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The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814)
Short Stories - French Literature and Civilization


The Marquis de Sade was born Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade on June 2, 1740. His father, Jean Baptiste, was the Comte de Sade, and his mother was Marie-Elonore de Maille de Carman, the Comtesse de Sade. At the age of four, he was sent to live with his grandmother, whose five daughters visited frequently and doted on the young Donatien. The Comte, who was forced to travel, wished to infuse his son’s upbringing with the masculine presence and influence that he himself was not able to provide, as opposed to the sensual affection of his aunts. Thus, after only a year, Donatien was sent to live with the Comte’s brother, Abbe Jacques-Francois de Sade, a noted scholar and author of his time. Abbe de Sade was a good friend of Voltaire and very open minded. And so, Donatien found himself placed, at an age where his mind was still very malleable, in yet another setting where adults treated sex and sexuality as recreational means to a pleasurable end. The Abbe spent only three months out in the real world and so the rest of his time was spent in his library, reading selections from his voluminous collection of varying titles. Donatien was free to read any of the books in the Abbe’s library, and, in the absence of other playmates his age and following his uncle’s example, he more often than not found recreational refuge within the pages of most of the texts kept in his uncle’s library, including those which were of less than classical origin.

The Marquis grew up with an extreme view of sex. He was jailed several times for abusing the local whores of France, but the worst offense was his fetish for children. He kept six girls living in his house for six weeks, writing accounts of their sexual interactions on a daily basis. He was able to evade the police for three years, until in 1777 he was finally found in his home by a policeman carrying an arrest warrant signed by King Louis XVI himself. He remained in prison for 13 years, finally freed during the French Revolution.

The majority of his works were pornographic and written during his long imprisonment. However, some of his short stories, such as the story we read for class entitled The Husband Who Said Mass, were much less graphic while still exhibiting the same pornographic themes. He also wrote several plays, political pamphlets, and regularly exchanged correspondence while in prison. However, none of these gained as much notoriety posthumously as his novels, including The Crimes of Love and Incest.

An analysis of the short story The Husband Who Said Mass reveals many of his typical sexual references as well as references to his early life. He refers to the monastery called Saint-Hilaire as the "dumping-ground for all the Carmelite communities in the area, for to it each consigns those Brothers who have brought dishonor to their calling", no doubt referring to his uncle who he would have seen as bringing dishonor on his calling. However, he continues to call the "womanizers [and] sodomites" in the company "far from wholesome" even though he would have fallen into that category in his own life. When describing the main woman in his story, it is said that she has "everything required of a dish to set before a monk", showing that in his mind, women are physically sexual objects and do nothing more than bring pleasure to men. He also speaks of "desires which seemed to her much too ardent to be resisted any longer", presumably referring to the many desires he had experienced in his life. The entire story reflects the intertwining of religion and sexual desires in the Marquis' life.

However, the main theme of the story seems to be that the secular community will always be taken advantage of by the religious community because of the stigma attached to being irreligious or especially sinful. The main character, Father Gabriel, is a religious man who is in love with a neighborhood woman and uses his religious affiliations to get her husband out of the way long enough for them to have an affair. Based on the Marquis' view of all religious personnel in relation to his uncle, he makes Father Gabriel seem like a perverted soul despite the fact that his description makes him out to be otherwise a perfect gentleman. Perhaps the Marquis is really describing himself when he calls Father Gabriel a "stallion" who was "as well endowed as the province's finest mules", both a desirable and slightly pornographic inclusion to his story. But it is not enough for the Marquis de Sade's story to be about the perverted passions of a friar and the deceiving of a loving husband, he must also touch on the notion that favors are done with other intentions such as committing adultery. This may stem from the Marquis' unsuccessful marriage, but perhaps it is simply the fact that we all trust too much and in a world of self-centered people we cannot do too much to protect what little we have in the world. ~ by Katie
The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/HBalzac.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. Honore De Balzac (1799 -1850)

Honore De Balzac was born May 20, 1799 in Tours, France. He was the son of Bernard-Francois Balssa, and Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambie, the daughter of a Parisian superior. Balzac was a French writer and a journalist, who studied at the College de Vendome and the Sorbonne, where he also worked in law offices. He moved to Paris where and attempted to pursue a career and literature, and also worked for a publishing company. He failed at these commercial activities and decided he wanted to pursue his passion as a writer, and wrote his first work called "The Cromwell". He proceeded to publish as many as 30 published works before he married Ewelina Hanksa. They wed on March 14, 1850 in Berdychiv, Russia, but soon after his health was in major decline and he started to suffer from major cardiac problems. Five months after his wedding Balzac died August 18, 1850 and was buried at the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise in Paris.

