Aloysius Bertrand
Aloysius Bertrand | |
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Gaspard de la Nuit |
Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, better known by his
Biography
Background
Born in
On 15 March 1812 Georges was appointed as gendarmerie
A young romantic
Louis Bertrand studied from 1818 to 1826 at the collège royal of
First trip to Paris and return to Dijon
Encouraged by a laudatory letter from Hugo following a poem published in the journal that he had dedicated to him and by recognition from Sainte-Beuve, he moved to Paris at the beginning of November 1828. He met Sainte-Beuve at the salon of Émile Deschamps and read some of his prose to him. But he felt ashamed of his social status and could not find a place among the Parisian romantics. He got sick in January 1829 and during Spring found a publisher, Sautelet, to publish his poems, but he went bankrupt in August.[10][6] He then got interested in the theatre and offered a play to the Vaudeville without success. After that, he decided to return to Dijon on 4 April 1830 and collaborated with the “Spectateur”, a newly-founded liberal newspaper. On 15 February 1831, under the name “Ludovic Bertrand”, he became chief editor of the newspaper “Patriote de la Côte-d’Or” until December 1832, in which he displayed his republican opinions with virulence[8][11]
Final years in Paris
In January 1833, he went back to Paris. Soon after, the publisher Eugène Renduel agreed to publish “Gaspard”, announcing even it would come out in October. He became a secretary for baron Roederer. He wrote “Peter Waldeck ou la chute d’un homme”, a play with chants in 3 acts and 6 tableaux inspired by the “Adventures of Martin Waldeck” by Walter Scott. In Spring of 1834, he met Célestine F., to whom he proposed. According to Jacques Bony, his mother did not agree to the union, according to Max Milner his love was one-sided. Between 1835 and 1837, he was in serious financial difficulties and had to borrow money from a lot of people. He contracted tuberculosis[8] and was admitted to Notre-Dame de la Pitié on 18 September 1838 where he remained until 13 May 1839 before being transferred to l’hôpital Saint-Antoine where he stayed until 24 November.[7] In October 1839, a publisher had agreed to publish “Gaspard de la Nuit” and even printed flyers announcing its upcoming publication but the project never came to an end while Bertrand was alive. In 1840, he believed he was cured of the disease and started to write verse again. He tried at last to contact the publisher in hopes of finally publishing his manuscript on 5 October, but the publisher had stopped his activity.
Sickness forced him to go back to the hospital on 11 March 1841. He died there in the morning on 29 April 1841. His close family, mother and sister, did not come to the hospital, nor did they attend his funeral. His mother died in 1854.
Posterity
“Gaspard de la Nuit” was finally published in November 1842. It sold 20 copies. However, this edition was full of mistakes due to an inaccurate copy of the manuscript. In 1925, Bertrand Guégan published a new edition from an original manuscript that corrected most of the mistakes. It is only in 1992, when an original calligraphed manuscript was acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale, that the book could be published according to the will of its author, with an accurate display of the text and illustrations. In 1862,
References
- ^ Stuart Friebert and David Young (eds.) Models of the Universe: An Anthology of the Prose Poem. (1995)
- ^ Cargill Sprietsma, Louis Bertrand dit Aloysius Bertrand, 1807-1841 : Une vie romantique, 1926, p. 3.
- ^ Henri Corbat, Hantise et imagination chez Aloysius Bertrand, José Corti, 1975, p. 22
- ^ René Gibaudan, La Lyre mystérieuse : Gérard de Nerval, Aloysius Bertrand, Maurice de Guérin, Théophile Gautier, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, éditions du Scorpion, 1965, p. 46.
- ^ Fernand Rude, Aloysius Bertrand, P. Seghers, 1971, p. 182
- ^ a b c d Voir la chronologie de Gaspard de la Nuit, présentation de Jacques Bony, Garnier-Flammarion, 2005, p. 428-430.
- ^ a b c Chronologie de Gaspard de la nuit, présentation de Max Milner, Garnier-Flammarion, 2005, p. 303-308.
- ^ a b c d Felizitas Ringham, « Bertrand, Aloysius (Louis) - 1807-1841 » in Christopher John Murray (dir.), Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, p. 83-85.
- ^ Henri Corbat, Hantise et imagination chez Aloysius Bertrand, José Corti, 1975, p. 169
- ^ Jean Bonnerot, Bibliographie de l'œuvre de Sainte-Beuve, L. Giraud-Badin, 1952, p. 303.
- ^ Fernand Rude, Aloysius Bertrand, P. Seghers, 1971, p. 27, and Cargill Sprietsma, Louis Bertrand dit Aloysius Bertrand, 1807-1841 : Une vie romantique, 1926, p. 234
- ^ Charles Baudelaire, Lettre à Arsène Houssaye, Noël 1861, Correspondance, tome II, éd Cl. Pichois, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1973, p. 208.
- ^ Fernand Rude, Aloysius Bertrand, P. Seghers, 1971, p. 60
- ^ Marvin Richards, Without Rhyme Or Reason, p. 122.
- Max Milner (1960). Le Diable dans la littérature française de Cazotte à Baudelaire. José Corti., 2 volumes.
External links
- Works by Aloysius Bertrand at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Aloysius Bertrand at Internet Archive
- Works by Aloysius Bertrand at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Valentina Gosetti, Aloysius Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit: Beyond the Prose Poem (Legenda: MHRA & Routledge, 2016)