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1901 edition of The Works of Honoré de Balzac, including the entire Comédie humaine
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La Comédie humaine (French: [la kɔmediː ymɛːn]; English: The Human Comedy) is
Honoré de Balzac's 1829–48 multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and
stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the
July Monarchy (1830–48).
A pioneer of the modern novel, Balzac aims to describe the totality of reality and
is interested in realities thitherto ignored in literature, because they were ugly
or vulgar. He shows in its various forms the rise of capitalism and the omnipotence
of money, leading to the disappearance of nobility and the dissolution of social
ties. The title was chosen in reference to Dante's Divine Comedy. But instead of a
theological enterprise, the author wanted to be a sociologist and created a non-
Manichean universe, where love and friendship hold a great place, and which
highlights the complexity of beings and the deep immorality of a social mechanism
where the weak are crushed while the crooked banker and the venal politician
triumph.
Gifted with a genius for observation, Balzac created human types that are
strikingly true. Some of his characters are so vivid that they have become
archetypes, such as Rastignac, the ambitious young provincial, Grandet, the miserly
domestic tyrant, or Father Goriot, the icon of fatherhood. He gives an important
place to financiers and notaries, but also to the character of Vautrin, the outlaw
with multiple identities. His work includes a large proportion of courtesans and
grisettes, alongside admirable and angelic women. The importance he gives to these
women and their psychology earned him an enthusiastic female readership very early
on.
In spite of the opposition of the Church, this work quickly became a printing
phenomenon and obtained an immense repercussion in France and in Europe, deeply
influencing the genre of the novel. Translated into many languages, it is still
published today and has often been adapted for film and television.
Contents
1 The title
2 Evolution of the work
3 The "Avant-propos"
4 Sources of the Comédie humaine
4.1 The historical novel
4.2 The popular novel
4.3 Fantasy
4.4 Swedenborg
5 Themes of the Comédie humaine
5.1 France after the Revolution
5.2 Money and power
5.3 Social success
5.4 Paternity
5.5 Maternity
5.6 Women, society and sex
6 Structure of La Comédie humaine
6.1 Studies of manners (Études de moeurs)
6.1.1 Scenes from private life (Scènes de la vie privée)
6.1.2 Scenes from provincial life (Scènes de la vie de province)
6.1.2.1 The Celibates (Les Célibataires)
6.1.2.2 Parisians in the Country (Les Parisiens en province)
6.1.2.3 The Jealousies of a Country Town (Les Rivalités)
6.1.2.4 Lost Illusions (Illusions perdues)
6.1.3 Scenes from Parisian life (Scènes de la vie parisienne)
6.1.3.1 The Thirteen (Histoire des Treize)
6.1.3.2 Poor Relations (Les parents pauvres)
6.1.4 Scenes from political life (Scènes de la vie politique)
6.1.5 Scenes from military life (Scènes de la vie militaire)
6.1.6 Scenes from country life (Scènes de la vie de campagne)
6.2 Philosophical studies (Études philosophiques)
6.3 Analytical studies (Études analytiques)
7 Characters
7.1 Recurring characters
7.2 Characters in a single volume
7.3 See also
8 References and notes
9 External links
The title
The title of the series is usually considered an allusion to Dante's Divine Comedy;
[2] while Ferdinand Brunetière, the famous French literary critic, suggests that it
may stem from poems by Alfred de Musset or Alfred de Vigny.[3] While Balzac sought
the comprehensive scope of Dante, his title indicates the worldly, human concerns
of a realist novelist. The stories are placed in a variety of settings, with
characters reappearing in multiple stories.
In 1833, with the publication of Eugénie Grandet, Balzac envisioned a second series
entitled "Scènes de la vie de province" (Scenes from Provincial Life). Most likely
in this same year Balzac came upon the idea of having characters reappear from
novel to novel, and the first novel to use this technique was Le Père Goriot (1834–
35).
By 1836, the "Etudes de Moeurs" was already divided into six parts:
Balzac's intended collection was never finished. In 1845, Balzac wrote a complete
catalogue of the ensemble which includes works he started or envisioned but never
finished. In some cases, Balzac moved a work around between different sections as
his overall plan developed; the catalogue given below represents that last version
of that process.
Balzac's works were slow to be translated into English because they were perceived
as unsuitable for Victorian readers. John Wilson Croker attacked it in the April
1836 issue of the Quarterly Review, excoriating Balzac for immorality, saying "a
baser, meaner, filthier scoundrel never polluted society …" The consensus of the
day was that only Eugénie Grandet, Le Curé de Tours, Le Médecin de campagne and a
few of the early short stories were suitable for females.[4] Individual works
appeared, but not until the 1890s did "complete" versions appear, from Ellen
Marriage in London (1895–8, forty volumes edited by George Saintsbury, five omitted
as too shocking) and from G. B. Ives and others in Philadelphia (1895–1900).[5]
The "Avant-propos"
In 1842, Balzac wrote a preface (an "Avant-propos") to the whole ensemble in which
he explained his method and the collection's structure.
Balzac then gives an extensive list of writers and works that influenced him,
including Sir Walter Scott, François Rabelais and Miguel de Cervantes.
In the last half of his preface, Balzac explains the Comédie humaine's different
parts (which he compares to "frames" and "galeries"), and which are more or less
the final form of the collection (see below).
Although the bulk of the Comédie humaine takes place during the Restoration and the
July Monarchy, there are several novels which take place during the French
Revolution and others which take place in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance,
including "About Catherine de Medici" and "The Elixir of Long Life".
Fantasy
Many of Balzac's shorter works have elements taken from the popular "roman noir" or
gothic novel, but often the fantastic elements are used for very different purposes
in Balzac's work.
