''Sylvie'' (1853) is a

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...

by French Romanticist

Gérard de Nerval Gérard de Nerval (; 22 May 1808 – 26 January 1855) was the pen name of the French writer, poet, and translator Gérard Labrunie, a major figure of French romanticism, best known for his novellas and poems, especially the collection '' Les ...

. It was first published in the periodical ''

La Revue des Deux Mondes The ''Revue des deux Mondes'' (, ''Review of the Two Worlds'') is a monthly French-language literary, cultural and current affairs magazine that has been published in Paris since 1829. According to its website, "it is today the place for debates a ...

'' in 1853, and as a book in '' Les Filles du feu'' in 1854, just a few months before Nerval killed himself in January 1855.

Background

The novel contains autobiographical elements. As in the story, Nerval often traveled to Germany and to the east. Nerval had an unhappy love for a real actress, Jenny Colon.Christopher John Murray (2004). ''Encyclopedia of the romantic era, 1760–1850: Volume 2'', Page 797-798. He had a female childhood friend named Adrienne, whom he unhappily lost earlier in life. These unattainable and lost female figures are represented in the story, as well in his other works. In real life, Nerval lost his mother at an early age.

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

relates (in ''La Vie Anecdotique'') that while writing ''Sylvie'', Nerval spent a week in Chantilly solely to study a sunset that he needed for it.

Plot

An idyll written in the form of a reminiscence, the story is about a hero's love for three women, all of whom he loses – a hymn to unattainable, unrequited love. The story begins when a paragraph in a newspaper plunges the narrator into his memories as a younger man. The perspective seems to shift back and forth between the past and present, so the reader is never entirely sure if the narrator is recounting past events from memory, or retelling current events as they happen. Critics have praised the writing for its lucid and lyrical style. The narrator, of noble status and who has recently come into an inheritance, decides to leave Paris, where he is living a debauched life of theater and drink, and return to the love of his youth, a peasant girl named Sylvie who has classic features and brunette hair, a "timeless ideal". She sews gloves for a living and ends up marrying another man more equal to her class. The narrator also loves a seductive actress in Paris named Aurélia, who has many suitors who tell her empty idylls of love, but none love her for who she really is – including the narrator, who sees her as a lovely illusion that fades in the daylight of reality. The narrator also loves Adrienne, of noble birth, tall with

blonde hair Blond (male) or blonde (female), also referred to as fair hair, is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some yellowish color. The color can ...

; she is an "ideal beauty", but she lives in a convent, and dies an early death. In the end, he loves all three but obtains none, seemingly for reasons both beyond and within his making. ''Sylvie'' has many features of

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

, including flowing descriptions of a beautiful but lost natural world, appreciation for the architecture and traditions of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

traditions. The use of color appears to be unique, with binary oppositions serving as a simplifying mechanism to make distant memories emerge more strikingly from the mist.

Reception

''Sylvie'' is often considered to be Nerval's prose masterpiece,

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

. "Gérard de Nerval" in ''Contre Sainte-Beuve'', pp. 233-242. Proust called it a "masterpiece". and has been a favorite of

André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of Assemblage (art), assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde e ...

and

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...

Julien Gracq Julien Gracq (; 27 July 1910 – 22 December 2007; born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, in the French ''département'' of Maine-et-Loire) was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were note ...

wrote of ''Sylvie'' in 1966: "I know of no more enchanted narrative in our language" ("Je ne connais aucun récit plus enchanté dans notre langue").

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...

included it in ''

The Western Canon ''The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages'' is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as ce ...

'' (1994).The Western Canon
list of works, as given by

in his book ''

Notes

*Whitall, James (translator and introduction)
''Daughters of Fire: Sylvie-Emilie-Octavie''
by Gérard de Nerval, published by N. L. Brown, 1922

External links

''Sylvie''
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

(scanned books original editions color illustrated) {{Gérard de Nerval French novellas 1853 French novels Works originally published in Revue des deux Mondes Works by Gérard de Nerval