Prosper measure interesting facts from life presentation. Brief biography of Prosper Merimee

Prosper Merimee, whose biography and work are presented in this article, is one of the brightest novelists of the 19th century. Due to his education, he was noticeably different from his contemporary French writers. But the stereotyped life in the center of civilization could not appeal to such an inquisitive and energetic person as Prosper Mérimée was. The biography of the creator of "Carmen" contains several years spent away from his homeland. He devoted most of his works to the inhabitants of provincial towns in Spain and France.

early years

Prosper Merimee, whose brief biography is given below, was not only a talented writer and playwright, but also a researcher, wrote several essays on the history of antiquity, and made a significant contribution to the culture of France.

He was born at the very beginning of the nineteenth century. From his father, the future writer inherited skepticism and love for creativity. As a child, I did not think about studying literature Prosper Merimee. short biography it captures the years of study at the Faculty of Law. After graduation, he was appointed Inspector historical monuments. But if you believe the biographers, it was as a student that he realized that his real vocation was philology. He studied English, Greek, Spanish. And in order to read Pushkin in the original, the French novelist, being an admirer of the poet's work, also mastered the Russian language.

The beginning of the creative path

How did Prosper Merimee start his literary career? His biography, as a rule, mentions a collection of plays "Theater of Clara Gazul", with which he allegedly began his creative way. In fact, the French classic created the first dramatic work earlier.

Prosper was barely nineteen years old when, to the judgment of colleagues and friends (among whom was Stendhal), he presented a rather bold play for those times. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, French dramaturgy began to be weighed down by the rigid canons of classicism. But even in such conditions, the work of the novice playwright seemed extremely bold and unusual to his colleagues. They approved a play written by the young Prosper Mérimée. His biography still speaks of a later literary debut. Merimee decided not to publish the work, which Stendhal liked extremely, because he considered it far from perfect.

Inspector of Historical Monuments

Thanks to this position, Prosper Merimee, whose biography tells of numerous wanderings, had the opportunity to travel a lot around the country. But he learned to enjoy provincial landscapes later, at a more mature age. And after graduating from the university, Merimee published a collection of plays called "The Clara Gazul Theatre". But he published it under a pseudonym.

Clara Gazul

Who characterized the contemporaries of the writer and playwright named Prosper Merimee? His biography says that among friends this outstanding personality stood out significantly. Merimee loved not only travel and adventure, but also hoaxes. So, the first collection published by him was signed with a female name. And on the cover there was a portrait of Merimee, but in a female form.

Iakinf Maglanovich

What else unexpected can the biography of Prosper Merimee tell? Interesting facts relate to the early periods of his life. If Merime published his first collection under the name of a certain Clara Gazul, then on the cover of the second book one could see the pseudonym Iakinf Maglanovich. It was a collection of Illyrian ballads called "Gusli", telling about witches, vampires and other devilry. The book made a lot of noise in Europe, today it is considered a clever and witty imitation folk poetry Western Slavs.

historical literature

Merimee later published books under his own name. He presented to the readers the works on historical theme- "Jacquerie" and "Chronicle of the times of Charles XIX." And then Merimee took his fans to distant lands. The novel "Matteo Falcone" is a cruel story of Corsican life. "The Capture of the Redoubt" is a work dedicated to the steadfastness of the Russians in the war against Napoleon. And finally, "Tamango" is an indignant story about the African slave trade.

At court

In 1830, Merimee traveled extensively in Spain, dear to his heart. Here he met the Comte de Teba and his wife. Their daughter - Eugene - later became the French Empress. Girl with early years had warm feelings for Merimee. That is why the writer eventually became "his own" at court. By the age of forty, he was awarded the title of senator and enjoyed the full confidence of Napoleon III. Politics and career could not play a primary role in the life of Prosper Merimee, but they took a lot of time. Perhaps that is why in ten years he wrote only three works.

George Sand

In 1844, the short story "Arsène Guyot" was published. In it, the author showed the moral superiority of a fallen woman over an aristocrat, which caused a big scandal in society. The reason for the gossip was Merimee's affair with the writer George Sand. He courted her for two years. And yet he was able to awaken feelings in the soul of a woman who was emancipated and disappointed in men. But this novel did not have a continuation. Subsequently, Merimet claimed that the complete lack of modesty in his beloved killed all desire in him.

"Carmen"

In 1845, the most famous work Merimee. "Carmen" formed the basis of the famous opera of the same name. In the novel in question about the passionate love of a former officer, and now a smuggler named Jose, for the cunning and cruel gypsy Carmensita. In the work, Merimee paid special attention to the mores and customs of the freedom-loving people. The girl who does not want to submit is killed by José. Merimee's short story has been filmed many times. According to literary critics, this topic inspired the French writer after reading Pushkin's poem "Gypsies". But it is worth saying that Merimee managed to create an image that is not inferior in strength to Don Quixote or Hamlet.

Last years

For the last twenty years, Merimee has hardly created any works of art. He devoted himself literary activity. He was engaged in translations, wrote several works dedicated to Gogol, Pushkin. It is Merimee who owes French readers their acquaintance with Russian literature. In 1861 he published a publicistic work dedicated to the peasant uprisings in Russia. Among other books, the theme of which affects Russian culture: "An Episode from Russian History", "Ivan Turgenev", "Nikolai Gogol".

Other works

Merimee created six dramatic works and more than twenty novels. In addition, he published several essays on travel. Novels by Prosper Merimee:

• "Federigo".
• "Backgammon Party".
• "Letters from Spain".
• "Etruscan vase".
• "Souls of Purgatory".
• "Double fault".
• "Venus of Illia".
• "Abbé Aubin".
• "Colomba".

Among the works written by Merimee for the theater, it is worth mentioning "The Enchanted Gun", "The Dissatisfied", "The Adventurer's Debut".

Lokis is the last work published by Prosper Mérimée.

