Paul Landois
.png)
Paul Landois (born February 14, 1696 in Paris , † after 1768) was a French writer, encyclopaedist and painter. His tragedy “Silvie” from 1741 is considered the first civil tragedy . From 1746 Landois made 112 contributions to Diderot's encyclopedia , mostly on subjects of painting.
Life
Paul (Louis) Landois was born in Paris on February 14, 1696. His father, the painter Michel Landois († 1728), was admitted to the Académie de Saint-Luc in Paris in the same year . Michel Landois married Marie-Jeanne Sorbet († 1701) in 1693. The marriage resulted in several children, three of whom were still alive when the father died in 1728: Paul, Elisabeth and Marianne. After the death of his first wife, Michel Landois married for the second time in 1702. Paul Landois lived in his parents' house until his father's death and worked with his father in his workshop. After his father's death, he moved into his own workshop in Paris.
Nothing is known about Paul Landois' painterly work, just as little is known as long as he was a painter. In 1741 he brought out the tragedy "Silvie", which was printed the following year, see #Silvie . This “bourgeois tragedy”, which, in contrast to traditional tragedy, he built according to novel principles, was unsuccessful. Around 1746 he met Denis Diderot , the editor of the #encyclopedia , who recruited him to work on articles on the subject of painting. Paul Landois contributed 112 articles for volumes 1-8 and volume 11, which appeared between 1751 and 1765.
Paul Landois left Paris in 1746 and moved to Saint-Dié in Lorraine, where the writer Charles Pinot Duclos (also an encyclopedist) had given him a job as manager of a tobacco depot. He lost this position a year later. A letter from Diderot to Landois gives some information about the character and living conditions of Paul Landois. Friedrich Melchior Grimm published the letter in 1756 in the " Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique " edited by him and Diderot . Diderot urged Landois in the letter: "Finally stop this stream of insults and malice that has been hailing me for 4 years". Accordingly, the letter was written around 1750, four years after 1746, the year Diderot and Landois likely met.
From Diderot's letter it emerges that Paul Landois lived in precarious circumstances and constantly changed his whereabouts. Diderot and Duclos regularly supported Landois with a small sum, and he also received fees for his work on the encyclopedia. For four years he had been bombarding the exasperated Diderot with reproaches, demands and insults. He had sent Diderot an unspecified manuscript for review and printing, which Diderot was unable to do due to lack of time. Diderot characterizes the lascivious Landois, who suffers from overestimating himself, as a contemporary who has gone wild, whose temperament has been embittered by his various mishaps, but who is responsible for his problems himself.
After working on the encyclopedia, Paul Landois does not seem to have appeared publicly. In 1769 he was mentioned among the living authors in the literary encyclopedia “La France littéraire”, after which his trace is lost.
Silvie
Paul Landois' only published literary work is the play "Sylvie, Tragédie, en Prose, en un Acte". The play was performed on August 17 and 19, 1741 at the Comédie-Française and whistled by the audience. Due to the failure, the piece was not resumed, but printed in 1742 without naming the author. The attribution to Landois is guaranteed by an entry in the literary lexicon "La France littéraire" from 1769, where he is mentioned among the living authors as the author of "Sylvie" and as a contributor to the encyclopedia.
action
People: Des Francs, his wife Silvie, his friend Des Ronais, a lackey.
Location: a bare room with a table as the only piece of furniture, on top of which is a candlestick, a jug of water and a loaf of bread.
Scene I. Des Francs has his lackey clear the room. When the latter also wants to remove the mirror, he holds it back, "the devious woman should shudder at her crime by the constant sight of her face". He complains: “Silvie doesn't love me anymore”, but he still loves his wife against his will, and every torment he thinks of her he feels just like her.
Scene II-IV. He received his friend des Ronais with reluctance. When he accuses him of his unfriendly behavior, he shamefully confesses his wife's infidelity: he caught her red-handed with Galouin, her alleged lover, but without holding the sleeping Silvie accountable. Galouin, on the other hand, he had put in a duel and seriously injured. Des Ronais doubts Silvie's apparent unfaithfulness; he thinks that the Francs should have believed in his heart, not in appearance.
