Alexandre Dumas, fils

Alexandre Dumas the Younger, Dumas fils, ( born July 27, 1824 in Paris, † November 27, 1895 in Marly -le- Roi ) was a French novelist and dramatist. He was the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas the Elder and Marie -Catherine Labay, a seamstress.

Life

Dumas struck 17 -year-old, after he had left the Collège Bourbon, the writing career with the poetry Péchés de jeunesse ( " sins of youth " ) that his father accompanied on its journey through Spain and North Africa, and on his return published the six -volume novel Histoire de quatre femmes et d'un perroquet (1847 ), which aroused the curiosity of the audience.

Dumas ' most famous work is The Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux Camellias ), a realistic, less idealized story of an early died of consumption Parisian courtesan. Despite difficulties with the censorship of the novel was an extraordinary success. After trimming of the work to a stage play its popularity grew even more: The 1852 work for the first time listed at the Théâtre du Vaudeville experienced without interruption for more than 100 performances. Giuseppe Verdi took the subject for his opera La Traviata.

The French actress Sarah Bernhardt played from 1880, the Lady of the Camellias in the play and thus celebrated in Europe and the U.S. with great success. The piece was characterized by extremely sharp observation of social conditions, safe treatment of dramatic form and a lively, sparkling dialogue; but after former considers the glorification and rehabilitation of vice was morally questionable. In 1911 Dumas ' La Dame aux Camelias was filmed with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role for the first time. In another film version, directed by George Cukor Greta Garbo played the lead role in 1937.

In the two later plays Diane de Lys ( 1853) and Le demi - monde (1855 ) treated the poet almost the same subject, but in a much satirischerer intent and more to hold a mirror to the type of comic poet of his time.

Dumas is considered one of the founders of the society drama, and he sat down in almost all his plays with social and societal problems apart. The position of women took it a special role. So he dealt with the rights and obligations of the wife and the mistakes of the relevant legislation and social perception in the novel L'affaire Clemenceau (1864 ) and in several pamphlets, as Lettres sur les choses du jour, L' homme - femme, Tue - la!, Les femmes qui tuent et les femmes qui votent ( 1872-80 ), and divorce in the larger polemic Le (1880 ).

In 1875, Dumas was admitted to the Académie Française in 1894 he became a member of the Legion of Honour.

The Dumas as unassuming and helpful force for his friends personally enjoyed widespread popularity. In 1864 he married Nadezhda Naryshkina, with whom he had two daughters. After Naryschkinas death in 1895 he married Henriette Régnier de La Brière and died the same year on November 27 in Marly -le- Roi.

Works

• Le roman d'une femme (1848 )
• Césarine (1848 )
• Lady of the Camellias (1848, 1852 worked as a theater piece, 1853 by Giuseppe Verdi as a template for the opera " La Traviata " is used )
• Le docteur Servans (1849 )
• Antonine (1849 )
• Trois hommes forts ( 1850)
• Tristan le Roux ( 1850)
• Diane de Lys ( 1851)
• Les Revenants (1852 )
• Le régent Mustel (1852 )
• Contes et nouvelles (1853 )
• Sophie Printemps (1853 )
• La boîte d' argent (1855 )
• Vie à vingt ans ( 1856)
• Le fils naturel (1858 )
• Père prodigue (1859 )
• L' ami des femmes (1864 )
• L'affaire Clemenceau (1864 )
• Le supplice d'une femme (1865 )
• Héloise Paranquet (1866 )
• Les idées de Madame Aubray (1867 )
• Une visite de noces (1871 )
• La princesse Georges ( 1871)
• La femme de Claude ( 1873)
• Monsieur Alphonse (1873 )
• L' étrangère (1877 )