This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By ALFRED DE VIGNY
With a Prefaces by CHARLES DE MAZADE, and GASTON BOISSIER of the French
Academy.
The reputation of Alfred de Vigny has endured extraordinary vicissitudesin France. First he was lauded as the precursor of French romanticpoetry and stately prose; then he sank in semi-oblivion, became thecuriosity of criticism, died in retirement, and was neglected for a longtime, until the last ten years or so produced a marked revolution oftaste in France. The supremacy of Victor Hugo has been, if notquestioned, at least mitigated; other poets have recovered from theirobscurity. Lamartine shines now like a lamp relighted; and the pure,brilliant, and profoundly original genius of Alfred de Vigny now takes,for the first time, its proper place as one of the main illuminatingforces of the nineteenth century.
It was not until one hundred years after this poet's birth that it becameclearly recognized that he is one of the most important of all the greatwriters of France, and he is distinguished not only in fiction, but alsoin poetry and the drama. He is a follower of Andre Chenier, Lamartine,and Victor Hugo, a lyric sun, a philosophic poet, later, perhaps inconsequence of the Revolution of 1830, becoming a "Symbolist." He hasbeen held to occupy a middle ground between De Musset and Chenier, but hehas also something suggestive of Madame de Stael, and, artistically, hehas much in common with Chateaubriand, though he is more coldlyimpersonal and probably much more sincere in his philosophy. If Sainte-Beuve, however, calls the poet in his Nouveaux Lundis a "beautiful angel,who has been drinking vinegar," then the modern reader needs a strongcaution against malice and raillery, if not jealousy and perfidy,although the article on De Vigny abounds otherwise with excessivecritical cleverness.
At times, indeed, under the cruel deceptions of love, he seemed to losefaith in his idealism; his pessimism, nevertheless, always remainednoble, restrained, sympathetic, manifesting itself not in appeals forcondolence, but in pitying care for all who were near and dear to him.Yet his lofty prose and poetry, interpenetrated with the stern despair ofpessimistic idealism, will always be unintelligible to the many. As apoet, De Vigny appeals to the chosen few alone. In his dramas his geniusis more emancipated from himself, in his novels most of all. It is bythese that he is most widely known, and by these that he exercised thegreatest influence on the literary life of his generation.
Alfred-Victor, Count de Vigny, was born in Loches, Touraine, March 27,1797. His father was an army officer, wounded in the Seven Years' War.Alfred, after having been well educated, also selected a military careerand received a commission in the "Mousquetaires Rouges," in 1814, whenbarely seventeen. He served until 1827, "twelve long years of peace,"then resigned. Already in 1822 appeared a volume of 'Poemes' which washardly noticed, although containing poetry since become important to theevolution of French verse: 'La Neige, le Coy, le Deluge, Elva, laFrigate', etc., again collected in 'Poemes antiques et modernes' (1826).Other poems were published after his death in 'Les Destinies' (1864).
Under the influence of Walter Scott, he wrote a historical romance in1