Ernest Legouvé

Gabriel Jean Baptiste Ernest Wilfrid Legouvé ( born February 14, 1807 in Paris, † March 14, 1903 ) was a French novelist and playwright.

Legouvé was the son of writer Gabriel -Marie Legouvé. When his mother died in 1810, his father fell into depression and was soon admitted it forever in a mental hospital. The playwright Jean Nicolas Bouilly, a friend of his father, became his guardian and later promoted him as a mentor.

Legouvé acquired in 1827 with a poem on the art of book printing an award from the French Academy and then entered as a novelist with the books Max ( 1833) and Edith de Falsen (1840 ) before the public, but without much success.

Only a series of lectures he as a lecturer at the Collège de France on the history of women held in 1847 and later in the works: Histoire morale de la femme ( 7th ed 1882) and La femme en France au XIX. siècle (1864 ) published, attracted the participation of the educated public, and turned him especially the part thereof to which forms henceforth his most faithful attachment, the women of the upper classes.

The Académie française in 1855 Legouvé elected to succeed the late 1854 writer Jacques -François Ancelot ( fauteuil 30).

Four weeks after his 96th birthday Legouvé Ernest died on 14 March 1903 in Paris and found his final resting place.

Reception

From the public as well as of literary criticism and his non-fiction books were taken. This often resulted from the subjects of his lectures to keep the Legouvé many years regularly used. With Messieurs les enfants his work, a eulogy of the French child, he won the hearts of all mothers in 1855. But works such as La science de la famille (1867 ) found an enthusiastic audience.

Legouvés plays were adapted to contemporary tastes and almost all soon forgotten. The fact that some pieces survived was due to the female leading ladies, which Legouvé had the roles written on the body of Mademoiselle Mars ( Louise de Lignerolles ), Elisa Rachel ( Adrienne Lecouvreur ) or Adelaide Ristori ( Medea ). His play Les deux pure de France was created in 1865, was released by the censor but only after the Franco-German war, and could then be listed in 1872.

Honors

Works (selection)

• Soixante ans de souvenirs. Hetzel, Paris 1886/87 ( 2 vols ).

• Mort's bizarre. Poèmes dramatiques. Fournier, Paris, 1832.

• Max Guyot, Paris 1833.
• Édith de Falsen. Dumont, Paris 1840.
• Beatrix, ou la madonne de l'art. 2nd edition, Hachette, Paris, 1865.

• Bataille de dames. Calman - Lévy, Paris 1882 ( UA Comédie Française, Paris March 17, 1851 ). The Women's War. Comedy in three acts. Reclam, Leipzig 1916.

• The tale of the Queen of Navarre. Comedy in five acts. Reclam, Leipzig 1874.

• All through conquest. Comedy in three Acts of. Lell - Verlag, Wien 1855.

• The Grille at the ants. Comedy in one act of publishing authors, Frankfurt / M. 1993 ( together with Eugène Labiche ).

• Les enfants au pères et les XIX. siècle. Paris 1867/69 ( 2 vols )
• Nos fils et filles nos. Hetzel, Paris, 1879.
• L'art de lecture. 2nd Ed Hetzel, Paris 1881.
• La lecture en action. Hetzel, Paris 1881.
• La lecture en famille. Hetzel, Paris 1883.

• Oeuvres de Scribe et Legouvé. Heitz, Strassburg 1913/15 ( 3 vols )
• Théâtre complet. Ollendorff, Paris 1900 ( 3 vols ).