Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (7 November 1838 – 19 August 1889) was a French
symbolist
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
*Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea
Arts
*Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea
** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
writer. His family called him Mathias while his friends called him Villiers; he would also use the name Auguste when publishing some of his books.
Life
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was born in
Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc (, Breton language, Breton: ''Sant-Brieg'' , Gallo language, Gallo: ''Saent-Berioec'') is a city in the Côtes-d'Armor Departments of France, department in Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in northwestern France.
History
...
,
Brittany
Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...
, to a distinguished aristocratic family. His parents, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint and Marie-Francoise (née Le Nepvou de Carfort) were not financially secure and were supported by Marie's aunt, Mademoiselle de Kerinou. In attempt to gain wealth, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's father began an obsessive search for the lost treasure of the Knights of Malta, formerly known as the
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...
, of which order
Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
Fra' Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam (1464 – 21 August 1534) was a prominent member of the Knights Hospitaller at Rhodes and later Malta. Having risen to the position of Prior (ecclesiastical), Prior of the Langue (Knights Hospitaller) ...
, a family ancestor, was the 16th-century Grand Master. The treasure had reputedly been buried near Quintin during the French Revolution. Consequently, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint spent large sums of money buying and excavating land before selling unsuccessful sites at a loss.
The young Villiers' education was troubled—he attended over half a dozen different schools—yet from an early age his family were convinced he was an artistic genius, and as a child, he composed poetry and music. A significant event in his childhood years was the death of a young girl with whom Villiers had been in love, an event which would deeply influence his literary imagination.
Villiers made several trips to Paris in the late 1850s, where he became enamoured of artistic and theatrical life. In 1860, his aunt offered him enough money to allow him to live in the capital permanently. He had already acquired a reputation in literary circles for his inspired, alcohol-fuelled monologues. He frequented the Brasserie des Martyrs, where he met his idol
Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics, an ...
, who encouraged him to read the works of
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...
. Poe and Baudelaire would become the biggest influences on Villiers' mature style; his first publication, however (at his own expense), was a book of verse, ''Premières Poésies'' (1859). It made little impression outside Villiers' own small band of admirers. Around this time, Villiers began living with Louise Dyonnet. The relationship and Dyonnet's reputation scandalised his family; they forced him to undergo a retreat at
Solesmes Abbey
Solesmes Abbey or St. Peter's Abbey, Solesmes () is a Benedictine monastery in Solesmes, Sarthe, France, and the source of the restoration of Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine monastic life in the country under Dom Prosper Guéranger after the ...
. Villiers would remain a devout, if highly unorthodox, Catholic for the rest of his life.
Villiers broke off his relationship with Dyonnet in 1864. He made several further attempts at securing a suitable bride, but all ended in failure. In 1867, he asked
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rema ...
for the hand of his daughter, Estelle, but Gautier — who had turned his back on the bohemian world of his youth and would not let his child marry a writer with few prospects — turned him down. Villiers' own family also strongly disapproved of the match. His plans for marriage to an English heiress, Anna Eyre Powell, were equally unsuccessful. Villiers finally took to living with Marie Dantine, the illiterate widow of a Belgian coachman. In 1881, she gave birth to Villiers' son, Victor (nicknamed "Totor").
An important event in Villiers' life was his meeting with
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
at Triebschen in 1869. Villiers read from the manuscript of his play ''La Révolte'' and the composer declared that the Frenchman was a "true poet". Another trip to see Wagner the next year was cut short by the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...
, during which Villiers became a commander in the Garde Nationale. At first, he was impressed by the patriotic spirit of the Commune and wrote articles in support of it in the ''Tribun du peuple'' under the pseudonym "Marius", but he soon became disillusioned with its revolutionary violence.
Villiers' aunt died in 1871, ending his financial support. Though Villiers had many admirers in literary circles (the most important being his close friend
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...
), mainstream newspapers found his fiction too eccentric to be saleable, and few theatres would run his plays. Villiers was forced to take odd jobs to support his family: he gave boxing lessons and worked in a funeral parlour and was employed as an assistant to a
mountebank. Another money-making scheme Villiers considered was reciting his poetry to a paying public in a cage full of tigers, but he never acted on the idea. According to his friend
Léon Bloy
Léon Bloy (; 11 July 1846 – 3 November 1917) was a French Catholic novelist, essayist, pamphleteer (or lampoonist), and satirist, known additionally for his eventual (and passionate) defense of Catholicism and for his influence within Frenc ...
, Villiers was so poor he had to write most of his novel ''
L'Ève future'' lying on his belly on bare floorboards, because the bailiffs had taken all his furniture. His poverty only increased his sense of aristocratic pride.
In 1875, he attempted to sue a playwright he believed had insulted one of his ancestors, Maréchal Jean de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. In 1881, Villiers stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a candidate for the
Legitimist
The Legitimists () are royalists who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession to the French crown of the descendants of the eldest branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution. They reject the claim of t ...
party. By the 1880s Villiers' fame began to grow, but not his finances. The publishers Calmann-Lévy accepted his ''Contes cruels'', but the sum they offered Villiers was negligible. The volume did, however, come to the attention of
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel (1884, pub ...