Biography (death)

In 1870, in Cannes, the great French writer Prosper Mérimée passed away. On his gravestone is a plaque that reads: “With love and apologies. George Sand. After the death of the writer, two more of his short stories were published: "The Blue Room", "Juman". And five years later, the world listened with admiration to the dramatic story of a gypsy, embodied by Beze in music.

The great novelist was born on September 28, 1803 in the family of an artist, a teacher at a polytechnic school, a chemist, Jean-Francois Leonor Merimee, whose wife, the writer's mother, was also a successful painter. Merimee's father was a supporter of the new order of things, brought up in the spirit of the ideas of the 18th century. Thanks to his father, young Mérimée early developed an elegant taste and a cult of art.

In 1811, Prosper Merimee entered the Lyceum of Emperor Napoleon (now Henry IV), and proved to be an unusually gifted student. After graduating from the Lyceum, Prosper, on the advice of his father, in 1819 began to prepare for the career of a lawyer and four years later became a licentiate of law.

After graduating from a law course in Paris, he was appointed secretary to the Comte d'Artoux, one of the ministers of the July monarchy.

He had a cool attitude towards jurisprudence. As a 16-year-old schoolboy with his friend Ampère (the son of a physicist), he translated the "Songs" of the never-existing Celtic bard Ossian. It was a brilliant forgery by the Scottish folklorist James MacPherson.

In the literary field, Merimee made his debut when he was only 20 years old. His first experience was the historical drama "Cromwell". Mérimée read it in Delescluse's circle; she earned Bayle's warm praise as a bold digression from classical rules unity of time and action. Despite the approval of the circle of friends, Merimee was dissatisfied with his first work, and it did not get into print, so it is difficult to judge its worth (this was even before literary revolution undertaken by V. Hugo).

The publication of another work was associated with a daring and much-talked hoax. Mérimée passed off his collection as a work by a certain Spanish actress and social activist Clara Gasul, who was fictitious by him.

For persuasiveness, he invented a biography of Clara Gasul and listed it in the collection, not wanting to advertise himself as the author of the book due to the political severity of its content and the severity of royal censorship.

Mérimée's next literary work to appear in print was also a hoax: his famous "Guzla". This book made a lot of noise in Europe and is considered one of the examples of a clever and witty forgery of folk motifs.

Merimee's forgery misled many, including Mickiewicz and Pushkin. The book of Illyrian folk songs turned out to be such a masterful stylization of Serbian folklore that Mérimée's hoax was a brilliant success. Pushkin and Mickiewicz took the poems of "Guzla" for the creation of Slavic folk poetry. Mickiewicz translated the ballad "Morlak in Venice", and Pushkin included in his "Songs of the Western Slavs" a reworking of eleven poems "Guzla".

Goethe placed in a German newspaper an analysis of "Guzla", in which he expressed doubts about the authenticity of the songs of the Dalmatian bard. However, in the book of Aposten Philo "Merimee et ses amis", Merimee's unpublished letters to Shtapfer are printed, from which it is clear that Goethe's insight is explained very simply - Merimee, sending him "Guzla", quite clearly hinted that he himself was the author of these songs.

In a letter from Merimee to Sobolevsky dated January 18, 1835, written at the request of Pushkin, Merimee explains that the reason for compiling "Guzla" was the desire to ridicule the then prevailing desire among writers to describe the local color, and to obtain funds for traveling to Italy. Merime repeated the same explanation in the second edition of Guzla. Mérimée's French biographers are amazed at the art with which the 23-year-old Parisian managed to find bright colors to express the motives of a completely unfamiliar folk poetry.

In 1828, the printing house owned by Honore de Balzac printed Mérimée's historical drama Jacquerie. In it, Mérimée depicted the events of the Jacquerie, the largest anti-feudal uprising of the French peasantry that unfolded in the 14th century.

The life of medieval society appears in the "Jacquerie" in the form of an unceasing harsh and bloody social struggle. Merimee, insightfully reveals the contradictions of public life.

In 1829, in the novel The Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX, Merimee describes the events of the time of the religious wars.

Merimee comprehends the events of the civil war of the XVI century. Bartholomew night for him it is a coup d'état carried out from above, but made possible only because it was supported by in wide circles ordinary French.

For Mérimée, the true roots of Bartholomew's Night lie not in the cunning and ruthlessness of representatives of the ruling circles of France in the 16th century, not in the monstrous immorality and criminality of Charles IX, Catherine de Medici or Henry of Guise. The main blame for the bloodshed that took place, for the fratricidal turmoil that brought France innumerable disasters and brought it to the brink of a national catastrophe, falls on fanatic clerics who incite prejudices and savage instincts among the people. In this respect, for Mérimée, there is no difference between the Catholic priests who bless the human slaughter and the hatred-maddened, frenzied Protestant priests.

St. Bartholomew's Night, as Merimee shows, was generated not only by religious fanaticism, but at the same time by ulcers that corroded noble society.

"Chronicle of the reign of Charles IX" completes the first stage literary activity Merimee. Significant changes in the writer's life are caused by the July Revolution. During the years of the Restoration, the Bourbon government tried to attract Merimee to public service. After the July Revolution in February 1831, influential friends procured for Merimee the position of head of the office of the Minister of Naval Affairs. He then moved to the Ministry of Commerce and public works, and from there to the Ministry of the Interior and Worship. Merimee carried out his duties as an official in the most accurate way, but they weighed him down a lot. The mores of the ruling environment repulsed and revolted him. In his letters to Stendhal, he does not speak of its representatives except with contempt, he emphasizes their "disgusting baseness", calls them "bastards", and the deputies of parliament - "animals".

Being in the service of the government of Louis-Philippe, Merimee in one of his letters defined the July Monarchy as "... the dominance of 459 grocers, each of whom thinks only of his own private interests." During the first three years of public service, Merimee completely departs from artistic creativity, but in 1834 Merimee received the position of inspector general of the commission on historical monuments, corresponding to his personal inclinations and scientific interests.

