Why French writer Guy de Maupassant. Post-war life of the writer

Guy de Maupassant

fr. Henry-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant

the largest French novelist, master of the story with an unexpected ending

short biography

Guy de Maupassant(real name Henri-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant) is a famous French prose writer, known as the author of short stories and novels. His biography is not replete with a lot of details, because. Maupassant carefully guarded his personal life from third-party interference. The place of his birth was the Lower Seine department, Miromesnil castle, located near the city of Tourville-sur-Arc, where he was born on August 5, 1850. His mother was from a bourgeois family, his father was an aristocrat, a representative of a noble Lorraine noble family.

At first, Maupassant was sent to study at a theological seminary, but he was expelled from there: discipline in a monastic educational institution turned out to be an overwhelming test. Education was eventually completed at the Rouen Lyceum. Being a lyceum student, Maupassant showed himself as a gifted student who was keenly interested in theater and poetry. During this period, an acquaintance and rapprochement with Flaubert, who was a relative of his mother, took place. It was under his leadership that Maupassant made his way into literature.

In 1869, after graduating from the Lyceum, Maupassant went to Paris, where, on the advice of his mother and Flaubert, he intended to study law. However, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War prevented this plan. For two years (1770-1771) Maupassant took part in military operations as a private.

His family went bankrupt, and this forced the future writer to get a job in the naval ministry, where he served in various bureaucratic positions for about 10 years. His passion was literature, he did not show zeal for a career. Before Maupassant first appeared in literature, he wrote intensely for 6 years, destroying his works. And only when, in the opinion of Flaubert's mentor, his works began to differ in a sufficient degree of stylistic integrity and maturity, he ventured to publish his first work. It happened in 1880. His short story "Dumpling" was published in a collection that included stories by Zola, Ennik, Alexis and other authors. After this story, Maupassant immediately became famous writer. In the same year, the poetic collection "Poems" was published; thanks to him, Maupassant managed to leave the service and get a job as a chronicler in a newspaper.

He did not leave literary activity all subsequent years, showing enviable fertility. Over the course of 11 years (1880-1891), Maupassant wrote about three hundred short stories, several dozen critical articles, and six major novels: Life (1883), Dear Friend (1885). "Mont Auriol" (1887), "Pierre and Jean" (1888), "Strong as Death" (1889), "Our Heart" (1890). Thanks to these works, Maupassant immortalized his name as a representative of the latest national short stories. Critics were unanimous in rave reviews, he was a real favorite of the reading public.

All this made it possible to have a decent income; Maupassant was used to living without denying himself anything, in addition, he provided great material support to his mother and the family of his younger brother. Constant intellectual stress became an unbearable burden for his health, it began to deplete at a rapid pace. Heredity Maupassant got unimportant: his mother was a constant victim of neurosis, and his brother died in a psychiatric hospital. The writer paid great attention to his health, he was physically very strong. However, even a healthy body could not help him have a healthy mind.

Since 1884, he was constantly overcome by nervous attacks; the writer sought solitude, began to see in people the exclusively dark sides of nature, became disillusioned with them, painfully searched for something that eluded him, unattainable ideals. The outer side of Maupassant's life looked more than prosperous: he received an award from the Academy, collaborated with a prestigious publication, was a huge success in the world, but his inner state was far from harmony. In the winter of 1891, he tried to commit suicide, after which he was treated in a psychiatric hospital. Over time, the seizures became more and more frequent, and in 1893 Guy de Maupassant died of cerebral paralysis.

Biography from Wikipedia

Guy de Maupassant born August 5, 1850 in old manor Miromesnil near Dieppe. His father Gustave de Maupassant belonged to the Lorraine nobility who moved to Normandy. Mother Laura Le Poitevin knew Flaubert from her youth, closest friend who was her brother Alfred, who died early. Maupassant was distinguished by excellent health from childhood, although his mother suffered from neurosis all her life, and his younger brother, a doctor by profession, died in a mental hospital.

After studying for a short time at the seminary, Maupassant, after being expelled from it, moved to the Rouen Lyceum, where he completed his course of study. While studying at the Lyceum, he proved himself to be a capable student, passionate about poetry and theatrical art. During this period of time, Maupassant closely converges with Louis Bouillet - a poet and caretaker of the Rouen library - and especially with Flaubert, who became the young man's literary mentor. After graduating from the Lycée in 1869, and after consulting with his mother and Flaubert, he went to Paris to begin the study of law. The outbreak of war disrupted all plans.