Many of his works have helped him earn the ranks among the great masters of the novel. Many of his greatest works have been combined in the book La Comédie Humaine. Other notable works include:
Clotilde de Lusignan (1822)
Le Centenaire (1822)
Le Vicaire des Ardennes (1822)
La Dernière Fée (1823)

The Message, is a short story about a tragedy en route from Paris to Moulins that delivers many meaningful messages about trust, love, and pursuing happiness. He makes a companion on the trip to Moulins, in which they exchange stories of love and romance, during the course of the trip the coach overturns and kills the man. Through the bond that Balzac forms with the stranger he promises to fulfill this dying man's wishes of going to see his mistress and delivering letters she had written him and news of his death. Balzac goes to the man's home, retrieves the letters of the mistress, and to travels to her home. Balzac fulfills his promise and while at the mansion of the mistress, he informs her of the unfortunate event that has happened. She suffers for her loss, but also is aware of the fragility of love and happiness, and sends Balzac back to Paris wishing him to always be happy and to never lose his love. This story comes into perspective of how delicate love is and the happiness that is attached to it, and is the reason why Balzac dedicates this story to young lovers who are willing to take refuge into each other's hearts. ~ by Joe




Short Stories - French Literature and Civilization Émile Zola (1840-1902)

Émile Zola was born in Paris and spent his childhood in Aix-en-Provence which is in the southeast of France before returning back to Paris after his father had died. In his youth he became friends with the painter Paul Cézanne and started to write under the influence of the romantics. During his formative years Zola wrote several short stories and essays, 4 plays and 3 novels. As a French novelist and critic and the founder of the Naturalist movement in literature, Zola redefined Naturalism as "Nature seen through a temperament”. Which can be best described as the rejection of the supernatural and more emphasis on scientific reasoning. Zola died on September 28, in 1902, under mysterious circumstances, overcome by carbon monoxide fumes in his sleep. It was speculated that some of Zola’s enemies covered his chimney thus suffocating him as he slept. Naturalism as a literary movement fell out of favor after Zola's death, but his integrity had a profound influence on such writers as Theodore Dreiser, August Strindberg and Emilia Pardo-Bazan.

The short story we read was the Story of a Madman. It begins with Isidore-Jean-Louis Maurin as a worthy middle-class citizen and who had married an eighteen year old blond. She was cheating on him with another tenant who lived upstairs. The wife convinces him that he is a madman to get out of the marriage. Henriette soon leaves her lover and goes to the mental institution to confess to Maurin that she had caused him to become insane. In fact, he replicated what she had done to him to make himself go insane and was thus fully insane when she visited him. Zola, in the story of a Madman, is seeking to show the reader that madness is all relative, in that, one may think that he is mad and another might believe that he is not insane. The wife in the story fakes being unstable but does not become mad, while the husband is made to believe that he has become mad. The doctors at the mental institution believed they had found a new form of illness, which strikingly sounds as though they were looking for a new madness. Since Zola is a naturalist it is not believable to the reader that he simply became mad, this would be quite unexplainable. Instead a more likely conclusion might be that he was mad all along, hording himself in his apartment and barely going out. In addition, it could have been that the husband was not mad at all but rather he did not want to return to his apartments with his wife, who had cheated and lied to him. ~by Michelle

Some of his other works include:
Thérèse Raquin (1867)
Les Rougon-Macquart(various dates)
Germinal (1885)
Contes á Ninon, (1864)
La Confession de Claude (1865)
Madeleine Férat (1868)
Le Roman Experimental (1880)



Short Stories - French Literature and Civilization Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897)


Alphonse Daudet, author of the short story The Last Lesson we read for class, was born in Nimes in 1840. After the collapse of his father's business, his family moved to Lyons, where Daudet showed very little interest in school. Besides his lack of interest in a formal education, Daudet wrote his first novel by the age of 14. He had become a schoolteacher soon after the move, but in 1857, at the age of 17, Daudet abandoned teaching altogether. He took refuge with his brother Ernest, who was a struggling journalist in France. Daudet, too, furthered his interest in writing and published Les Amoureuses in 1858. The work didn't attract much attention. Daudet began to write plays and this is when his work began to be recognized. His work showed much promise, and he was appointed one of the secretaries of Napoleon III's ministers.
Short Stories - French Literature and Civilization