Merimee, holding this position for almost twenty years, played a prominent role in the history of artistic culture countries. He managed to save many beautiful monuments of antiquity, churches, sculptures and frescoes from destruction and damage. Through his activities, he contributed to the development of interest in the Romanesque and gothic art, and his scientific study. Official duties prompted Merimee to repeatedly make long trips around the country. Their fruit was books in which Merimee combined descriptions and analysis of the monuments he studied, alternating these scientific materials with travel sketches. Merimee wrote a number of special archaeological and art criticism works over the years. He also began to engage in purely historical research, the most significant of which is devoted to the history of Rome.

During the years of the Restoration, Merimee was fond of depicting great social cataclysms, creating wide social canvases, developing historical plots, his attention was attracted by large monumental genres. In their works of art In the 1930s and 1940s, he delved into the depiction of ethical conflicts, paying more attention to contemporary topics. Merimee is almost never involved in dramaturgy, focusing his interest on a small narrative form - a short story, and achieving outstanding creative results in this area.

Critical and humanistic tendencies are vividly embodied in Merimee's short stories, as in his previous works, but they change their direction. Social shifts are reflected in the writer's work in the depiction of bourgeois conditions of existence as a force leveling human individuality, educating people in petty, base interests, instilling hypocrisy and selfishness, hostile to the formation of people who are whole and strong, capable of all-consuming, disinterested feelings. The scope of reality narrowed in Merimee's short stories, but the writer penetrated deeper - in comparison with the works of the 20s - inner world of a person, more consistently showed the conditionality of his character by the external environment.

After the creatively prolific year of 1829, Merimee's artistic activity develops less rapidly in the future. Now he is not so actively involved in everyday literary life, he publishes his works less often, nurturing them for a long time, painstakingly finishing their form, achieving its utmost precision and simplicity. Working on novels artistic skill the writer reaches a special refinement and perfection.

Since the 1830s, he has written predominantly short stories that belong to the best examples of French prose: Matteo Falcone (1829), a ruthlessly realistic story of Corsican life; The Capture of the Redoubt (1829) is an excellent battle scene; "Tamango" (1829) - a story imbued with furious indignation about the African slave trade; Colomba (1840) is a powerful tale of a Corsican vendetta; "Carmen" (1845) - the most famous of all, the basis for the libretto of Bizet's opera.

In "Carmen" the readers were presented with a storyteller, an inquisitive scientist and traveler, a representative of a sophisticated European civilization. It contains autobiographical details. He resembles Merimee himself in the humanistic features of his worldview. But an ironic grin slips over the author's lips when he reproduces the narrator's scientific research, showing their speculative and abstract nature.

In 1844 the writer was elected to the French Academy.

Merimee was attracted by wild, original customs, which retained the original and bright color of antiquity. Merimee published several writings on the history of Greece, Rome and Italy, based on the study of sources.

Published on March 15, 1844, the short story "Arsène Guillot" by Mérimée was accepted secular society like a bold challenge. Guardians of secular decency declared immorality and violation of the truth of life. The academics, who the day before the publication of "Arsene Guillot" cast their votes for Mérimée in the elections to the French Academy, now condemned the writer and denied him. The revolution of 1848 was approaching, which determined a new serious turn in his creative development.

Initially, the revolutionary events did not cause much concern for Merimee: he sympathized with the establishment of the republic. Gradually, however, the mood of the writer changes, becoming more and more anxious: he anticipates the inevitability of further aggravation of social contradictions and is afraid of it. The June days and the workers' uprising deepen his fears.

It is the fear of new revolutionary actions of the proletariat that prompts Merimee to accept the coup d'état of Louis Bonaparte, to come to terms with the establishment of a dictatorship in the country. During the years of the Empire, Merimee was one of the close associates of Napoleon III and his court, as a result of many years of friendship with the family of the Spanish aristocrat Eugenia Montijo, who became Empress of France in 1853. His social position during the years of the Empire provokes sharp condemnation among the democratically minded French intelligentsia.

During the reign of Napoleon III, Mérimée enjoyed great influence, being one of the closest friends of the imperial couple. In 1852 he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor, a year later he was elevated to the rank of senator.

Although Merimee enjoyed the full confidence and personal friendship of Napoleon III, his career and politics weighed heavily on the writer. While still studying law in Paris, Mérimée became friends with Ampère and Albert Stapfer. The latter introduced him to the house of his father, who gathered at his place a circle of people devoted to the sciences and arts. His literary evenings were attended not only by the French, but also by the British, Germans (Humboldt, Mol) and even Russians (S. A. Sobolevsky, Melgunov). At Shtapfer, Merimee met and became friends with Bayle (Stendhal) and Delescluze, who was in charge of the criticism department at the Revue de Paris. He borrowed from them an interest in studying the literatures of other peoples.

Stendhal captivated Merimee with the fighting spirit of his political convictions, the intransigence of hostility towards the Restoration regime. It was he who introduced Merimee to the teachings of Helvetius and Condillac, to the ideas of their student Cabanis, and directed the aesthetic thought of the future author of the preface to the Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX along the materialistic channel. Merimee learned a lot from the artistic program put forward by Stendhal in the literary manifesto Racine and Shakespeare.

The universality of Mérimée's literary education markedly distinguished him from other French writers of that time. Merimee was one of the first in France to appreciate the dignity of Russian literature and began to learn to read in Russian in order to read the works of Pushkin and Gogol in the original.

He was a great admirer of Pushkin, whom he translated for the French public and to whom he devoted an excellent study to his appreciation. According to Ivan Turgenev, who personally knew Merimee, this French academician, in the presence of Victor Hugo, called Pushkin the greatest poet our era, on a par with Byron.

“Pushkin,” Merimee said and wrote, “has an amazing combination of form and content; in his poems, enchanting with their graceful charm, there is always more content than words, as in Byron; poetry blooms with him as if by itself from the most sober truth.

