Le Charivari (The Hullabaloo). Year 2, No. 333 (Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1833) Paris. Paperback Quarto, 4 pp.
The satirical magazine Charivari was one of the most vocal opponents of the July Monarchy, repeatedly prosecuted by the government for sedition and libel against the King. It served as the model for the famous British satire magazine Punch, which was subtitled "The London Charivari".
Founded by the political cartoonist Charles Phillipon, the journal attracted many of the leading Romanticist illustrators, caricaturists and draftsmen, including Bouzingo co-founder Célestin Nanteuil, Honoré Daumier, Tony Johannot, and Grandville (many of whose work can be found in elsewhere in the Revenant Archive), and would later become one of the key links between visual Romanticism and Realism. Oddly, the only drawings contained in this issue are a series of tiny naturalistic tableaux of "Various Little Subjects" as the title indicates, signed 'Jules 1831' in tiny lettering. Other features include a satirical comedy sketch about the National Guard, a fake gossip column about the hated government minister Tallyrand, an actual gossip column with bits of news about the Romantic poet Lamartine and career politician Thiers, a column of assorted topical one-liner jokes, a poem entitled "Political Cipher", some barbs thrown in debates with various other newspapers, and a listing of the plays currently showing at each of the city's 19 theatres (among which are included the Diorama and Panorama).
For the Revenant Archive's mandate, the main interest in this issue is a review of the novel Ainsi soit-il: Histoire du coeur (So Be It: Story of the Heart), by Alphonse Brot, co-founder of the Bouzingo. Brot is one of the more obscure writers of this obscure group, and this is one of the few traces of his activity and reputation during its lifespan--four years after he first described himself and his comrades in print as "the avant-garde of Romanticism".
O'Neddy–one of Brot's oldest friends in the Romanticist community–later recalled that his work was considered too conservative by his comrades (he was attempting to merge Classicism and Romanticism, a feat that would not find support in the avant-garde for another decade). The anonymous reviewer here also notes that Brot's plot–a love triangle between an aging Napoleonic general, his son, and her fiancé–is conventional, but praises the novel for the way in which the plot is handled: "But the happy, truly original idea of Mr. Alphonse Brot's novel, is to have summoned all of the interest onto [the General] Luigi's passion. Everywhere else, amorous old lechers are almost constantly ridiculed . . . Things pass more humanely in So Be It. One sensed that the love of a young man, beneath the withered features of the old man, was something tragic rather than clownish..."
At the end of the positive review, the reviewer notes that he has criticized Brot in the past for his "forced situations" and "pretentious style" (both, especially the latter, probably referring to Frenetic / avant-garde elements) and congratulates Brot on reigning the novel in to a more acceptable standard of naturalism and common language, adding that, "we expect still more from Alphonse Brot's talent." We can glimpse here some of the critical pressure exerted upon those in the avant-garde to conform their work to the consolidating expectations of the literary market, visible elsewhere in the review of Gautier's Les Jeumes-France in Revenant Archive's copy of Les Temps, published less than two months before this.
Indeed, Brot's short Preface to So Be It (link above) is worth reading if one knows french; it responds to past criticisms of his previous books, relates his present work to it, and lays out his future plans, eliciting further comment. In his 1829 Chants d'amour (Songs of Love) he floated a passage from a projected play in verse, promising to complete it if the public showed interest; apparently it did not, because it never appeared and in fact Brot stopped writing verse. He did successfully conform to market demands and went on to a successful literary career, his seminal role in founding the avant-garde largely forgotten even before his death; but since then he has disappeared entirely from cultural memory, even in France. Other items in the archive relating to Brot include his novels reproduced in L'Écho des Feuilletons in the "Anthologies" section, his collaborative novel Le Déesse Raison (The Goddess Reason) in "Literature," and an 1880 promotional card for the latter novel, in "Ephemera".
O'Neddy–one of Brot's oldest friends in the Romanticist community–later recalled that his work was considered too conservative by his comrades (he was attempting to merge Classicism and Romanticism, a feat that would not find support in the avant-garde for another decade). The anonymous reviewer here also notes that Brot's plot–a love triangle between an aging Napoleonic general, his son, and her fiancé–is conventional, but praises the novel for the way in which the plot is handled: "But the happy, truly original idea of Mr. Alphonse Brot's novel, is to have summoned all of the interest onto [the General] Luigi's passion. Everywhere else, amorous old lechers are almost constantly ridiculed . . . Things pass more humanely in So Be It. One sensed that the love of a young man, beneath the withered features of the old man, was something tragic rather than clownish..."
At the end of the positive review, the reviewer notes that he has criticized Brot in the past for his "forced situations" and "pretentious style" (both, especially the latter, probably referring to Frenetic / avant-garde elements) and congratulates Brot on reigning the novel in to a more acceptable standard of naturalism and common language, adding that, "we expect still more from Alphonse Brot's talent." We can glimpse here some of the critical pressure exerted upon those in the avant-garde to conform their work to the consolidating expectations of the literary market, visible elsewhere in the review of Gautier's Les Jeumes-France in Revenant Archive's copy of Les Temps, published less than two months before this.
Indeed, Brot's short Preface to So Be It (link above) is worth reading if one knows french; it responds to past criticisms of his previous books, relates his present work to it, and lays out his future plans, eliciting further comment. In his 1829 Chants d'amour (Songs of Love) he floated a passage from a projected play in verse, promising to complete it if the public showed interest; apparently it did not, because it never appeared and in fact Brot stopped writing verse. He did successfully conform to market demands and went on to a successful literary career, his seminal role in founding the avant-garde largely forgotten even before his death; but since then he has disappeared entirely from cultural memory, even in France. Other items in the archive relating to Brot include his novels reproduced in L'Écho des Feuilletons in the "Anthologies" section, his collaborative novel Le Déesse Raison (The Goddess Reason) in "Literature," and an 1880 promotional card for the latter novel, in "Ephemera".
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