In 1872, Daudet published Les Aventures Prodigieuses De Tartarin De Tarascon, or The Wonderful Adventures of Tartain de Tarascon and the three-act play L'Arlesienne. This is when Daudet's career really began to take off. In 1874, Daudet's literary career seemed to reach its peak with his publication of Fromont Jeune et Risler Aine or Fromont and Risler. The short story became a hit in the French literary world, with its creativity and truthfulness behind its characters. Daudet went on to publish a number of short stories and plays (listed below). Throughout his career, Daudet was charged with imitating the work of Charles Dickens. Daudet claimed while his work was similar to that of Dicken's, he had never done such a thing and his writing was truly his own. Daudet used his own life experiences in his works, as well as the people he met and the places he visited. Daudet died in 1897, but his work lives on today.

The short story our class read, The Last Lesson, begins with a small boy from Alsace rushing to get to Monsieur Hamel's class on time. The setting is an unnamed town in Alsace, and the story takes place near the beginning of the Prussian occupation of Alsace and Lorraine, about 1873. When he gets to class rather than Monsieur Hamel getting angry with him for being late, the young boy is told just to take his seat. The boy notices his teacher is dressed rather oddly, with his best green coat and academic cap. The young boy notices the classroom is full today, which is unusual, as all the village people sat quietly and somber. Monsieur Hamel proceeds to the front of the classroom where he announces, "Children, this is the last time I shall take this class. Orders have come from Berlin that only German is to be taught in schools in Alsace and Lorraine... Today is your last French lesson" (p. 79). After hearing this, the young boy panics. He regrets all the times he skipped classes and all the times he didn't pay attention in class. He worries he will never learn to write and the thought of never seeing Monsieur Hamel again greatly bothers him. After forty years of teaching, Monsieur Hamel was told he could no longer do what he loved to do. The teacher explains to the students in his classroom that the problem with people in Alsace is that they put education off until tomorrow. He explains they all share the guilt, including the parents of these children who would rather have their child work in the fields than get an education. Monsieur Hamel proceeds to go on to teach his last lesson, a lesson that the young boy, Frantz, says he'll never forget. Monsieur Hamel took in for one last time the classroom he had taught in for the past forty years, before ending the lesson saying, "Viva la France" (p. 81). ~ by Shawn

Selected works:
  • LES AMOUREUSES, 1858 - Women in Love
  • LA DERNIÉRE IDOLE, 1862
  • CHAPATIN LE TUEUR DE LIONS, 1863 - Chapatin the Lion Killer
  • LE FRÈRE AÎNÉ, 1865
  • LE PETIT CHOSE, 1868 - The Little Good-For-Nothing
  • LISE TAVERNIER, 1869
  • LETTRES DE MON MOULIN, 1869 - Letters from My Mill
  • LES AVENTURES PRODIGIEUSES DE TARTARIN DE TARASCON, 1872 - The New Don Quixote or the Woderful Adventures of Tartarin de Tarascon
  • L'ARLÉSIENNE, 1872 - The Woman of Arles - Arlesitar
  • LES CONTES DU LUNDI, 1873 - Monday Tales
  • FROMONT JEUNE ET RISLER AÎNÉ, 1874 - Fromont the Younger and Risler the Elder / Fromont and Risler
  • LES FEMMES D’ARTISTES, 1874 - Artist’s Wives




Short Stories - French Literature and Civilization Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

Maupassant is widely renown as the greatest writer of French short stories. According to an article Short Stories - French Literature and Civilization about the author on Suite101.com, he was born in 1850 in Northern France. He was expelled from his school and decided to travel to Paris to study law, but with the start of the Franco-Prussian war, he signed up to join the army. When the war ended, he began writing short stories under the mentorship of Gustave Flaubert, a friend of his mother’s and another well-known French short story writer. Another article (found here) describes Maupassant as having a photographic memory which allowed him to write vividly and with haunting imagery. Maupassant was widely known as a womanizer; he hated working and “spent much of his free time in pursuit of women.” A short story entitled Boule de Suif, or Ball of Fat, is widely considered to be his greatest work and was written in 1850. The Necklace, another well known story, is just another of the more than 300 he had written during the1880’s. Maupassant contracted syphilis sometime during his 20s. The disease ultimately led to his madness and in 1892, he unsuccessfully tried to kill himself by slitting his own throat. He was committed to a mental institution and dies about a year later.