From his correspondence with Countess Montijo, it is clear that in the late 40s he was seriously engaged in the study of Russian literature. In 1849 he translated Pushkin's The Queen of Spades, and in 1851 he included an interesting sketch about Gogol in the Revue des deux Mondes. In 1853, his translation of The Inspector General was published. "History of Peter the Great" Merimee Ustryalova devoted several articles to the "Journal des Savants"; there he published several essays from the history of our Cossacks about Stenka Razin and Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

The history of the Time of Troubles especially occupied him; he wrote "Le faux Demetrius" and then took advantage of the study of this era for its artistic depiction. Mérimée was a great admirer of Turgenev and wrote the preface to the French translation of Fathers and Sons, published in Paris in 1864.

An essential role in Merime's short stories is played by the writer's artistic embodiment of his positive ideal. In a number of early short stories, for example, in The Etruscan Vase and Backgammon Party, Merimee connects the search for this ideal with the images of honest, most principled representatives of the ruling society.

Merimee increasingly persistently addresses in his work to people who stand outside this society, to representatives of the people's environment. In their minds, Merimee opens those spiritual qualities which, in his opinion, have been lost by bourgeois circles: the integrity of character and the passion of nature, disinterestedness and internal independence. The theme of the people as the guardian of the vital energy of the nation, as the bearer of high ethical ideals, played a significant role in the work of Merimee in the 1930s and 1940s.

At the same time, Merimee was far from the revolutionary-republican movement of his time, he was hostile to the struggle of the working class. The romance that excited his imagination folk life Merimee, this "genius of timelessness", according to Lunacharsky's expression, tried to search in countries not yet absorbed by bourgeois civilization, in Corsica ("Mateo Falcone", "Colomba") and in Spain ("Carmen"). However, creating images of heroes - people from the people, Merime did not seek to idealize the patriarchal and primitive side of their way of life. He did not hide the negative aspects of their consciousness, generated by the backwardness and poverty that surrounded them.

In 1860 he retired due to illness; in the last years of his life, asthma forced him to move from Paris to the south of France.

Merimee the novelist significantly deepened the depiction of the inner world of man in literature. Psychological analysis in Merime's short stories is inseparable from the disclosure of those social causes that give rise to the experiences of the characters.

Unlike the romantics, Merimee did not like to go into lengthy descriptions of emotions. He preferred to reveal the experiences of the characters through their gestures and actions. His attention in the short stories is focused on the development of the action: he strives to motivate this development as concisely and expressively as possible, to convey its internal tension.

The composition of Merimee's short stories is always carefully thought out and weighed. In his short stories, the writer is not limited to images of the climax of the conflict movement. He willingly reproduces his prehistory, outlines the characteristics of his heroes, concise, but saturated with vital material.

In Merimee's short stories, a satirical beginning plays a significant role. His favorite weapon is irony, veil, a caustic satirical grin. Merimee resorts to it with particular brilliance, exposing the falsity, duplicity, and vulgarity of bourgeois mores.

Merimee's short stories are the most popular part of his literary heritage. Mérimée's work is one of the most brilliant pages in history French literature XIX century.

At the end of his life, Merimee wrote in his letters: “I’m tired of life, I don’t know what to do with myself. I don't think I have a single friend left in the whole wide world. I lost everyone I loved: some died, others changed.

Two pen pals, he still has two correspondents. He writes to one of them in 1855 about his mania: “It is too late for me to marry, but I would like to find some little girl and bring her up. More than once the thought came to me to buy such a child from a gypsy, for even if my upbringing did not bring good results, I still would not make the little creature any more unhappy. What do you say to that? And how would you get such a girl? The trouble is that the gypsies are very black and that their hair is like a horse's mane. And why don’t you just have some golden-haired girl that you could give me?

In 1867, due to a developed lung disease, he settled in Cannes, where he died three years later - on September 23, 1870, five days before his 67th birthday. In Paris, meanwhile, his archive and library burned down, and what the fire spared was stolen and sold by servants.

The last story published during the life of Merimee was "Lokis". After Merimee's death, "Dernieres novelles" and his letters were published.

Turgenev responded to the death of a French friend in the following way:

“I also did not know a person less vain. Mérimée was the only Frenchman who did not wear a socket of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole (he was the commander of this order). In him, over the years, more and more developed that half-mocking, half-sympathetic, in essence deeply humane outlook on life, which is characteristic of skeptical, but kind minds, who carefully and constantly studied human mores, their weaknesses and passions.

Merimee himself at the end of his days admitted:

“If I could start my life over again, having at the same time my present experience, I would try to be a hypocrite and flatter everyone. Now the game is no longer worth the candle, but, on the other hand, it is somehow sad at the thought that people like you only under the mask and that, having removed it, you will be hated by them.

The Frenchman Prosper Merimee is known to us as a writer. His books have long been translated into Russian. Based on his works, operas were written and films were shot. However, he was also a historian, ethnographer, archaeologist and translator, academician and senator. If the reader wants to plunge into the past, described in detail to the smallest detail, then the works of Mérimée - good way take a trip through time.

Childhood and youth

The only son of wealthy parents was born in Paris on September 28, 1803. The common passion of the chemist Jean-Francois Leonor Mérimée and his wife, nee Anna Moreau, was painting. Artists and writers, musicians and philosophers gathered at the table in the living room. Talking about art shaped the interests of the boy: he examined the paintings with great attention and enthusiastically read the works of freethinkers of the 18th century.

He was fluent in Latin and early childhood spoke English. Anglophilism was a tradition in the family. Prosper's great-grandmother, Marie Leprince de Beaumont, lived in England for seventeen years. His grandmother Moreau married in London. The house was visited by young Englishmen who took private lessons in painting from Jean-Francois Leonor.

Prosper spent several years of his early childhood in Dalmatia, where his father was with Marshal Marmon. This detail of the writer's biography explains his deep and emotional perception of folk poetry, the motives of which Merimee wove into his work. At the age of eight, Prosper externally entered the seventh grade of the Imperial Lyceum, and after graduation, at the insistence of his father, he studied law at the Sorbonne.

