Cousin Pons
   HOME
*





Cousin Pons
''Le Cousin Pons'' () is one of the last of the 94 novels and short stories that make up Honoré de Balzac’s '' Comédie humaine''. Begun in 1846 as a novella, it was envisaged as one part of a diptych, '' Les Parents pauvres'' (''The Poor Relations''), along with '' La Cousine Bette'' (''Cousin Bette''). The book was originally published as a serial in ''Le Constitutionnel'', but during 1847 it grew into a full-length novel, with a male poor relation, Pons, as its subject, (''La Cousine Bette'' describes a female poor relation) Plot summary The novella was based on a short story by an acquaintance of Balzac, Albéric Second, as Tim Farrant has demonstrated. Its original title was to have been "Le Parasite". Sylvain Pons, a musician in a Parisian boulevard orchestra, has a close friend in another musician from the orchestra, the German pianist Wilhelm Schmucke. They lodge with Mme Cibot but Pons – unlike Schmucke – has two failings: his passion (which is almost a mania) fo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Honoré De Balzac
Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence ''La Comédie humaine'', which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his '' magnum opus''. Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often flat, and written to fulfill stereotypes. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, focusing on morality and family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a "temptress", a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, filmed, or on television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers cues to the audience of the drama being presented. In scholarly and historical musical contexts, ''melodramas'' are Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, films, tel ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Novels First Published In Serial Form
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Works Originally Published In Le Constitutionnel
Works may refer to: People * Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach * Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician Albums * '' ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album)'', a Pink Floyd album from 1983 * ''Works'', a Gary Burton album from 1972 * ''Works'', a Status Quo album from 1983 * ''Works'', a John Abercrombie album from 1991 * ''Works'', a Pat Metheny album from 1994 * ''Works'', an Alan Parson Project album from 2002 * ''Works Volume 1'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * ''Works Volume 2'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * '' The Works'', a 1984 Queen album Other uses * Microsoft Works, a collection of office productivity programs created by Microsoft * IBM Works, an office suite for the IBM OS/2 operating system * Mount Works, Victoria Land, Antarctica See also * The Works (other) * Work (other) Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Books Of La Comédie Humaine
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a book cover, cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a Recto, leaf and each side of a leaf is a page (paper), page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aris ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

1847 French Novels
Events January–March * January 4 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the U.S. government. * January 13 – The Treaty of Cahuenga ends fighting in the Mexican–American War in California. * January 16 – John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory. * January 17 – St. Anthony Hall fraternity is founded at Columbia University, New York City. * January 30 – Yerba Buena, California, is renamed San Francisco. * February 5 – A rescue effort, called the First Relief, leaves Johnson's Ranch to save the ill-fated Donner Party (California-bound emigrants who became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada earlier this winter; some have resorted to survival by cannibalism). * February 22 – Mexican–American War: Battle of Buena Vista – 5,000 American troops under General Zachary Taylor use their superiority in artillery to drive off 15,000 Mexican troops under Antonio López de Santa Anna, defeating the Mexicans the next day. * Fe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Paul Bourget
Paul Charles Joseph Bourget (; 2 September 185225 December 1935) was a French poet, novelist and critic. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. Life Paul Bourget was born in Amiens in the Somme ''département'' of Picardy, France. His father, a professor of mathematics, was later appointed to a post in the college at Clermont-Ferrand, where Bourget received his early education. He afterwards studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and at the École des Hautes Études. Between 1872 and 1873, he produced a volume of verse, ''Au Bord de la Mer'', which was followed by others, the last, ''Les Aveux'', appearing in 1882. Meanwhile, he was making a name in literary journalism and in 1883 he published ''Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine'', studies of eminent writers first printed in the ''Nouvelle Revue'', and now brought together. In 1884 Bourget paid a long visit to Britain, where he wrote his first published story (''L'Irréparable''). ''Cruelle Enigme'' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of many of the most successful grand operas and opéras-comiques. Born to a middle-class Parisian family, Scribe was intended for a legal career, but was drawn to the theatre, and began writing plays while still in his teens. His early years as a playwright were unsuccessful, but from 1815 onwards he prospered. Writing, usually with one or more collaborators, he produced several hundred stage works. He wrote to entertain the public rather than educate it. Many of his plays were written in a formulaic manner which aimed at neatness of plot and focus on dramatic incident rather than naturalism, depth of characterisation or intellectual substance. For this he was much criticised by intellectuals, but the "well-made play" remained established in th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Paul Féval, Père
Paul Henri Corentin Féval, ''père'' (29 September 1816 - 8 March 1887) was a French novelist and dramatist. He was the author of popular swashbuckler novels such as ''Le Loup blanc'' (1843) and the perennial best-seller ''Le Bossu (novel), Le Bossu'' (1857). He also penned the seminal vampire fiction novels ''Le Chevalier Ténèbre'' (1860), ''La Vampire'' (1865) and ''La Ville Vampire'' (1874) and wrote several celebrated novels about his native Brittany and Mont Saint-Michel such as ''La Fée des Grèves'' (1850). Féval's greatest claim to fame, however, is as one of the fathers of modern crime fiction. Because of its themes and characters, his novel ''Jean Diable'' (1862) can claim to be the world's first modern novel of detective fiction. His masterpiece was ''Les Habits Noirs'' (1863–1875), a criminal saga comprising eleven novels. After losing his fortune in a financial scandal, Féval became a born-again Christian, stopped writing crime thrillers, and began to write ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Alexandre Dumas, Père
Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where ''Suffix (name)#Generational titles, '' is French language, French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of adventure were originally published as serial (literature), serials, including ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', ''The Three Musketeers'', ''Twenty Years After'' and ''The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later''. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century into nearly 200 films. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. He also wrote numerous magazine essay, articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Eugène Sue
Marie-Joseph "Eugène" Sue (; 26 January 18043 August 1857) was a French novelist. He was one of several authors who popularized the genre of the serial novel in France with his very popular and widely imitated ''The Mysteries of Paris'', which was published in a newspaper from 1842 to 1843. Francis Amery. "Sue, "Eugène", in Pringle, David. 1998. ''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers''. Detroit, MI: St. James Press (pp. 680–681). . Early life Sue was born in Paris, France. He was the son of a distinguished surgeon in Napoleon's army, Jean-Joseph Sue, and had Empress Joséphine as his godmother. Sue himself acted as surgeon both in the 1823 French campaign in Spain and at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. In 1829 his father's death put him in possession of a considerable fortune, and he settled in Paris. Literary career Sue's naval experiences supplied much of the material for his first novels, ''Kernock le pirate'' (1830), ''Atar-Gull'' (1831), ''La Salamand ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a printing or publishing format by which a single larger work Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** Manual labour, physical work done by humans ** House work, housework, or homemaking ** Working animal, an animal t ..., often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential instalments. The instalments are also known as ''numbers'', ''parts'' or ''fascicles'', and may be released either as separate publications or within sequential issues of a periodical publication, such as a magazine or newspaper. Serialisation can also begin with a single short story that is subsequently turned into a series. Historically, such series have been published in periodicals. Popular short-story series are often published together in book form as collections. Early history The growth of moveable type in the 17th century prompted episodic and often disconnec ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]