Scene V-VII. Des Ronais leaves the Francs and Silvie enters the room. Des Francs attacks her with violent accusations and accuses her of infidelity. He meets with complete incomprehension, she fervently protests her innocence. Des Francs in his furor shows her that in future she will have to spend her days in this asylum with water and bread and shave her hair, he only wants to give her her life so that she can see how she detests it herself. In an endless back and forth, the Francs tries to extort a confession from Silvie. In impotent despair, she conjures up her love, which she still does not give up. Des Francs, inexorably, gives her the choice of killing himself with his hunting knife or with poison, then he threatens to stab himself and she urges him to part with life together.
Scene VIII. Des Ronais returns from a visit to Galouin and brings back the confession of the dying man. Galouin, inflamed in a violent but unrequited love for Silvie, had instigated her chambermaid to secretly give her a sleeping pill in order to make the unconscious submissive. However, because of the surprising return of the Francs, he did not achieve the goal of his wishes.
Shaken, the Francs begs his wife for forgiveness on her knees. She, overwhelmed with irrepressible joy, grants him her pardon, and Des Ronais wishes the happily reconciled couple to forget the horrors of their quarrel forever.
prolog
The narrow octave ribbon of the print edition consists of 44 pages. The piece begins with a 15-page prologue before the real tragedy begins. With the prologue the author intends to explain and defend his program of a new form of tragedy. For the prologue, the author, the commander, the marquise, the chevalier and Monsieur Grosset gather in the theater. The commander, who is friends with the author and knows the play, approves of the author's innovations, but fears the negative reaction of the audience, which he is expecting. The other three people are acquaintances who only know the title of the piece.
The author, who does not reveal himself as such, and the other people discuss the formal innovations of the play. The author's friend develops the essential features of the civil tragedy , seconded by the author of the play, while the other three people give their opinion on the best. In the author's eyes, the witty marquise is distinguished by the fact that she listens before she judges, while he considers the Chevalier to be a mindless fool and Monsieur Grosset to be a stupid fool. The Marquise is open-minded and reserved, the Chevalier is reluctant to be anything new and Grosset likes to parrot platitudes.
template
Landois used two stories by Robert Challe in his novel “Les illustres Françoises” as a template for “Sylvie” . Histoire véritable ”. This work of gallant literature, which was very successful in the 18th century, contains 7 amorous stories, which, as in Boccaccio's Decameron , are linked by a framework plot.
In the story “Histoire de Monsieur Des Frans et de Silvie” Robert Challe describes Silvie's sad love story. Monsieur des Frans, to whom Silvie is secretly married, surprises her with someone else in bed. He leaves the two sleepers unscathed, but later takes revenge on the lover, whom he seriously injured in a duel. He imprisoned Silvie for several months and finally takes her to a monastery, where she dies of grief some time later.
In the story “Histoire de Monsieur Dupuis et de Madame de Londé” the narrator casually reports the true course of Silvie's alleged infidelity. A neighbor who doesn't know anything about Silvie's marriage falls in love with her. Since she steadfastly refuses his wooing, he uses a magic drug to knock her out into an unconscious state in order to achieve his goal. The new husband misinterprets the situation, and the story takes the familiar course.
Landois focuses the plot of his tragedy on a crucial moment in his presentation. While the husband is preparing the prison for his supposedly unfaithful wife, a friend clarifies her innocence. He regrets his distrust and is reconciled with his wife. In Robert Challe's novel, the plot has a culpably sad ending, in Landois it dissolves into a happy ending that turns the tragedy into a melodrama.