His use of the magical ass' skin in La Peau de chagrin for example becomes a
metaphor for diminished male potency and a key symbol of Balzac's conception of
energy and will in the modern world.
In a similar way, Balzac undermines the character of Melmoth the Wanderer in his
"Melmoth Reconciled": Balzac takes a character from a fantastic novel (by Charles
Robert Maturin) who has sold his soul for power and long life and has him sell his
own power to another man in Paris... this man then sells this gift in turn and very
quickly the infernal power is traded from person to person in the Parisian stock
exchange until it loses any of its original power.
Swedenborg
Several of Balzac's characters, particularly Louis Lambert, traverse mystical
crises and/or develop syncretic spiritual philosophies about human energy and
action that are largely modelled on the life and work of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–
1772). As depicted in his works, Balzac's spiritual philosophy suggests that
individuals have a limited quantity of spiritual energy and that this energy is
dissipated through creative or intellectual work or through physical activity
(including sex), and this is made emblematic in his philosophical tale La Peau de
chagrin, in which a magical wild ass's skin confers on its owner unlimited powers,
but shrinks each time it is used in science.
The other source of power is rank. People of good blood aspire to a title, while
people with titles aspire to the peerage. The opening section of The Secrets of the
Princess Cadignan provides an explanation of why the title of prince is not
prevalent nor coveted in France (compared to contemporary Germany or Russia).
Social success
Two young men dominate the Comédie humaine: Lucien de Rubempré and Eugène de
Rastignac. Both are talented but poor youths from the provinces, both attempt to
achieve greatness in society through the intercession of women and both come into
contact with Vautrin, but only Rastignac succeeds while Lucien de Rubempré ends his
life by his own hand in a jail in Paris. The difference in outcome is partly
explained by Balzac's views on heredity: Rastignac comes from a noble family, while
only Rubempré's mother comes from a noble family (he had to obtain royal permission
to use his mother's family name instead of his father's name Chardon). This deficit
is compounded by the fact that his mother had not only married a commoner far
beneath her in rank, but she had also performed menial labour to support herself
when her husband died.
Another contrast is between Emile Blondet and Raoul Nathan. Both are multi-talented
men-of-letters. Blondet is the natural son of the prefect of Alençon and is
described as witty but lazy, incurably hesitant, non-partisan, a political atheist,
a player of the game of political opinions (along with Rastignac), having the most
judicious mind of the day. He marries Madame de Montcornet and eventually becomes a
prefect. Nathan is described as half-Jewish and possessing a second-rate mind.
Nathan succumbs to the flattery of unscrupulous financiers and does not see that
they are prepared to bankrupt him to achieve their purposes. Blondet sees what is
happening but does not enlighten Nathan. The downfall drives Nathan to attempt
suicide by the method of "any poor work-girl". He then sells out to the government
of the day (on Blondet's advice) to secure an income, and returns to living with
the actress/courtesan Florine. In the end he accepts the cross of the Legion of
Honour (which he formerly satirised) and becomes a defender of the doctrine of
heredity.
Paternity
The Comédie humaine frequently portrays the complex emotional, social and financial
relationships between fathers and their children, and between father-figures and
their mentors, and these relationships are metaphorically linked as well with
issues of nationhood (the king as father, regicide), nobility (bloodlines, family
names), history (parental secrets), wealth (the origin of parental fortunes,
dowries) and artistic creation (the writer or artist as father of the work of art).
Father Goriot is perhaps the most famous — and most tragic — of these father
figures, but in Le Père Goriot, Eugène de Rastignac also encounters two other
paternal figures, Vautrin and Taillefer, whose aspirations and methods define
different paternal paths. Other significant fathers in the series include Eugénie
Grandet's abusive and money-hoarding father and César Birotteau, the doomed
capitalist.
Maternity
At one end of the scale we have 100% maternal involvement – as depicted by the
upbringing of the sisters de Granville (A Daughter of Eve) later Mesdames Felix de
Vandenesse and du Tillet.
At the other end of the scale we have 0% maternal involvement – as depicted by the
upbringing of Ursule Mirouët by four men: her half-uncle-in-law (an atheist and
republican), the local priest (saintly), the district judge (learned) and a retired
soldier (worldly).
We are left in no doubt that it is the second option that produces what Balzac
considers to be the ideal woman. Ursula is pious and prone to collapsing in tears
at the slightest emotion.
(in French) Balzac. La Comédie humaine. Pierre Citron, ed. Preface by Pierre-
Georges Castex. Paris: Seuil, 1965. 7 vols. ISBN 2-02-000726-6
(in French) Rey, Pierre-Louis. La Comédie humaine. Collection: Profil d'une œuvre.
Number 64. Paris: Hatier, 1979. ISBN 2-218-04589-3
External links
French Wikisource has original text related to this article:
La Comédie humaine
Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Comédie
Humaine.
Works by Honoré de Balzac at Project Gutenberg
Works by Honoré de Balzac in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
A collection of works in the sequence as eBooks at Standard Ebooks
Petri Liukkonen. "Honoré de Balzac". Books and Writers
Full text of Repertory of the Comedie Humaine (an extensive reference of characters
appearing in La Comédie humaine)
Thorsten Wetzenstein: Les personnages dans la Comédie humaine sous tension entre
"type" et "caractère" (french)
Complete Comedie Humaine in English
Scott Sprenger, Summary and Analysis of "Une Passion dans le désert", originally
published in Masterplots II: Short Story, Pasadena, Salem Press, 1996, 3819-21.
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Dante's Divine Comedy
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La Comédie humaine by Honoré de Balzac
Authority control: National libraries Edit this at Wikidata
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Categories: La Comédie humaineNovel sequencesNovels set in 19th-century France
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