, who praised Villiers's work in his highly influential novel ''
À rebours
(; translated ''Against Nature'' or ''Against the Grain'') is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion o ...
''. By this time, Villiers was very ill with stomach cancer. On his deathbed, he finally married Marie Dantine, thus legitimising his beloved son "Totor". He is buried in
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world.
Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...
, though
a planned tomb monument designed by
Frédéric Brou was abandoned at the maquette stage.
Writings
Villiers' works, in the
Romantic style, are often fantastic in plot and filled with mystery and horror. Important among them are the drama ''
Axël
''Axël'' is a drama by French writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, published in 1890. It was influenced by his participation in the Paris Commune, the Gnostic philosophy of Hegel as well as the works of Goethe and Victor Hugo. It begins in an o ...
'' (1890), the novel ''
The Future Eve'' (1886), and the short-story collection ''Contes cruels'' (1883, tr. Sardonic Tales, 1927). ''Contes cruels'' is regarded as an important collection of
horror stories, and the origin of the short story genre
conte cruel. ''
The Future Eve'' greatly helped to popularize the term "
android" (''Androïde'' in French, the character is named "Andréide").
[Shelde, Per (1993). ''Androids, Humanoids, and Other Science Fiction Monsters: Science and Soul in Science Fiction Films''. New York: New York University Press. ]
Villiers believed the imagination has within it much more beauty than reality itself, existing at a level in which nothing real could compare.
Axël
Villiers considered ''Axël'' to be his masterpiece, although critics preferred his novels. He began work on the play around 1869, and had still not completed it when he died. It was first published posthumously in 1890. The work is heavily influenced by the
Romantic theatre of
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician.
His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...
, as well as
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
's ''
Faust
Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...
'' and the music dramas of
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
.
The play's most famous line is Axël's ''"Vivre? les serviteurs feront cela pour nous"'' ("Living? Our servants will do that for us").
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...
used the title ''Axel's Castle'' for his study of early Modernist literature.
Works
* ''Premières Poésies ''(early verse, 1859; translated into English as ''Early Poetry'' by Sunny Lou Publishing, 2024)
* ''Isis'' (novel, uncompleted, 1862)
* ''Elën'' (drama in three acts in prose, 1865)
* ''Morgane'' (drama in five acts in prose, 1866)
* ''La Révolte'' (drama in one act, 1870)
* ''Le Nouveau Monde'' (drama, 1880)
* ''Contes Cruels'' (stories, 1883; translated into English as ''Sardonic Tales'' by
Hamish Miles in 1927, and as ''Cruel Tales'' by
Robert Baldick
Robert André Edouard Baldick, FRSL (9 November 1927 – April 1972), was a British scholar of French literature, writer, translator and joint editor of the Penguin Classics series with Betty Radice. He was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. ...
in 1963)
* ''
L'Ève future'' (novel, 1886; translated into English as ''Tomorrow's Eve'' by
Robert Martin Adams)
* ''L'Amour supreme'' (stories, 1886; partially translated into English by
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford (25 July 1948 – 24 February 2024) was a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who published a hundred novels and over a hundred volumes of translations. His earlier books were published under the name Br ...
as ''The Scaffold'' and ''The Vampire Soul'')
* ''Tribulat Bonhomet'' (fiction including "Claire Lenoir", 1887; translated into English by Brian Stableford as ''The Vampire Soul'' )
* ''L'Evasion'' (drama in one act, 1887)
* ''Histoires insolites'' (stories, 1888; partially translated into English by Brian Stableford as ''The Scaffold'' and ''The Vampire Soul'')
* ''Nouveaux Contes cruels'' (stories, 1888; partially translated into English by Brian Stableford as ''The Scaffold'' and ''The Vampire Soul'')
* ''Chez les passants'' (stories, miscellaneous journalism, 1890)
* ''
Axël
''Axël'' is a drama by French writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, published in 1890. It was influenced by his participation in the Paris Commune, the Gnostic philosophy of Hegel as well as the works of Goethe and Victor Hugo. It begins in an o ...
'' (published posthumously 1890; translated into English by
June Guicharnaud)
Notes
Sources
* Jean-Paul Bourre, ''Villiers de L'Isle Adam: Splendeur et misère'' (Les Belles Lettres, 2002)
* Natalie Satiat's edition of ''L'Ève future'' (Garnier-Flammarion)
External links
*
*
*
Black Coat Press publisher of American translations of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Villiers de lIsle-Adam, Auguste
1838 births
1889 deaths
Writers from Saint-Brieuc
French monarchists
French Roman Catholics
19th-century French dramatists and playwrights
Symbolist poets
Symbolist writers
Symbolist dramatists and playwrights
Poètes maudits
French horror writers
19th-century French novelists
Deaths from stomach cancer in France
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
French male novelists
French male short story writers
French male poets
19th-century French poets
19th-century French short story writers
19th-century French male writers