Civil tragedy
In the prologue, the author and the commander develop the essential features of the civil tragedy . The generic term Bürgerliches Trauerspiel (tragédie bourgeoise) does not appear in the title of the print edition, but in the prologue in which the commanding officer complains: "Silvie, Tragédie Bourgeoise, en Prose, en un Acte, lots of things that each cause outrage". The otherwise insignificant work became groundbreaking for the development of the genre and influenced Denis Diderot and Beaumarchais , who were the first to take up Landois' innovations in France. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing brought the first German civil tragedy to the stage in 1755 with “ Miss Sara Sampson ”.
Figure selection
The poetic principle of the class clause states “that in a tragedy the main characters may only be of high class, in comedy only of low class” (Duden). According to the prevailing opinion, ordinary citizens lacked size and importance, and tragic motives such as hopelessness and failure could only be represented by kings, princes and other high class figures.
Paul Landois breaks the class clause by putting ordinary citizens on stage in "Silvie" and describes his play as a "bourgeois tragedy".
naturalness
As the commander characterizes him, the author is a fan of naturalness. He detests stiff heroism and pompous, tragic fuss. The characters in his play speak in prose, see #Redeform , and use a natural #expression . They also speak of trivial everyday things like drinking, eating, clothes and furniture. The plot proceeds strictly according to the dramatic necessity, and the characters refrain from proclaiming moral platitudes and heroic boasting.
Form of speech
The characters in the tragedy had to speak in bound speech, i.e. in verse. It was generally believed that only this form of speech could do justice to the seriousness of the tragedy. The commander quotes the popular opinion: "A tragedy without verse is pathetic and worthy of the pipe".
Paul Landois defies tradition and lets the people in his play speak in natural everyday language. In the opinion of the commander, this is justified because the representation of human life on the stage only lasts if it corresponds to the probability, and what is less probable than if the people speak in verse? And the marquise observes: "If the play is good in prose, can you twist the cord for the author that he did not put it in verse?"
Idiom
The elevated status of the people involved and the form of verse in which they speak required, according to the applicable rules, a poetic mode of expression, which often mutated into a pompous, detached language.
Paul Landois advocates not describing things but calling them by name. As the commander put it, with Paul Landois "the morning is not the blond Phoebus , who is making his glittering path on the sun chariot, but quite simply the morning."
One act
The French rule drama , which was introduced in Germany by Johann Christoph Gottsched , consisted of 5 acts. In contradiction to this rule, Paul Landois restricts himself to one act in “Silvie” because the thin storyline that he has in mind could not have been stretched to 5 acts. But perhaps it is also due to the author's limited dramatic experience that he had to limit himself to one act.
Diderot on "Silvie"
Denis Diderot brought his first bourgeois drama "The Natural Son" to the stage in 1757. The print edition contained three drama-theoretical essays in conversation form, the "Conversations about the natural son". In the “Second Interview”, Diderot mentions his interlocutor Dorval as a sample of a new kind of tragedy: “Sylvia, tragedy in one act and in prose” (without naming the author). Dorval replies: "It is the work of a man who thinks and feels." Diderot now describes the set:
- “The scene opens with an excellent painting. It is the innermost part of a room from which one can see nothing more than the walls. At the back of the room there is a light on a table, a jug with water, and bread. That is the residence, that is the nourishment that a jealous husband determines for his innocent wife, whose virtue he suspects, for the rest of her life. Now imagine this woman in tears in front of this table. "
Dorval replies:
- “And you, draw your conclusions from this painting about the effect of the painting in general. There are other similar features to the piece that I liked. It is sufficient to awaken a man of genius; Only to convert the people would require another work. "
encyclopedia
Paul Landois is one of the 142 contributors to the encyclopedia , see also Encyclopädist (Encyclopédie) . He was recruited shortly after Denis Diderot was appointed editor (1746) and was thus an employee from the very beginning. Under the Sigel "R" He provided input for belt 1-8 and band 11, which appeared from 1751 to 1765. In Volume 1 he is mentioned in the preface:
- "Painting, sculpture and engraving are from Mr. Landois, who contributes with a lot of spirit and talent to the knowledge of these fine arts."