Having gone through the Franco-Prussian War as a simple private, Maupassant replenished his education with reading and especially became addicted to natural science and astronomy. In order to eliminate the danger of a hereditary disease weighing on him, he worked hard on his physical development.

The ruin that befell his family forced Maupassant to become an official in the naval ministry, where he stayed for about ten years. Maupassant gravitated toward literature. For more than six years, Maupassant, who became close friends with Flaubert, composed, rewrote and tore what was written; but he ventured into print only when Gustave Flaubert recognized his works as sufficiently mature and stylistically coherent.

Maupassant's first story was published in 1880, along with the stories of Zola, Alexis, Cear, Ennik and Huysmans, in the collection Medan Evenings. The novice writer struck with his story "Pyshka" literary circles, showing subtle irony and great art of concise and at the same time rich, vivid characterization.

In the same year, Maupassant published a collection of poetry ("Poems", 1880), in which the poems "Le mur", "Au bord de l'eau", "Désirs" and "Vénus rustique" are especially remarkable. The dramatic experience in verse (“Histoire du vieux temps”) placed there allowed Maupassant to become a chronicler in the newspaper Le Gaulois; The writer left the official service at that time. Although Maupassant at the beginning of his literary activity and was known as a follower of Zola, he was far from being a supporter of the "naturalistic" school, recognizing it as narrow and one-sided.

Guy de Maupassant joined the letter of cultural figures asking the Paris authorities to impose a ban on construction eiffel tower. There is a well-known anecdote that Maupassant allegedly hid from the "ugly skeleton" in the restaurant at the top of the tower, since this was the only place in Paris from where it was not visible.

The works of Maupassant had big success; his earnings reached 60 thousand francs a year. Maupassant considered it his duty to financially support his mother and his brother's family. The unbridled way of life quickly undermined the health of the writer; he fell ill with an incurable disease at that time - syphilis. Since 1884, the writer has been haunted by nervous attacks; as disillusionment and hypochondria increase, he falls into restless idealism, tormented by the need to find an answer to that which eludes the senses. This mood finds expression in a number of short stories, including the famous story "Orlya" ( Horla).

Neither secular successes nor cooperation in Revue des Deux Mondes, nor the success on the Gymnase stage of the comedy "Musotte", nor the receipt of an academic award for the comedy "La Paix du ménage".

In December 1891, a nervous attack drove him to attempt suicide. In the asylum for the mentally ill near Passy, ​​Maupassant first regained consciousness, but then the seizures began to recur more often.

Guy de Maupassant died on July 6, 1893 from progressive paralysis of the brain, just a month before his 43rd birthday.

Fertility and fun, concluded in it, resisted the disease. At first he suffered from headaches and fits of hypochondria. Then the ghost of blindness stood before him. His vision was weakening. A mania of suspicion, unsociableness and litigation developed in him. He fought furiously, rushed about on a yacht in the Mediterranean, fled to Tunisia, Morocco, Central Africa - and wrote incessantly. Having achieved fame, he cut his throat in the fortieth year of his life, bled to death, but remained alive. He was locked up in a lunatic asylum. He crawled there on all fours ... The last inscription in his mournful sheet reads: "Mr. Maupassant has turned into an animal." He died at the age of forty-two. The mother survived him.

Isaac Babel, story "Guy de Maupassant"

Creativity Overview

Aesthetic principles

Maupassant clearly stated his views on the artistic word in the preface to the novel "Pierre and Jean" in 1887/1888.

Rejecting romantic novel and his deformed, superhuman, poetic gaze, Maupassant leans towards the objective novel in search of realism, understanding all the limitations of this type of creativity. For him, realism is a personal worldview that he (the writer) is trying to convey to the reader, reflecting in the book. We always portray ourselves, - he says, at the same time arguing that the novel is a work of fiction, - a bunch of small facts that make up the general meaning of the work. Maupassant also rejects naturalism, with its heavy documentary and Émile Zola's desire for "total realism", but leans towards unjudged realism, which is reflected even in scenes as difficult to perceive as Forestier's death in the novel Beloved Friend.

