Childhood Empire was at its height when born in Paris in December 1810, Alfred de Musset in an old aristocratic family, his father is a scholar, he is the author of a history of life and works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
He and his older brother Paul, a happy childhood and pampered. It is entrusted to the age of nine years a tutor and then entered the College Henri IV where he was a brilliant student. He won first prize in French essay and the second prize Latin essay contest general in 1827. He becomes the friend of the Duc de Chartres, son of the future King Louis-Philippe, and Paul Foucher, brother of Victor Hugo, who will introduce the Cenacle romantic.
passionate young man, Alfred de Musset is also a poet early, in September 1827 he wrote in a letter to Paul Foucher: "I would not write or I would be Schiller and Shakespeare."
artist
Sometimes called "the enfant terrible of Romanticism," independent spirit, however Musset embodies the evil of the century romantic. His poetic, dramatic and romantic eats his unfortunate experiences. It also makes the idea that suffering is needed to create poetic (cf. "The Pelican" in the May Night ).
His collection of poems (Stories from Spain and Italy, is well received by critics but its his play The Venetian Night, played the next year is a failure.
Like many of his heroes, ( octave in Les Caprices ... , Lorenzo Lorenzaccio ), Musset practice of debauchery and intemperance. Anticlerical, he had said, the religion of love. His connections were numerous and varied but still intense. " In whatever place I was, says the hero of Confession of a child of the century, some occupation that I forced myself, I could think only of women: the sight of a woman made me tremble ... However, I thought only women and I no longer believed in the possibility of true love . "
This contradiction is at the heart of many works of the author and his" failures "in love. Many women through the life of Musset. Each time, it was elation and heartbreak. Met in 1833, George Sand was at that time, as Musset, "Infamous" in the words of Philip Soupault. Their love, emblematic of Romanticism was a long series moments of grace and heartbreak, places of choice (the forest of Fontainebleau and Venice ...) and passionate letters. "No man ever loved as I love you, Alfred wrote to George, I'm lost, you see, I'm drowned, flooded with love ... you have another lover, I know. J ' but die in love, love. "
In the years following this link, Musset published his masterpieces No Trifling with Love and Lorenzaccio in 1834, the May Night and the Night of December (two poems) in 1835 and Confession of a Child of the Century (novel about the evil of the century) in 1836.
The decline
From 1840 the literary production of Musset seems to dry up. His health is deteriorating and neurasthenia (depression) are increasing. His excesses there are probably no strangers.
Moreover, the indifference he now meets with critics and artists, although, after many failures, elected to the French Academy in 1852, probably contributes to his dejection.
The writers of the generation, regard him as the symbol of the excesses of romanticism (excess pathetic emphasis ...).
"I've never been able to endure this master of the dandies, the impudence of a spoiled child who relies on the Heaven and Hell for the adventures of breakfast, the muddy torrent of grammar and prosody" , wrote Baudelaire without indulgence.
Only a few dramatic late success, from the representation of a whim in 1847, will inform a purpose of existence was probably, as stated in his best friend Alfred Tattet, "a hideous suicide." Musset died in 1857, he was forty-seven. According to his vow, he will be buried in Pere-Lachaise in the protective shadow a willow.
Biographical greatly inspired by a dam Etienne Calais No Trifling with Love, Alfred de Musset , et al. "Tags", Nathan, 1992.
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