Contrary to this original plan, Landois almost exclusively treated subjects of painting in his contributions. His articles were not always original. He took some texts from other reference works, some of them supplemented by his own knowledge and experience in painting.
Landois' contributions are small in size. He wrote 112 articles, which together comprise only about 20 printed columns (for comparison: Volume 1 of the 17 text volumes contains over 1700 columns). Most of his articles consist of only a few lines, a round dozen are more extensive. In contrast to numerous other authors, the poor Landois did not work on an honorary basis, but received a fee, in the years 1747 and 1748 a total of 600 livres .
literature
life and work
- Frank A. Kafker: The encyclopedists as individuals: a biographical dictionary of the authors of the "Encyclopédie". Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, 1988, ISBN 0-7294-0368-8 , 189-190.
- Frank A. Kafker: Notices sur les auteurs des dix-sept volumes de "discours" de l'Encyclopédie. In: Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, year 1989, volume 7, number 1, pages 125–150, here: 145, pdf .
- Henry Carrington Lancaster (Editor): The First French 'tragédie bourgeoise': Silvie, attributed to Paul Landois. Baltimore 1954. - Text edition with a brief introduction by the editor.
- Romira Worvill: Recherches sur Paul Landois, collaborateur de l'Encyclopédie. In: Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, number 23, 1997, pages 127-140, pdf .
Others
- Robert Challe: Histoire de Monsieur Des Frans et de Silvie. In: Les illustres Françoises. Histoire véritable, volume 2. Paris: Compagnie des Libraires, 1725, pages 135-358, pdf .
- Robert Challe: Suite de l'Histoire de Silvie. In: Les illustres Françoises. Histoire véritable, volume 3. Paris: Compagnie des Libraires, 1725, pages 171-188, pdf .
- Joseph de La Porte: La France littéraire , volume 1. Paris: Veuve Duchesne, 1769, page 309, pdf .
- Denis Diderot : Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Tome premier, A-Azyme. Paris: Briasson, 1751, pdf .
- Denis Diderot : Le fils naturel, ou Les épreuves de la vertu, comédie en cinq actes et en prose, avec l'histoire véritable de la pièce. Amsterdam, 1757, pp. 202-203, pdf .
- Friedrich Melchior Grimm ; Denis Diderot : Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique de Grimm et de Diderot, depuis 1753 jusqu'en 1790. Nouvelle édition. Tome second. 1756-1760. Paris: Furne, 1829, pages 7-15, pdf .
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing : The theater of Mr. Diderot. 1. The natural son, or the samples of virtue: a play in 5 acts; along with the true story of the piece. Berlin: Voss, 1760, pages 243–245, pdf . - German translation of #Diderot 1757 .
Web links
- Silvie , digitized version of the 1742 edition in Gallica , the digitization project of the French National Library.
- List of contributions to the Encyclopédie written by Landois with links to the full text:
Individual evidence
- ↑ #Worvill 1997 , pages 127-130.
- ↑ #Worvill 1997 , page 129th
- ↑ #Grimm 1829 .
- ↑ German: Silvie, tragedy, in prose, in one act.
- ↑ #Worvill 1997 , page 130. - Register of the Comédie-Française: [1] , [2] .
- ↑ # de La Porte 1769 .
- ↑ German: The famous French women. A true story. - fr: Les Illustres Françaises .
- ↑ #Challe 1725.2 . - German: story of Monsieur des Frans and Silvie.
- ↑ #Challe 1725.3 . - German: story of Monsieur Dupuis and Madame de Londé.
- ↑ German: Silvie, bourgeois tragedy, in prose, in one act.
- ↑ #Diderot 1757 , #Lessing 1760 .
- ↑ #Diderot 1751 , page xlij: "La Peinture , la Sculpture , la Gravûre , sont de M. Landois, qui joint beaucoup d'esprit & de talent pour écrire à la connoissance de ces beaux Arts."
- ↑ #Worvill 1997 , page 127-128, 134-140.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Landois, Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French writer, encyclopaedist and painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 14, 1696 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | after 1768 |