Maupassant seeks to reflect pure facts and actions instead of psychological research, since psychology must be hidden in a book just as it is hidden in reality behind real actions. This purity and rigor of the image also applies to descriptions, clearly distinguishing Maupassant from Balzac. The propensity for brevity is clearly seen in the writer's work: he creates more than 300 short stories and only six novels built as a chain of novelistic situations (jokes).

The writer perceived the surrounding world, beautiful and disgusting in it, very sharply, he was endowed with a special emotional vulnerability, that depth of perception, which, unfortunately, hastened his tragic death, and about which he wrote that “thanks to her, the weakest feeling turns into emotion and, depending on the temperature of the wind, on the smell of the earth and on the brightness of daylight, you feel suffering, sadness or joy ... But if the nervous system is immune to pain, to ecstasy, then it transmits to us only everyday unrest and vulgar contentment.

Main Topics

The themes of Maupassant's work are connected with everyday life in his era and the personal life of the author, mixing and creating a unique palette:

• Normandy, the native region of the writer, occupies a significant place in his work: landscapes - the sea or cities, like Rouen in "Life" (Une vie) or Le Havre in "Pierre and Jean" or the inhabitants of the region - the villagers ("In the fields", 1884) , small landowners and employees ("Life") or bourgeois ("Pierre and Jean"). But Normandy is not the only region depicted by Maupassant. The novel "Dear Friend" depicts different layers Parisian society, in particular, high society and big businessmen; in the same environment, the action of the novels "Strong as death" and "Mont-Auriol" takes place. In the majority of short stories ("Heritage", "Necklace", "Departure for the City", "Two Friends", etc.), the everyday life of the middle class (petty bourgeoisie) is depicted.
• Franco-Prussian War and German Occupation. Maupassant often returns to the events that he witnessed ten years earlier, for example, in such works as: "Dumbnut", "Mademoiselle Fifi", "Two Friends", "Old Milon", "Mad".
• The theme of a woman, especially the victim of violence: Jeanne in "Life", "Little Rock", "Miss Harriet", a significant place in this topic is given to prostitution: "Pushka", "Mademoiselle Fifi", "Dom Tellier" ... The theme of family and children also close to Maupassant, often combined with the theme of fatherhood: "Pierre and Jean", "Boitel", "In the fields", "Child", "In a related way" ...
• Cityscapes where there is no place happy love, Maupassant often contrasts the world of water. A lover of rowing, he enjoys descriptions of the sea (as in the novels "Life", "Pierre and Jean"), rivers ("On the water", "Mushka", "Going to nature") and even swamps ("Love").
• The writer's own pessimism: in his philosophical despair, Maupassant goes further than Flaubert. A student of Arthur Schopenhauer, he repeatedly demonstrates the precariousness of everything that fills life with meaning. Maupassant, a misanthrope, despises Providence, believes that God does not know what he is doing, and religion is just a fraud. Sometimes it seems to him that man is just an animal, barely higher than others, and progress is just a ghost. Even friendship sometimes seems to him a disgusting deceit, because people do not perceive the problems of others and are doomed to loneliness.
• As the nervous illness worsens, Maupassant is increasingly occupied with the themes of lonely madness, depression and paranoia: "Eagle", "Hair of hair", "Madam Erme", which begin with demonstrative words I'm attracted to crazy people; as well as the themes of death and devastation ("Life", "Dear friend", "Small Rock", "Strong as death"). In Soviet times, it was believed that Maupassant evolved from naturalism (rapture with the physiological principle) to decadence (aestheticization of everything painful, ugly, repulsive).

Evaluation of creativity in Russia

Maupassant named among his teachers Turgenev, who learned about Maupassant from Flaubert and placed him as a narrator directly after Leo Tolstoy.

Tolstoy himself was no less sympathetic to the work of Maupassant, who, with great liberties, translated his story “On the Port”. According to Tolstoy, “there was hardly another such writer who so sincerely believed that all the good, the whole meaning of life is in a woman, in love ... and there was hardly ever a writer who, with such clarity and accuracy, showed all the terrible sides of that the phenomenon itself, which seemed to him the highest and giving the greatest blessing of life.

Chekhov tirelessly admired the skill of Maupassant as a novelist and often mentioned him in his works. Babel directly imitated him, especially in his youth. One of his most famous stories is called "Guy de Maupassant" (1932).