In The Necklace, Maupassant comments on the social classes of French society. Madame Loisel is terribly unhappy to be a lower class citizen, much to the dismay of her husband who does what he can to please her to no avail. When she is invited to a ball, she becomes distraught over the fact that she has no jewelry, but is able to borrow a diamond necklace from a friend. Upon realizing that she has lost the jewelry, her husband buys a replica to return to her friend and spend years of their lives living like paupers in order to repay their debt - only to find out in the dramatic conclusion that the original was a fake. Maupassant seems to be acknowledging that people like Madame Loisel will never be happy with their situation in life; they will always want to appear to be more sophisticated and worldly in order to impress superior social classes. The irony lies in that Madame Loisel spent years of her life living miserably just to have been "happy" for one night from feeling like a rich socialite. ~ by Holly



http://www.sartre.com/site/images/sartre-portrait2.gifJean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905- April 15,1980), was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. He was a leading figure in 20th century French philosophy. Sartre was born in Paris, and as a teenager in the 1920’s while mountaineering in Canada he became attracted to philosophy when reading Henri Bergson’s Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. He studied in Paris at the elite Ecole Normale Superieure but was also influenced by Western philosophy. He absorbed ideas from Immanuel Kant, Georg Willhelm Friedrich Hegel and Martin Heidegger. In 1929, he met Simone de Beauvoir, noted thinker, writer, and feminist. The two became inseparable and life mates, creating a romantic relationship that wasn’t monogamous. Sartre also challenged the cultural and social assumption and expectations of his society.

In "The Wall," the protagonist in the story is about to face death (execution). The moment when he knows that his death is inevitable his whole perspective about life changes. Chasing girls, having fun, and fighting for liberty no longer matter to him. But he still is not going to sacrifice another man's life to save his own. Sartre shows in this story that even when a man is about to face death, he doesn't lose all of the principles he found important. The narrator still had some honor left, but he realized how discouraging death can be, a person can feel how fragile he is and how precious time can be when death is knocking at the door . Death has a way of "disenchanting" everything (p.214). Regrets rush to a person's mind, and he wishes that he had appreciated more the special moments and opportunities of his life. As death approaches, Sartre shows how death can be seen everywhere in the narrator's cell and that the only thing to do is cope with the thought he is inevitably going to die. Sartre suggests that people live with the illusion of being eternal, but losing that illusion, like the narrator did can mean you're just as good as dead. Even when the narrator realized he was going to be spared; it was too late, the illusion he once had will never be attained again. ~ by Yovanny

Selected works:
-La Transcendance de l'égo (The Transcendence of the Ego), 1937
-La Nausée (Nausea), 1938
-Le Mur (The Wall), 1939
-Esquisse d'une théorie des émotions (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions), 1939
-L'Imaginaire (The Imaginary), 1940, lit. "The Unconscious"
-Les Mouches (The Flies), 1943
-L'Être et le néant (Being and Nothingness), 1943
-Huis-clos (No Exit), 1944
-L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism), 1946
-La Putaine respectueuse (The Respectful Whore) 1946
-Qu'est ce que la littérature? (What is literature?), 1947
-Baudelaire, 1947
-Situations, 1947



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Simone De Beauvoir (1908-1986)

Simone De Beauvoir was born on January 9, 1908 in Paris. Her father Georges was a lawyer and a one time actor. Georges was known for always wanting to have a son, instead he had two daughters. He would constantly tell Simone that she had the brain of a man. Simone was a great student. She was educated in good schools and at the age of 15 decided she wanted to become a writer. She attended the University of Paris and studied philosophy. At school she met Jean-Paul Sartre and they ended up dating. In 1929, at the age of 21 she became the youngest student to ever receive the aggregation in philosophy. She wrote novels, essays, and monographs on politics, philosophy, and social issues. She is best known for her novels The Second Sex, The Mandarins, and She Came To Stay. She died April 14, 1986 in Paris from pneumonia. She is seen as the mother of post 1968 feminism.

