. ("Cat paw")
- 1742: Les Mille et une Fadaises. ("A thousand and one stupidities")
- 1753: La Guerre de l'Opéra . Lettre écrite a une dame en province. ("War for the Opera")
- 1753: Observations sur la lettre de Jean-Jacques Rousseau . Au sujet de la musique françoise. ("Notes on the letter by Jean-Jacques Rousseau ")
- 1761: Memoire sur les demandes formées contre le général et la Societé des Jesuites, au sujet des engagemens qu'elle a contractés. [O. N, Paris MDCCLXI]
- 1762: Ollivier. (a poem in 12 chants in the style of Ludovico Ariostos , German: Ollivier. Gebauer, Halle 1769 / Dyk, Leipzig 1791 - 2 volumes)
- 1764: Le Bijou trop peu payé et La brunette anglaise . Nouvelles en vers pour servir de supplément aux œuvres posthumes de Guillaume Vadé (Chez Les freres Cramer, Geneve)
- 1767: Lord impromptu (German: The Lord impromptu . Dyk, Leipzig 1789)
- 1772: Le Diable amoureux (German: Der verliebte Teufel. [Translated by Franz Kaltenbeck], Insel , Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-458-14005-0 , online public domain: Translation by Eduard von Bülow, Leipzig: 1838 at zeno. org)
- 1788: Prophetie de Cazotte. (German: Treatise on the alleged prophecies of Cazotte. Magische Blätter, Leipzig 1921)
- 1789–1780: Œuvres badines et morales, historiques et philosophiques de Cazotte. (4 volumes, German by Dyk, Leipzig 1789/1790, translated by Georg Schaz: Moralisch- Komische Erzählungen, Mährchen und Abentheuer. [Volume 1 contains among other things: The fool of Baghdad or the giants , Sybille and Conant or the lost and regained Honor , Volume 2: The Impromptu Lord , Volume 3: The Devil in Love, Ollivier , Volume 4: Ollivier (cont.).])
literature
- Arnaud de Laporte, Pouteau (secrétaire de la liste civil): Procès de J. Cazotte, condamné a mort par le Tribunal criminel du 17 août 1792, pour avoir ecrit des lettres a M. Laporte intendant de la liste civile . Avec des details authentiques sur sa détention dans la prison de l'abbaye… etc. Chez Hedde, Paris [1797].
- Annalisa Bottacin: Jacques Cazotte et la “Querelle des bouffons” . Editions Zielo, Estes 1991, OCLC 30138219 .
- Dietmar Rieger: Jacques Cazotte . A contribution to the narrative literature of the 18th century. Winter, Heidelberg 1969, DNB 482518146 . (At the same time dissertation at Heidelberg University under the title: Le diable amoureux by Jacques Cazotte. 1969).
- Alfred Meißner : The prophecy of Jacques Cazotte . In: The Gazebo . Issue 13, 1866, pp. 200–203 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
Web links
- Literature by and about Jacques Cazotte in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by Jacques Cazotte at Zeno.org .
- Works by Jacques Cazotte in the Gutenberg-DE project
Individual evidence
- ↑ digitized version
- ↑ Ulrich Marzolph (Ed.): The Arabian Nights in Transnational Perspective. Wayne State University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8143-3287-0 , p. 34.
- ↑ Charlotte Trinquet: Cazotte, Jacques. In: Donald Haase (Ed.): The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: AF. Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-313-33441-2 , pp. 170-171.
- ^ Robert Irwin: The Arabian nights: A Companion. Allen Lane, London 1994, ISBN 0-7139-9105-4 , pp. 260-5.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cazotte, Jacques |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 7, 1719 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dijon |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 25, 1792 |
| Place of death | Paris |