Biography Honore de Balzac
A lot of French writers know the world literature,
Honore de Balzac, a famous playwright, deserves special attention.
Born May 8 (20), 1799 in Tours, died August 6 (18), 1850 in
Paris.
He represents not only the peculiarities of his creative work, but also his very personality and literary career, a bright type of
writer who developed under the influence of the wide successes of
natural science and positive philosophy, among the harsh struggle and
fierce competition caused by the growth of industry. His life is
the story of a worker who, with an unquenchable energy, seeks to
get ahead, at whatever cost, to win fame and
fortune. His work is permeated with the desire to transfer methods
modern natural science into fiction, erase the
line separating literature from science. His father was a vulgar
materialist and left a number of works on social issues; above
all, he set the task of physically
with the help of the findings of natural science, dreamed of solving the social and
moral questions of his time.
The writer got his father’s outlook, his health and his
iron will. Having received his initial education first in the
provincial, then in the Paris college, Balzac stayed in the
capital when his father left with his family to the province. Deciding, contrary to the will of
his father, to devote himself to literature, he was almost without support from
side of the family. As his letters to his sister Laura show, this did not
stop him from being full of energy and ambitious plans. In his
wretched little room he dreamed of influence, fame and fortune, about the conquest of the
great city. Under a pseudonym, he wrote a series of novels that were devoid of
literary significance and were not included later in the complete
collection of his works.
In the process of life trials in the writer wakes up a projector and an
entrepreneur. Warning widely approved subsequently the
classics and produces (1825 – 1826) with his notes of Moliere and
Lafontaine. But his publications were not successful. Just unsuccessfully went
The printing and wording that he had started to
give to his companions.
Even more sad was Balzac’s trip to Sardinia, where he
dreamed of discovering the silver left there by the ancient Romans in
the mines they were developing. As a result of all these enterprises,
Balzac found himself in unpaid debts, forcing him to persistent
literary work. He writes novels, brochures on various issues,
collaborates in the magazines “Caricature” and “Silhouette.”
With the advent of his novel “Le dernier Chouane ou la Bretagne en
1800″ in 1829, Balzac’s fame begins. From this moment Balzac almost
does not leave the path, which he entered. One by one there are his
novels in which he depicts all aspects of French life,
deduces an endless string of the most diverse types, constitutes the
“greatest collection of documents on human nature.” He is a
typical artisan writer. Like Zola and in opposition to
romantics, poets-prophets, he does not wait for inspiration. He works
15 to 18 hours a day, sits at the table after midnight and almost does not
leave a pen until six o’clock next evening, interrupting work
only for a bath, breakfast, and especially for coffee, which is
supported by energy and which he himself carefully prepared and
used in huge quantities.
Novels “Shagreen Skin”, “Thirty Year Woman” and especially
“Eugene Grande” (1833), which appeared in the early thirties,
gave him a great reputation, and Balzac no longer have to
chase publishers. However, he fails to fulfill the dream of
wealth, despite his extraordinary fertility; he
sometimes releases several novels a year.
Of his famous novels, the most famous are: “The village doctor”, “In
search of the absolute”, “Father Gorio”, “Lost illusions”, “Rural
priest”, “Bachelor farm”, “Peasants”, “Cousin Pons”, “Cousin
Betta “.
He collected all the published novels, added to them a number of new ones, introduced
general heroes into them, related them to relatives,
grand epic, which he called “The Human Comedy”, and which
was supposed to serve as a scientific and artistic material for
studying the psychology of modern society.
Perhaps, the influence of the scientific spirit of the time on Balzac did not
affect anything as vividly as in his attempt to unite his
novels into one. In the preface to the “Human Comedy” he himself draws a
parallel between the laws of development of the animal world and human
society. Different types of animals represent only a modification of the
general type that arise depending on environmental conditions; so,
depending on the conditions of upbringing, the environment, etc.
, the same modifications of a person as a donkey, a cow, etc., are species of the general
animal type.
In addition to his novels, Balzac wrote a number of dramatic works; but
most of his dramas and comedies were not successful on stage.
For the purposes of scientific systematization, Balzac broke all this a huge
number of novels on the series. In 1833, Balzac received a letter from
an unknown Polish aristocrat Ghana, born Countess
Rzhevuska. Between the novelist and the admirer of his talent,
correspondence began (published the centenary of the birth of Balzac).
Balzac subsequently met several times Gansky, incidentally, in
St. Petersburg, where he visited in 1840. When Ghana was widowed, she
accepted Balzac’s proposal, but for several more years on different
reasons could not take place their wedding. Balzac carefully
decorated the apartment for himself and his wife, but when, finally, in March 1850
, the wedding took place in Berdichev, Balzac only a few
months left to enjoy family happiness and a relatively
secure existence, death was already waiting for him.
Balzac’s idea of the meaning of modern life, about the factors that
govern modern man, can best be
formulated in words that he puts into the mouth of the convict
Vautrin, who teaches the young student: “To jump out into people is the
task that 50,000 young people are trying to solve in your
situation And you are a unit in this amount.
you will need from you, what a fierce fight lies ahead! You will
devour each other like spiders! There are no principles, but events; and
there are no laws, but there are only circumstances to which an intelligent
person is fit to trade in their own way. Vice is now in force, and talents
are rare. Honesty is no good. It is necessary to crash into this crowd like a
bomb, or sneak into it like an ulcer. ”
His novels will forever remain the greatest collection of documents on the nineteenth
century – a collection in which all the corners of the life of this
industrial and materialistic age
are brightly illuminated. These are the main features of Balzac’s creativity and main features of his
world outlook
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