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Musset, (Louis-Charles) Alfred de
Musset, (Louis-Charles) Alfred de (1810–57), French poet and playwright of the Romantic era, and the one man who might have been able to fuse the new Romantic drama with the best of the classical tradition in the French theatre. Unfortunately the failure of his first play La Nuit vénitienne (1830) turned him against the stage, and for many years he wrote only plays to be read. It was not until 1847 that the Comédie-Française put on Un caprice, an immediate success which was followed in 1848 by Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée (A Door Should be Either Open or Shut) and Il ne faut jurer de rien (One Can Never be Sure of Anything). Although this encouraged Musset to write further plays for performance, and to revise some of his earlier ones for the same purpose, his real importance as a dramatist was realized only after his death. His plays show a delicacy and restraint quite unlike the work of his contemporaries Victor Hugo and Dumas père, suggesting rather the influence of Marivaux. They are either bitter-sweet comedies mingled with fantasy, such as Les Caprices de Marianne (perf. 1851) and On ne badine pas avec l'amour (There's no Trifling with Love) (perf. 1861), or scenes of social life usually illustrating some well-known saying, such as On ne saurait penser à tout (One Cannot Think of Everything, 1849). Musset's most important dramatic work, however, is the historical drama Lorenzaccio, written in 1834 after his tragic liaison with George Sand, about the assassination of Alexander de' Medici by his young cousin Lorenzo. In a drastically cut and rearranged version it was first staged in 1896 with Bernhardt in the leading role, a part often compared to Hamlet. There have been some important 20th-century productions of this play, notably in 1952 at the Avignon Festival, when Gérard Philipe both directed the play and appeared as Lorenzo, thus breaking the tradition which assigned the part to a woman. In 1933 an English version was produced in London as Night's Candles. Generally speaking, however, Musset's plays remain little known in England, probably because, like Marivaux, he does not translate easily.
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Cite this article
PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Musset, (Louis-Charles) Alfred de." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Musset, (Louis-Charles) Alfred de." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (February 10, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-MussetLouisCharlesAlfredd.html PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Musset, (Louis-Charles) Alfred de." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved February 10, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-MussetLouisCharlesAlfredd.html |
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Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset (Louis Charles Alfred de Musset) , 1810-57, French romantic poet, dramatist, and fiction writer. His first collection of poems, Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie (1829), exhibited a strong Byronic influence. Four years later he went to Italy with George Sand, but his infatuation with her resulted in disillusionment. Most of his poems appeared first in Revue des deux mondes; they included such famous pieces as the gloomy "Rolla" (1833) and the exquisite love lyrics "La Nuit de mai," "La Nuit d'août," "La Nuit d'octobre," and "La Nuit de décembre" (1835-36). His poetry combined classic clarity with the passionate subjectivity of the romantics. Among his plays are Fantasio (1834) and a series of comedies based on proverbs, including Il ne faut jurer de rien (1834) and On ne badine pas avec l'amour (1836). He also wrote some brilliant nouvelles, but from 1840 he passed rapidly into decline. The autobiographical novel Confession d'un enfant du siècle (1836), gives an account of his affair with George Sand and reflects the disillusioned mood of many of his contemporaries. His correspondence with George Sand appeared in 1904, and his work was translated in The Complete Writings of Alfred de Musset (10 vol., 1905; rev. ed. 1907).
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Cite this article
"Alfred de Musset." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Alfred de Musset." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. (February 10, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Musset-A.html "Alfred de Musset." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Musset-A.html |
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Musset, Alfred de
Musset, Alfred de (1810–57) French poet and playwright. He is best remembered for his poems which, after 1834, appeared in the periodical Revue des Deux Mondes. His four lyrics Les Nuits (1835–37) are the most famous of his poems.
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Cite this article
"Musset, Alfred de." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Musset, Alfred de." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (February 10, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-MussetAlfredde.html "Musset, Alfred de." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-MussetAlfredde.html |
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De Musset, Alfred
De Musset, Alfred, see MUSSET.
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Cite this article
PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "De Musset, Alfred." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "De Musset, Alfred." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (February 10, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-DeMussetAlfred.html PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "De Musset, Alfred." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved February 10, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-DeMussetAlfred.html |
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