One of her works that we studied in class was the short story Monologue. In this story a rich, spoiled woman is alone on New Year's eve and is bitter about it. She hates the fact that she does not have a companion to share her life with and tells us about it. She envies every woman she sees that has children that wait on her and a mate. One minute she blames everyone and the next herself for the situation she is in. Her daughter has committed suicide and her son was taken away from her in her divorce settlement. She examines her whole life. She basically shares with us a lifetime of anger and frustration in about twenty pages. The moral of the story is that even though this woman has lots of material things that others would want, she does not have the things that money can't buy, such as love and happiness. She lives her life in regret second guessing every decision she has made. She finds herself wishing that she would have done some things different. If only we could turn back the hands of time. ~ by Joel


Stendhal (1783-1842)
by Yovanny Henao

Stendhal, also known by his birth name Marie-Henri Beyle was born on Jan. 23, 1783 in Grenoble, France. After going through a rough childhood Stendhal joined the army during the Napoleonic era. Marie served the army for several year then retired to become a French Consul, it was around this time that he began his writing. His first novel was "The Charterhouse of Parma;" set in Italy, it shows how sincere and passionate Marie was of Italy compared to his troubled home country that was going through a restoration period. Marie began taking up the name Stendhal after writing his first novel. Scholars aren't certain where he got the name from, either from the German city Stendhal or from a novel he had read. Through Stendhal's novels he shows empathy to women, but also showed an obsesssion with sex. During the romantic period, Stendhal wrote in a realistic style and his work wasn't appreciated till the 20th century. Often thought of as a romantic realist, thanks to his work "On Love," he fused tension with unrequited love. Overall as a writer he can be put in the category of realist and his work was appreciated for its' irony, psychological, and historical aspects.
Selected works:


Theophile Gautier (1811-1872)
Pierre Jules Theophile Gautier was a writer, a poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist and literary critic. Born in the city of Tarbes, Gautier was well educated and as a young man was introduced to Victor Hugo, who became an important influence for him. It was Hugo that turned Gautier's attention towards literature. In 1826, Gautier began to write poetry and for most of his life contributed to "La Presse" with his articles. His contribution to journals helped him meet people in high places in the world of art. Gautier's literature had a certain personal style to it and showed his tastes in art and culture. He was regarded highly for his works in the 19th century and it opened up a great opportunity to work for royalty as a librarian and be a part of the court.
selected works:
Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835)
Le Roman de La Momie (1858)
Le Capitaine Fracasse (1863)

Prosper Merimee (1803-1870)
Born in Paris, Merimee was educated in law as well as three other languages. He was the first interpreter of Russian literature in France. Influenced by Charles Nodier, Prosper showed interest in mysticism, history, and the supernatural. Best known for his novel "Carmen," Prosper got the inspiration to write from his friend the Countess of Montijo in 1830. The countess later on became Napoleon's wife and Empress of France, and awarded Prosper with a seat in the senate.
Selected Works:


Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
Considered to be among the greatest of Western novelists, Flaubert's first work was the "The Temptation of Saint Anthony," the novel didn't impress those that were close to him and advised him to focus on life taking it a day at a time. In 1850, Flaubert wrote "Madame Bovary" and this novel took five years to write. At first it wasn't appreciated because the government took action against the publisher and the author. They were charged with immorality, but later on were acquitted. When the novel finally came out in book form, it received a warm reception from the public. In 1858, Flaubert wrote his next novel "Salammbo", which took him four years to write. It didn't do as well as his first novel, but the public enjoyed the references to Carthage. Flaubert showed a lot of vigor in his work, he was seen equally as a romantic, realist, and pure stylist. Seen as one of the greatest writers who lived in France, many realists and formalists traced their origin to his works.
selected works:


Birago Diop
diop

Born December 11, 1906 in Senegal in Africa as the youngest of three brothers to his mother Sokhna and mason father who left the family before he was born. When he was fifteen he attended Lycée Faidherbe, a French-language school on scholarship. He also served in the military for a while as a nurse and then attendedveterinary college after that.
In France, Diop studied at the École Nationale Vétérinaire in the city of Toulouse, and completed further studies in exotic veterinary medicine in Paris. He met other black writers and began writing during this time and some of his earlier poems were also published starting his appearance in the public eye. It was after he returned to Africa that he began writing his collection of short stories. These were based off stories told to him by tribal elders during his travels as a veterinarian. He established his own veterinary practice in Dakar after 1964, and continued to write folktales and dramas as well as continuing his work.
Diop died at the age of 83 in Dakar leaving his wifeMarie-Louise Pradére, who was an accountant, and his two childrenRenee and Andree. Some of his works include Les Contes d'Amadou Koumba,Les Nouveaux Contes d'Amadou Koumbaand his last workMother Crocodile: MamanCaimanwhich came out in 1981.
-Jamie











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shellyjones9 What biography we are contributing 0 Mar 28 2008, 12:38 PM EDT by shellyjones9
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I will contribute Emile Zola and story of a madman to the wiki let me know if someone else already is contributing this information
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