The father dreamed of a career as a lawyer for his son, but the young man reacted to this prospect without enthusiasm. After graduating from the university, young Mérimée was appointed secretary to the Comte d'Argoux, one of the ministers of the July Monarchy. Later he became the chief inspector of historical monuments of France. The study of monuments of art and architecture stimulated the creative energy of the writer and served as a source of inspiration.

Literature

The path in literature Prosper Merimee began with a hoax. The Spanish Clara Gasul, who did not exist in reality, was named the author of the collection of plays. Merimee's second book is a collection of Serbian folk songs "Guzla". As it turned out, the author of the lyrics did not collect them in Dalmatia, but simply composed them. Merimee's fake turned out to be so talented that even Mickiewicz was misled and.

The historical drama "Jacquerie" no longer set the task of misleading the reader, but painted a picture of a medieval peasant uprising in all unsightly details. The struggle for power of feudal lords and clerics is described in the same detail and realistically in the Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX, the only novel by the writer. world fame Prosper Merimee was brought novels.

The reader is best known for Carmen. The story from the life of freedom-loving Spanish gypsies was arranged for the stage, supplemented with music and colorful dances, screened. Beautiful story the tragic love of a gypsy woman and a Spaniard still excites readers and viewers. The images in the other "folk" and "exotic" short stories are no less vividly written out. For example, a runaway slave in Tamango.

Traveling around Europe, Merimee subtly noticed the characteristic national features of the peoples and endowed the characters with them. The Corsicans inspired him to create Matteo Falcone and Colomba. The writer also conceived the plot of the "Venus of Illa" while traveling. Creating a mystical atmosphere was not easy for the author, but he did an excellent job. Prosper Merimee called this story his masterpiece.

Personal life

Prosper Merimee was unmarried and enjoyed the position of a bachelor all his life. Many details of the writer's love affairs were revealed to inquisitive readers after his death. Friends and mistresses published the preserved correspondence, revealing secrets, which, however, Prosper never really hid. wild adventures young rake in the company co created Merimee bad reputation.

Lasted the longest love affair with Charlotte Marie Valentina Josephine Deleser. The wife of the banker Gabriel Delecère, mother of two children, endowed Prosper with her favor from the early thirties until 1852. Simultaneously with this relationship, an affair developed with Genie (Jeanne Françoise) Daken, who became famous thanks to the publication of the writer’s letters that she had preserved.

The girl started a correspondence. Wanting to meet a famous writer, she wrote a letter on behalf of the fictional Lady Algernon Seymour, who planned to illustrate the Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX. Merimee took the bait. Anticipating another affair, he entered into correspondence with a stranger, simultaneously trying to find out her identity from his English friends.

After several months of correspondence, on December 29, 1832, Merimee met with a mysterious stranger in Boulogne. Acquaintance with Jenny Daken Merime concealed. Only close friends, Stendhal and Sutton Sharp, were aware. On the one hand, he did not want to compromise a decent girl from a bourgeois family, on the other hand, he already had an “official” mistress. A fleeting affair between Prosper and Jenny eventually grew into a close friendship, which was interrupted by the death of the writer.

In the 50s, Merimee was very lonely. After the death of his father, he lived for fifteen years alone with his mother. Anna Merimee died in 1852. Relations with Valentina Deleser in the same year ended in a final break. The seething creative energy began to dry up. Old age has come.

Death

In the 60s, Merimee's health deteriorated. He is disturbed by attacks of suffocation (asthma), his legs swell, his heart hurts. In 1867, due to a progressive illness, the writer settled in Cannes, where he died three years later - on September 23, 1870. Dark premonitions overcame him before his death. On July 19, 1870, France declared war on Prussia, Merimee expected disaster and did not want to see it.

In Paris, his archive and library burned down, and the remaining things were stolen and sold by the servants. Prosper Merimee was buried in the Grand Jas cemetery. After the death of the writer, the collection "Last Novels" was published, the best of which critics call the story "The Blue Room". Became the property of readers and personal correspondence.

Bibliography

Novel

• 1829 - "Chronicle of the reign of Charles IX"

Novels

• 1829 - "Matteo Falcone"
• 1829 - "Tamango"
• 1829 - "The Capture of the Redoubt"
• 1829 - "Federigo"
• 1830 - Backgammon Party
• 1830 - "Etruscan vase"
• 1832 - "Letters from Spain"
• 1833 - "Double Fault"
• 1834 - "Souls of Purgatory"
• 1837 - "Venus of Ill"
• 1840 - "Colombes"
• 1844 - "Arsene Guyot"
• 1844 - "Abbé Aubin"
• 1845 - "Carmen"
• 1846 - Lane of Madame Lucretia
• 1869 - "Lokis"
• 1870 - "Juman"
• 1871 - "The Blue Room"

Plays

• 1825 - "Theatre of Clara Gazul"
• 1828 - "Jacquerie"
• 1830 - "The Discontented"
• 1832 - "The Enchanted Gun"
• 1850 - "Two Inheritances or Don Quixote"
• 1853 - "Adventurer's debut"

Other

• 1827 - "Gusli"
• 1829 - "The Pearl of Toledo"
• 1832 - "Ban of Croatia"
• 1832 - "The Dying Haiduk"
• 1835 - "Notes on a Journey Through the South of France"
• 1836 - "Notes on a journey through the west of France"
• 1837 - "Study on Religious Architecture"
• 1838 - "Notes on a Journey to Auvergne"
• 1841 - "Notes on a trip to Corsica"
• 1841 - "Experience about civil war»
• 1845 - "Studies in Roman History"
• 1847 - "History of Don Pedro I, King of Castile"
• 1850 - "Henri Bayle (Stendal)"
• 1851 - “Russian literature. Nikolay Gogol"
• 1853 - “An episode from Russian history. False Dmitry"
• 1853 - "Mormons"
• 1856 - "Letters to Panizzi"
• 1861 - "The Rebellion of Stenka Razin"
• 1863 - "Bogdan Khmelnitsky"
• 1865 - "Cossacks of Ukraine and their last chieftains"
• 1868 - "Ivan Turgenev"
• 1873 - "Letters to a stranger"

Even those who have never been to the theater know who Hamlet is, and, consequently, Shakespeare. Everyone knows Carmen. It does not matter whether they love opera and ballet, or are indifferent to them. Know what it is spanish woman, and can sing the most popular melody from the opera of the same name. But only bookworms are familiar with the literary "father" of the adventurer. He is partly to blame for this.

