Alexandre Dumas: biography, influences, works

alexanderDumas, French writer, was born on July 24, 1802. Began his writing career as a playwright and, in 1829, he experienced his first great success with the pieceHenry III and his court. He was also successful as a novelist.. His three most famous novels are:

• The three Musketeers
• Queen Margot
• Count of Monte Cristo

So the author, one of the few consecrated black writers of his time, became known worldwide.

Dumas is linked to romanticism French. His works, therefore, are characterized by the nationalism, heroism, sentimentality and loving idealization, as you can see in The three Musketeers, in which the hero D’Artagnan he fights against the enemies of France, while seeking to be happy with his beloved Constance. Thus, the novelist and playwright, who died on December 5, 1870, received influences from authors such as Shakespeare, Chateaubriand and Goethe.

Read too: Maria Firmina dos Reis – writer of romanticism in Brazil

Alexandre Dumas Biography

Alexandre Dumas and Adah Menken.

Alexandre Dumas

was born in Villers-Cotterêts, France, inJuly 24, 1802. He was grandson of an enslaved woman, Marie-Cessette Dumas, and lost her father when she was three years old. His youth was marked by financial difficulties. So, in 1816, worked as a notary and, in 1823, he moved to Paris, where he got a job in the office of the duke d'orleans (1773-1850), while also writing for the theater.

Thus, in 1829, Dumas met success with his theatrical play Henry III and his court. The following year, he participated in the Revolution of 1830, responsible for the abdication of Charles X (1757-1836). In the next few years, he wrote other successful plays, traveled to Switzerland, where he met François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848), precursor of French romanticism, as well as traveling to Italy, Belgium and Germany.

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In 1844, the writer published his three Affairs most successful:

• The three Musketeers
• Queen Margot
• Count of Monte Cristo

He was already a renowned playwright, but his novels made him even more famous, being one of the rare black writers of success in its time. World-renowned, he traveled to Spain and Africa in 1846. In Paris, he opened his own theatre, which he called the Historical Theater, and ordered the construction of the castle of Monte Cristo, in Port-Marly, in 1847.

That same year, he became commander ofSaint-Germain-en-Laye National Guard. However, after spending on the theater and the castle, Alexandre Dumas found himself again in financial complications. So, in 1849, his castle was auctioned and, in 1850, the writer he was sued for debts and witnessed the bankruptcy of his Historic Theater. To escape creditors, in 1851, he took refuge in Brussels and the following year he traveled to Holland and Germany, returning to Paris two years later.

In 1857 he visited his friend, the romantic writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885), who was in exile in Guernsey, later traveled to England and again to Germany, as well as living in Russia in 1858. adventurer, supported Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), in 1860, in favor of the liberation of Italy, so he bought weapons for his troops. With the victory of the Italian revolutionary, Dumas was named director of the National Museum in Naples, where he lived until 1864, when he returned to France.

During the year 1865 he traveled to Austria and Hungary. He returned to Italy in 1866 and in 1867 was seen and photographed with his mistress Adah Menken (1835-1868), an American actress, painter and poet. The romance generated scandal, mainly due to the age difference between them. That same year, the novelist returned to Germany. Three years later, he traveled to Spain and then moved to the village where his son, also a writer, lived. Alexandre Dumas Filho (1824-1895), near Dieppe, where he died, in December 5, 1870.

Literary Characteristics of Alexandre Dumas

the novelist and playwrightAlexandre Dumas is an author of french romanticism. His works, therefore, present the following features:

• Subjectivity
• Nationalism
• Heroism
• bucolicism
• Theocentrism
• adventures
• loving suffering
• exaggerated sentimentality
• Values bourgeois
• idealized love
• Defense of freedom
• idealized woman
• Use of exclamations and hyperboles

Read too: Romanticism in Brazil – characteristics and generations

Influences on your works

• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

In your rehearsal — how I became a playwright (1863) —, Alexandre Dumas states about Shakespeare: “After God, Shakespeare was the one who created the most”. Thus, the playwright, poet and actor, considered the greatest writer in the english language, author of pieces like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, king lear, the tame shrew and Othello, it was great influence on dramaturgy of Dumas.

• François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848)

considered a pre-romantic, Chateaubriand influenced the first writers of French romanticism, such as Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo. Chateaubriand, in addition to being a writer, was a diplomat and was actively involved in French politics. Your book watchtower (1801) is considered the great inspiration for the beginning of romanticism in France.

• Goethe (1749-1832)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of the founders of german romanticism and an influence on a whole generation of romantics, not just at home. With the publication of The sufferings of young Werther (1774), your author became known throughout Europe and later became a global literary influence.

• Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (1762-1806)

Son of a white marquis and an enslaved woman, Alexandre Dumas' father was the first black personto become general in the French army. It is known that, in 1784, when he was in a theatre, accompanied by a white woman, he was insulted by a white officer.

The young man, then 22, protested, so the officer's friends forced him to kneel down and apologize. This fact marked the general's life and influenced his son in the creation of characters that overcome obstacles and do not admit injustices.

See too: José de Alencar – one of the main representatives of Brazilian romanticism

Works by Alexandre Dumas

Cover of the book “Os Três Musqueteiros”, by Alexandre Dumas, published by the publisher Zahar, of the Companhia das Letras group. [1]

• Affairs

• Eppstein's castle (1843)
• The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)
• the Corsican brothers (1844)
• The three Musketeers (1844)
• Queen Margot (1844)
• twenty years later (1845)
• the knight of Maison-Rouge (1845)
• Memoirs of a Doctor (1846-1853), in four volumes
• The Viscount of Bragelonne (1847)
• the forty five (1847)
• Joseph Balsam (1849)
• the queen's necklace (1849)
• the black tulip (1850)
• Ange Pitou (1851)
• The Countess of Charny (1853)
• Garibaldi's Memories (1860)

• Theater performances

• Henry III and his court (1829)
• Antony (1831)
• Carlos VII among his great vassals (1831)
• Richard Darlington (1832)
• Teresa (1832)
• Nesle's Tower (1832)
• Catherine Howard (1834)
• Don Juan de Marana or the fall of an angel (1836)
• Kean (1836)
• Caligula (1838)
• Paul Jones (1838)
• Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle (1839)
• Lorenzino (1842)
• Louise Bernard (1843)
• Gabriel Lambert (1844)
• catiline (1848)

The three Musketeers

The work The three Musketeers é one of Alexandre Dumas' most famous books. the protagonist is D’Artagnan, a 20-year-old man whose ambition is to be one of the king's musketeers Louis XIII (1601-1643).

In Paris, D'Artagnan meets Athos, Porthos and Aramis, Musketeers much admired by him. However, like a typical romantic novel, the narrative is not just heroes, but also villains: Cardinal Richelieu and Milady (ex-wife of Athos). Plus, of course, an impossible love story. the protagonist falls in love with a married woman — Constance Bonacieux, the maid to Queen Anne of Austria (1601-1666).

Dumas' book can be considered a historical novel, for there were in fact Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), Louis XIII of France, Queen Anne of Austria, George Villiers — Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628), the heroes D'Artagnan (1611-1673), Athos (1615-1643), Porthos (1617-?) and Aramis, by example.

However, there is also fictional characters, such as Constance Bonacieux, Milady de Winter, among others. Thus, Alexandre Dumas mixes historical events and characters with fictional events and characters, and creates a work full of intrigues and adventures, in which villains seek power, and heroes, honor and justice.

Richelieu is the Prime Minister of Louis XIII. In the novel, he unscrupulously conspires in favor of personal interests. Thus, the war between France and England is fomented by Richelieu not for reasons of sovereignty and patriotism, but because of their enmity with the Duke of Buckingham:

“Anyway, the two most powerful nations in Europe were fighting for the will of two hate-filled nobles. Nonsense that only absolute power could explain.”|1|

The cardinal has a partner, Winter Milady or Lady Clark, an assassin who has a fleur-de-lis on her shoulder, made with hot iron, which indicates that she is a traitor. her real name is Anne de Bueil, an extremely beautiful, seductive and intelligent woman. The Count of La Fère (ie Athos) falls in love with her. They marry, and the wife is given the title of countess.

However, she soon finds a lover whom she convinces to kill the Count of La Fère. Thus, the husband suffers an attack and is presumed dead. Anne then hires another assassin to kill her lover. Job done, she herself kills her lover's murderer. Upon being discovered, she is sentenced to death, but still manages to seduce the jailer, who helps her escape. Later, with a new name, she joins the cardinal.

In this way, the novel brings historical and political elements of France absolutist, in the midst of feelings of honor, love and passion, in addition to adventures, as D'Artagnan's trip to England to protect the queen, victim of the evil plot of Richelieu and Milady de Winter, who seek to prove an affair between Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham; Or the Battle of La Rochelle, in the war of the French against the English. In the end, the union between the Musketeer friends prevails, whose motto is: “One for all, and all for one!”.

Note

|1| Translated by André Telles and Rodrigo Lacerda.

Image credit

[1] Companhia das Letras (reproduction)

by Warley Souza
Literature teacher