Alphonse Dode: a brief biography, quotes

The works of Alfons Dode (1840-1897) poured a fresh stream into French literature and forever became one of its best parts. Alphonse Dode was born in the southern province, and he has all the wildness of the southerner's imagination, but he tried to write about what he himself saw and experienced.

Childhood and youth

The ancestors of Dode were peasants who at the beginning of the bourgeois revolution moved to the city of Nimes, in which Alfonso Dode was born in the family of a prosperous owner of the cloth factory. One of his brothers died almost as a child. This clash with death shocked the future writer, and later he will talk about her in the novel "Kid". In the same novel he will describe a deserted factory yard where his childhood passed and where he imagined himself to be Robinson. It was a merry and carefree time, since Alphonse Dode did not even suspect how close his family was to the devastation that came after 1848.

Lyon

The factory was liquidated, and the whole family moved to Lyon. Two brothers, Ernest and Alphonse Dode, studied first at the church school, and then at the Lyceum. Children of wealthy parents tried to humiliate them and not communicate with them. On the brothers stood the brand of poverty. However, Alphonse unabashedly missed lessons in thirteen years, preferring to them the river, boats, tugboats - a real whirlpool of life. At the same time, he read a lot and began to write poetry. He was sixteen when he briefly worked as a teacher, and then went after his brother in 1857 to the capital.

Paris

In the novel "Kid" and in the book "Thirty Years in Paris" Dode will brightly describe this his first day in the capital city. He experienced great joy from the meeting with Ernest. However, his existence became semi-stagnant, beggarly - malnutrition, lack of shelter over his head. Once, when he could not pay for the apartment, he spent half of the night on the boulevards. A year later, he was lucky - he published a book of poems that liked both criticism and the public. After that he was invited to the newspaper "Figaro". And then - more. He starts working with his brother in the state chancellery of the Legislative Corps. Time from work remains very much. Respectable now looks Dode Alphonse (photo). Continuing to write, Dode visits Provence, Algeria, Corsica. And from everywhere he makes impressions, which then will pour into the pages of his works - "Letters from the mill", "Nabob", "Tartarin from Tarascon." In 1867, Dode married happily. He will have two sons and a daughter.

First book

"Letters from the mill" (1865-1869), a collection of short stories, is the first and significant work of Dode. Little stories and tales have not lost their meaning and charm until today. These elegant and truthful, funny and mischievous, sometimes sad stories Dode received as a gift, talking with the peasants of Provence.

The first novel

It was a semi-biographical novel "The Baby" (1868). It has a lot of personal, but it is impossible to identify the entire hero with Dode. Most of the episodes of the second part are completely invented, and the character of Dode is completely different from the character of the hero. This is a lyric diary of an adult child. Dode was the first person in France to take up this issue.

Adventures of Tartaren

Biography of Alphonse Dode, as well as of any artist, is his works, that's why they are given so much space. At the heart of this book lies the sparkling Provencal humor. Dode portrayed the life of an inert little town, stupid, good-natured, narcissistic townsfolk, whom Tartarin surpassed all. He has a garden where dwarf baobabs, rare weapons and fantasies grow. He only dreamed of going to Shanghai, as he already thought he was there. Tartarin at Dode is a ridiculous projector and a windbag. However, he decided to leave his Tarascon and go to Algeria, where thousands of French rushed, making this country their colony. Dode ridicules the stories that the French carried civilization to the country. And this turns into political satire.

Schedule

Approximately since 1877 the writer Alfons Dode, not differing in strong health, establishes a strict order of work and rest. If the work captivates him, he gets up at 4 in the morning and works up to eight. Then after an hour-long break, he again works until twelve o'clock in the afternoon, then a two-hour rest, and again work from 14 to 18 hours, and then from 20 to midnight. At the same time, the office is in perfect order. In the period from 1877 to 1889 he wrote thirteen novels, as well as memoirs, short stories, essays, articles.

Personal friendship

Gradually the writer becomes very popular. His "Ed" recognizes him. Goncourt, E. Zola, G. Flaubert, I. Turgenev. Turgenev amazes him with his encyclopaedic knowledge. Children's memories of the connections of his relatives with Russia are surely emerging. His uncle Guillaume fled from revolutionary France and found himself in Russia. In St. Petersburg, he became the owner of a large store and the supplier of His Imperial Majesty. Then he was accused of conspiracy and exiled to Siberia. He fled, on the border with China he was caught and sent to penal servitude. Emperor Alexander I freed him, who ascended the throne. So since childhood, Alphonse Dode learned about Russia, and later also her literature, in particular the popular in France "Notes of a Hunter". And now he is short, in a friendly circle, communicating with their author, who after dinner can brilliantly comment on the works of Goethe. These meetings enrich the entire five authors, expanding their horizons. Turgenev was very appreciative of Dode. Here is how he spoke about his novels: "If" Fromona and Riesler "portray a straight line, then" Nabob "should be portrayed as WW, and the tops of these zigzags are only available to first-class talent."

Great social cloth

The novel "Nabob" (1877) was difficult to write. The writer portrayed the ubiquitous deception, which was covered with ostentatious good faith. Adventurers of all stripes were in power. They begged or bought themselves titles and titles, they found a warm place. Behind their external greatness lies an insignificant nature. The hero of the novel, Jansule, emerged from the pauper's family of rusty nails. He speculates in Tunisia and returns to France as a multimillionaire. In Paris, he expects to buy himself fame, recognition. But it is immediately surrounded by a crowd of experienced predators. In comparison with them, Zhansule is a miserable countryman. He is trying to bribe everyone to become a deputy. But, deceived by everyone, he dies alone. Otherwise, the fate of his former comrade is formed, and now the worst enemy is the banker Emerleng. He becomes one of the financiers of Paris.

Interest in modern life

He expressed himself in the writer in the novel "Sappho" (1884). Dode took one of the most shameful facts - prostitution, not to show piquant details, and then to reveal to the reader the depth of humiliation and suffering of women who are forced to trade their bodies. Before the reader there are portraits of sophisticated merchants of living goods, selfish and cruel. By exploiting these women, they easily abandon them, dooming them to misery and suffering. The usual destiny of the unfortunate is street, hunger, premature old age.

Alphonse Dode: quotes

Many expressions of the author went to the people and became aphorisms. You can list only a few:

• "Successfully ridiculed only those shortcomings that you have yourself."
• "The passing wind is sent to us by providence, and they do not resist".
• It's better to saw wood than to dream, at least the blood will not stagnate in the veins! "

Russian literature of the 19th century is brilliant and incomparable, especially since we read it in the original. But France in the same 19 century gave a galaxy of great writers, among which, undoubtedly, is the name of Alphonse Dode. A brief biography, reflected in his best works, is given in this article. He died at the age of 57 and is buried in the cemetery of Pere La Chaise.