Prosper Mérimée was not as prolific as, say, Balzac or Hugo. Could not write a line for years. Nevertheless, it was he who became the author of the short story, the name of which came into general use. Excellent stylist, successful official, author of works on archeology, connoisseur female beauty Prosper Merimee was born in 1803.

Acquaintance with Stendhal

His father saw him as a successful lawyer in the future, although he himself was a well-known artist in his time. His mother was also fond of painting. It was she who instilled in her son a taste for literature. Advocacy never became his vocation, even though Prosper graduated from the law faculty of the University of Paris. And literary and aesthetic preferences were formed under the influence of Stendhal, whom the future novelist met in 1822.

The romantic, who read Byron and Shakespeare with rapture, gradually becomes a realist, responding in his work to many political events of his time. But his first fame came from literary hoax. This partly confirms the words of Merimee that he composes only for entertainment, while relaxing from the pleasures that social life provided.

Serious draw

« Clara Gasul Theater”- this was the name of a collection of dramatic plays allegedly written by a certain Spanish actress. The prank was a success, but the plays placed in the book refute the myth of the dandy who wrote solely for his own pleasure. They are almost revolutionary early XIX century, when classicism dominated the theater with its strict rules and outdated dogmas.

Prosper Merimee was one of the first to prove that an artist can create freely, obeying only his own principles and rules. This created a certain reputation for him, because in literary circles the name of the true author of the plays was not a secret.

Two years later, a book is published in France without the name of the author. It is called "Guzla" ("Gusli"). These are South Slavic ballads translated into French anonymous folklorist. Their authenticity was not in doubt. Pushkin's "Songs of the Western Slavs" included eleven revisions of poems from this book. One of the ballads was translated into native language Mitskevich. Meanwhile, all works had one author. It was Prosper Merimee. But the hoaxes ended there.

drama and romance

In the literature of France, the flowering of the historical genre began. In 1828, Mérimée published a drama based on the events of 1358. Action " jacquerie takes place during a peasant uprising, one of the bloodiest in French history. Among actors- not a single ideal character, which again contradicted the tradition of classical theater. The temporary result of the search for one's own path in literature was the novel " Chronicle of the reign of CharlesIX". It still ranks among the best historical novels in French literature. After that, Merimee began to avoid large forms.

Inspector

In France of those years seethed political life. Prosper Merimee was an adherent of liberalism. His opposition to the Restoration regime bore fruit after the revolution of July 1830.

By that time, he had returned from a six-month trip to Spain, where he met the future wife of Napoleon III, Eugenia Montijo. They will be friends again long years. While he is waiting successful career official. He becomes an inspector at the General Inspectorate of Historical Monuments.

From novel to novel

The writer's work developed in its own way. Since 1829, the publication of short stories began, which would bring him worldwide fame. "Matteo Falcone", "Double Fault", "Venus of Ill", and many others.

Real people in romantic circumstances. So intertwined youthful passions with life experience. Even Carmen, for all her demonicness, rolls cigars in a tobacco factory and cleans the pockets of market onlookers.

Merimee has a complicated and contradictory relationship with the romantics. He himself paid tribute to this fashion, and his novels at first glance cannot be called realistic. His novel about France of the 16th century is indicative here. civil, religious wars and St. Bartholomew's Night, as a verdict on religious fanaticism. Similar motifs are found in the small works of Prosper Mérimée. Only ideological pathos shifted towards the bourgeoisie, as that layer of society that is no longer able to give birth to whole, disinterested people. In the short stories, Merime penetrates more deeply into the inner world of his characters, often making hard-hitting conclusions.

Disgraced novella

In 1843, the writer was accepted as a member of the famous Academy, and soon he became one of the "immortals". But at this time, his short story "Arsène Guillot" was published. Exposing the hypocrisy and hypocrisy of the French elite, Merimee becomes for some time an outcast for high society. Those who voted for him in the elections to the Academy disown the author of the scandalous work. But this was his last literary success.

Literary silence

Under Napoleon III, he was increasingly fascinated by the work of an official. He travels a lot in France, Turkey, Spain and other countries. He is also fond of Russia, its history, culture, translates Turgenev, Gogol, Pushkin into French. As for his own work, in recent years he has written only a few short stories. In them, he seeks to entertain the reader, captivating him with the mystery of what is happening.

The last years of the life of the famous Frenchman coincided with the tragedy of the Franco-Prussian war. He foresaw the defeat of his homeland. And so it happened. After the defeat at Sedan, he left for Cannes, where he died in 1870.

Prosper Merimee(French Prosper Mérimée; September 28, 1803, Paris - September 23, 1870, Cannes) - French writer and translator, one of the first masters of the novel in France, historian, ethnographer and archaeologist.

As the chief inspector of historical monuments, he was in charge of compiling the register of historical monuments (the so-called Merime base). Member of the French Academy, senator of the Second Empire. He did a lot to popularize Russian literature in France.

Prosper Mérimée was born on September 28, 1803 in the family of the chemist and painter Jean Francois Leonor Mérimée. After completing a law course in Paris, he was appointed secretary of the Comte d'Argoux, one of the ministers of the July monarchy, and then the chief inspector of historical monuments in France, until now their list bears his name. In this post, Merimee contributed a lot to the preservation of historical monuments.

