Guillaume Victor Émile Augier (; 17 September 182025 October 1889) was a French

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. He was the thirteenth member to occupy seat 1 of the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

on 31 March 1857.

Biography

Augier was born at

Valence, Drôme Valence (, ; oc, Valença ) is a commune in southeastern France, the prefecture of the Drôme department and within the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. It is situated on the left bank of the Rhône, about south of Lyon, along the railway line ...

, the grandson of Pigault Lebrun, and belonged to the well-to-do

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

in spirit as well as by birth. After a good education and legal training, he wrote a play in two acts and in verse, ''La Ciguë'' (1844), which was refused at the Théâtre Français, but produced with as considerable success at the Odéon. This settled his career. From then on, at fairly regular intervals, either alone or in collaboration with other writers—

Jules Sandeau Léonard Sylvain Julien (Jules) Sandeau (; 19 February 1811 – 24 April 1883) was a French novelist. Early life Sandeau was born at Aubusson (Creuse), and was sent to Paris to study law, but spent much of his time in unruly behaviour with oth ...

Eugène Marin Labiche Eugène Marin Labiche (6 May 181522 January 1888) was a French dramatist. He remains famous for his contribution to the vaudeville genre and his passionate and domestic pochads. In the 1860s, he reached his peak with a series of successes i ...

, Édouard Foussier—he produced plays such as ''Le Fils de Giboyer'' (1862) - which was regarded as an attack on the clerical party in France, and was surely brought out by the direct intervention of the emperor. His last

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

, ''Les Fourchambault'', belongs to the year 1879. After that date he wrote no more, restrained by the fear of producing inferior work. He died at his home at

Croissy-sur-Seine Croissy-sur-Seine (, literally ''Croissy on Seine'') is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is a suburban town on the western outskirts of Paris. Many expatriates reside in Croissy, given a ...

Career

Augier described his own life as "without incident". ''L'Aventurière'' (1848), the first of his important works, already shows a deviation from romantic ideals; and in the ''Mariage d'Olympe'' (1855), the courtesan is shown as she is, not glorified as in Dumas's '' Dame aux Camélias''. In ''Gabrielle'' (1849), the husband, not the lover, is the

sympathetic character A sympathetic character is a fictional character in a story whom the writer expects the reader to identify with and care about, if not admire. Protagonists, almost by definition, fit into the category of a sympathetic character; so, however, do man ...

. Augier provided the libretto for the first opera composed by

Charles Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

, '' Sapho'' (1851). In this version of the story a courtesan Glycère is the perfidious villainess, and the self-sacrificing title character is wholly heterosexual, not a "

sapphist Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been sodomite, Achillean, Sapphic, Uranian, homophile, lesbian, g ...

". In the ''Lionnes pauvres'' (1858) the wife who sells her favours comes under the lash. Greed of gold, social moralization, ultramontanism, lust of power, these are satirized ''Les Effrontés'' (1861), ''Le Fils de Giboyer'' (1862), ''La Contagion'' announced under the title of ''Le Baron d'Estrigaud'' (1866), ''Lions et renards'' (1869) - which, with ''Le Gendre de Monsieur Poirier'' (1854), written in collaboration with ''Jules Sandeau'', reach the high-water mark of Augier's art; in ''Philiberte'' (1853), he produced a graceful and delicate drawing-room comedy; and in ''Jean de Thommeray'', acted in 1873 after the great reverses of 1870, the regenerating note of patriotism rings high and clear. His last two dramas, ''Madame Caverlet'' (1876) and ''Les Fourchambault'' (1879), are problem plays. But it would be unfair to suggest that Augier was a mere preacher. He was a moralist in the same sense in which the term can be applied to

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

and the great dramatists. Nor does the interest of dramas depend on elaborate plot. It springs from character. His men and women are real, several of them typical. Augier's first drama, ''La Ciguë'', belongs to a time (1844) when romantic drama was on the wane; and his almost elusively domestic range of subject scarcely lends itself to lyric bursts of pure poetry. His verse, if not that of a great poet, has excellent dramatic qualities, while the prose of his prose dramas is admirable for directness, alertness, sinew and a large and effective wit.

References

Attribution: *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Augier, Emile 1820 births 1889 deaths People from Valence, Drôme Members of the Académie Française Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur 19th-century French dramatists and playwrights 19th-century French male writers

Biography

Career

See also

References

External links