It was Merimee who appreciated the drawings and measurements of the Gothic researcher Viollet-le-Duc and involved him in the restoration work, thanks to which the "barbarian" style was rehabilitated, and today we see masterpieces of French medieval architecture without the "layering" added to buildings during the years of enthusiasm for classicism.

During his first trip to Spain in 1830, he became friends with the Comte de Teba and his wife, whose daughter later became Empress Eugenie of France. As an old friend of this family, Mérimée was a close associate of the Tuileries court during the Second Empire. Empress Eugenia had a cordial attachment to him and treated him like a father. In 1853, Merimee was elevated to the rank of senator and enjoyed the full confidence and personal friendship of Napoleon III.

Service career and politics played, however, minor role in the life and work of such a writer-artist as Merimee was by vocation. While still studying law in Paris, he became friends with Ampère and Albert Stapfer. The latter introduced him to the house of his father, who gathered a circle of people devoted to the sciences and arts. His literary evenings were attended not only by the French, but also by the British, Germans and even Russians.

At Shtapfer, Merimee met and became friends with Stendhal and Delescluze, who was in charge of the criticism department at the Revue de Paris. Mérimée's literary tastes and views were formed under the influence of the Shtapfers and the Delescluse circle. From them he borrowed an interest in studying the literatures of other peoples. The universality of Mérimée's literary education markedly distinguished him from other French writers of that time. He had a particular interest in Russia, Corsica and Spain. More than the life of megacities polished according to a common pattern, he was attracted by wild, original customs that retained national identity and the bright color of antiquity.

Prosper Mérimée also participated in the commission chaired by Marshal Vaillant (1854). The commission was entrusted with the work of "collecting, coordinating and publishing the correspondence of Napoleon I, relating to various areas of state interests." In 1858, 15 volumes were published (covering the period from 1793 to 1807), which were met with criticism. In 1864, a new commission was convened, in which Merimee refused to work because of disagreements with the marshal.

Literary activity

Merimee made his literary debut when he was only 20 years old. His first experience was the historical drama Cromwell. It earned Stendhal's warm praise as a bold departure from the classical rules of the unity of time and action. Despite the approval of the circle of friends, Merimee was dissatisfied with his first work, and it did not get into print. Subsequently, he wrote several dramatic plays and published them under the title "The Clara Gasul Theatre", stating in the preface that the author of the plays was an unknown Spanish actress of the itinerant theater. Mérimée's second publication, his famous "Gusli" (Guzla), a collection of folk songs, was also a very successful hoax.

In 1828-1829, the dramas Jacquerie and The Family of Carvajal, the historical novel Chronicle of the Times of Charles IX, and the short story Matteo Falcone were published. Merimee at this time actively collaborated in the publications "Revue de Paris" and "National". The life of large cities, centers of civilization, polished according to a common pattern, was disgusting to Merimee. At the end of 1839 he made a trip to Corsica. The result of this trip was a travel journal and the story "Colombes".

Thanks to the success of Georges Bizet's opera based on it, of all Mérimée's works, the short story "Carmen" is perhaps the most famous, a significant part of which is devoted to describing the mores of the gypsies. Dramatic passions seething in the hearts of ardent southerners are retold by Merimee in a dry and restrained language. As a rule, the narrator is a rational observer-foreigner. He contrasts the emotions of primitive peoples with the anemia of civilized Europe: "Energy, even if in bad passions, always causes us surprise and some kind of involuntary admiration." Literary critics write that in his short stories the inspector of historical monuments created a kind of "museum of human passions."

Merimee published several writings on the history of Greece, Rome and Italy, based on the study of sources. His history of Don Pedro I, King of Castile, was respected even among specialists.

The last short story published during Merime's lifetime is Lokis, which takes place in Lithuania. After the death of Merimee, "Last novels" were published, where the mystical incident receives an everyday interpretation, and his letters. In 1873 were published Letters to a stranger (lettres à une inconnue). He died in Cannes, where he is buried in the Grand Jas cemetery.

Merimee and Russia

Merimee was one of the first in France to appreciate the dignity of Russian literature and mastered the Russian language in order to read the works of Pushkin and Gogol in the original. He was a great admirer of Pushkin, in 1849 he translated his The Queen of Spades.

Merimee was also a great admirer of I. S. Turgenev and wrote a preface to the French translation of Fathers and Sons, published in Paris in 1864. In 1851, his sketch about Gogol was published in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in 1853 - translation of "Inspector".

Mérimée was also interested in Russian history: in the Journal des Savants he published several articles on N. G. Ustryalov's History of Peter the Great and essays on the history of the Cossacks ("Les Cosaques d'autrefois"). The history of the Time of Troubles is reflected in Le faux Demetrius and the dramatic scenes of Les Debuts d'un Aventurier (1852).

Artworks

“The exoticism, fantasy and mythology of Mérimée are always precisely confined to the geographical space and invariably painted in distinct tones of couleur locale. The "Corsican" myth, literary-mythological Spain, Lithuania consistently appear on the pages of Merime's stories. The sharpness is achieved by the fact that Mérimée's literary geography is invariably embodied in the intersection of two languages: an external European observer (Frenchman) and one who looks through the eyes of bearers of sharply different points of view that destroy the very foundations of rationalism European culture. The sharpness of Merimee's position lies in his emphasized impartiality, in the objectivity with which he describes the most subjective points of view. What sounds like fantasy and superstition for a European character seems to be the most natural truth for the heroes who oppose him, brought up by the cultures of different parts of Europe. For Merimee, there is no "enlightenment", "prejudice", but there is an originality of various cultural psychologies, which he describes with the objectivity of an external observer. Merimee's narrator is always outside the exotic world that he describes"

Yu. M. Lotman

Novel

• 1829 - "Chronique of the reign of Charles IX" (Chronique du règne de Charles IX)

Novels

• 1829 - "Matteo Falcone" (Mateo Falcone)
• 1829 - "Tamango" (tamango)
• 1829 - "The Capture of the Redoubt" (L'enlevement de la redoute)
• 1829 - "Federigo" (Federigo)
• 1830 - Backgammon Party (La partie de trictrac)
• 1830 - "Etruscan vase" (Le vase étrusque)
• 1832 - "Letters from Spain" (Lettres d'Espagne)
• 1833 - "Double Fault" (La double meprise)
• 1834 - "Souls of Purgatory" (Les ames du Purgatoire)
• 1837 - "Venus of Ill" (La Venus d'Ille)
• 1840 - "Colomba" (Colomba),
• 1844 - "Arsene Guyot" (Arsene Guillot)
• 1844 - "Abbé Aubin" (L'Abbe Aubain)
• 1845 - "Carmen" (Carmen)
• 1846 - Lane of Madame Lucretia (Il vicolo di Madama Lucrezia)
• 1869 - "Lokis" (Lokis)
• 1870 - "Juman" (Djomane)
• 1871 - "The Blue Room" (chambre blue)

Plays

• 1825 - "Theatre of Clara Gazul" ( Theater de Clara Gazul), playbook
• 1828 - "Jacquerie" ( La Jacquerie), historical drama chronicle
• 1830 - "The Dissatisfied" ( Les Mecontents), play
• 1832 - "The Enchanted Gun" (Le Fusil enchanté), play
• 1850 - "Two Inheritances or Don Quixote" ( Les deux heritages ou Don Quichotte), comedy
• 1853 - "The adventurer's debut" ( Debuts d'un aventurier), play

Travel notes

• 1835 - Notes on a journey through the south of France (Notes d'un voyage dans le Midi de France)
• 1836 - Notes on a journey through the west of France (Notes d'un voyage dans l'Ouest de la France)
• 1838 - Notes on a trip to Auvergne (Notes d'un voyage en Auvergne)
• 1841 - Notes on a trip to Corsica (Notes d'un voyage en Corse)

Works on history and literature

• Civil War experience (Essai sur la guerre sociale) 1841
• Studies in Roman History (Études sur l'histoire romaine) 1845
• History of Don Pedro I, King of Castile (Histoire de Don Pèdre Ier, roi de Castille) 1847
• Henri Bayle (Stendhal) (Henry Beyle (Stendhal) 1850
• Russian literature. Nikolay Gogol (La Littérature en Russie. Nicolas Gogol) 1851
• An episode from Russian history. False Dmitry (Episode de l'Histoire de Russie. Les Faux Démétrius) 1853
• Mormons (Les Mormons) 1853
• Rise of Stenka Razin (La Revolte de Stanka Razine) 1861
• Cossacks of Ukraine and their last chieftains (Les Cosaques de l'Ukraine et leurs derniers attamans) 1865
• Ivan Turgenev (Ivan Tourguenef) 1868

Other

• 1827 - Gusli ( La Guzla)
• 1829 - Pearl of Toledo (La Perle de Tolede), ballad
• 1832 - Ban of Croatia (Le Ban de Croatie), ballad
• 1832 - Dying haiduk (Le Heydouque mourant), ballad
• 1837 - "A Study on Religious Architecture" ( Essai sur l'architecture religieuse)
• 1856 - Letters to Panizzi
• 1863 - essay "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" ( Bogdan Chmielnicki)
• 1873 - Letters to a stranger ( Letters a une inconnue)

The first translations of Merimee's stories into Russian:

• Illian Venus (Library for Reading, 1837)
• "Colombes" (ibid., 1840)
• "Double Error" ("Contemporary", 1847)
• Bartholomew's Night (Historical Bulletin, 1882)
• "Carmen" ("Road Library", 1890).

Screen adaptation of works

• "Carmen" (Carmen) - (dir. Arthur Gilbert), UK, 1907
• "Carmen" (Carmen) - (dir. Girolamo Lo Savio), Italy, 1909
• The Cigarette Maker of Seville, USA, 1910
• "Bear Wedding" - based on the play by A. Lunacharsky, created based on the short story "Lokis" by P. Merimee, (Directors: Vladimir Gardin, Konstantin Eggert), USSR, 1925
• "Carmen" (Carmen) - (dir. Jacques Fader), France, 1926
• "Carmen" (Carmen) - (dir. Lotta Reiniger), Germany, 1933
• "Vendetta" (Vendetta) - (dir. Mel Ferrer), USA, 1950 Based on the short story by P. Merimee "Colomba".
• 1960 - based on the short story "Matteo Falcone", a film of the same name was shot at the film studio "Azerbaijanfilm". Stage director - Tofig Tagizade.
• "Tamango" (Tamango) - (dir. John Berry), 1958
• "Lokis" (Lokis) - based on the short story of the same name, dir. Janusz Majewski, Poland, 1970
• "Matteo Falcone" (Mateo Falcone) - (dir. Jan Budkiewicz), Poland, 1971
• "The Beast" (La Bete) - based on the short story "Lokis", (dir. Valerian Borovchik), France, 1975
• "Venus of Ill" (La Vénus d "Ille), Belgium, 1962
• "Venus of Ille" (La Venere D'Ille), Italy, 1979
• "Carmen" (The Loves of Carmen) (dir. Charles Vidor) - USA, 1948
• "Name: Carmen"(fr. Prenom Carmen) - (dir. Jean-Luc Godard), France, 1983 Based on the novel by Prosper Merimee "Carmen" with reminiscences of the musical "Carmen Jones", which is based on Georges Bizet's opera of the same name.
• "Carmen" - variation on a theme, (dir. A. Khvan), Russia, 2003
• "Carmen from Kaeliche" (U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha) - (dir. Mark Dornford-May), South Africa, 2005 The plot is moved to our time, in one of the poorest areas of Cape Town.
• "Colomba" (Colomba) - (dir. Laurent Jaoui), France, 2005
• "Matteo Falcone - (dir. Eric Vuillard / Eric Vuillard), France, 2008
• "Carmen" (Carmen) - (Jacques Malatier), France, 2011