Artworks

Maupassant was one of the most prolific French writers of the 1880s. In some years he published more than six dozen new stories. During the life of the writer saw the light of the following books:

• 1880 - "Pyshka", a story (as part of the almanac "Medan Evenings")
• 1880 - "Poems" ( Levers)
• 1881 - "Institution of Tellier" ( La Maison Tellier), stories
• 1882 - "Mademoiselle Fifi" ( Mademoiselle Fifi), stories
• 1883 - "Uncle Milon" ( Le pere Milon), stories
• 1883 - "Life", a novel
• 1883 - "Woodcock Tales" ( Contes de la becasse), stories
• 1884 - "Moonlight" ( Claire de lune), stories
• 1884 - "Miss Harriet" ( Miss Harriet), stories
• 1884 - "Misty" ( Misty, 1884), stories
• 1884 - "Rondoli Sisters" ( Les sœurs Rondoli), stories
• 1884 - "Under the Sun" ( Au soleil), travel essays
• 1885 - "Dear friend", novel
• 1885 - "Yvette" ( Yvette), stories
• 1885 - "Tales of the day and night" ( Contes du jour et de la nuit), stories including the famous "Necklace"
• 1885 - "Tuan" ( Toine), stories
• 1886 - "Little Rock" ( La petite Rocque), stories
• 1886 - "Mr. Paran" ( Monsieur Parent), stories
• 1887 - "Mont-Auriol", a novel
• 1887 - "Orlya" ( Le Horla), stories
• 1888 - "Pierre and Jean" ( Pierre and Jean), novel
• 1888 - "The Chosen One of Mrs. Husson" ( Le rosier de m'me Husson), stories
• 1888 - "On the water" ( Sur l'eau), travel essays
• 1889 - "Strong as death" ( Fort comme la mort), novel
• 1889 - "From the left hand" ( La main gauche), stories
• 1890 - "Our Heart" ( notre coeur), novel
• 1890 - "Wandering Life" ( La vie errante), travel essays
• 1890 - "Useless beauty" ( L'inutile beauty), stories

Excerpts from the unfinished novels "Angelus" and "Fire of Desire", as well as the story "Foreign Soul" were published posthumously.

Title page of the edition of the novel "Mademoiselle Fifi"

Title page of the edition of the novel "Pierre and Jean"

Title page of the edition of the short story "Pyshka"

• donut
• In the village
• Institution Tellier / La Maison Tellier
• Buatel
• The Story of the Farm Maid
• In the family/En famille
• Mademoiselle Fifi
• Mrs Baptiste
• Morocco
• Bed
• Crazy?
• Words of love
• Paris adventure / Une adventure parisienne
• Experience of love
• Two celebrities
• Before the holiday
• mourners
• Horse riding
• Cunning
• Two friends
• Norman joke
• Minuet
• Pierrot
• Yvette
• Necklace
• mother of freaks
• Simon's father
• Moonlight
• Julie Romain
• useless beauty
• Greenhouse
• olive grove
• Drowned
• Trial
• Mask
• Portrait
• Grandma's advice
• Duel

• New Year's gift
• Fatigue
• Twenty-five francs of the older sister
• Divorce case
• Rooster crowed
• Rondoli Sisters
• Mr. Paran
• Paul's girlfriend
• Inheritance
• Crime solved by Uncle Bonifas
• Confession
• Happiness
• Old man
• Drunkard
• Vendetta / Une vendetta 1883
• Beggar
• Parricide
• Baby
• Rock of auks
• Timbuktu
• True story
• Goodbye!
• Memory
• Confession
• On the sea
• hostess
• Barrel
• cursed bread
• Umbrella
• Suicides
• Awarded!
• Return
• Abandoned
• Colonel's views
• mohammed beast
• watchman
• Uncle Belom's Beast
• for sale
• Christening
• Hairpin
• woodcocks
• Surprise
• Loneliness
• By the bed
• Soldier
• Odyssey of a prostitute

Bibliography

Collected works in Russian

• Guy de Maupassant. Complete works in 13 volumes - M., 1951
• Guy de Maupassant. Selected works in two volumes. - M: State publishing house fiction, 1954.
• Guy de Maupassant. Complete works in 12 volumes. - M: Pravda, 1958.
• Guy de Maupassant. Collected works in 7 volumes. - M: "Pravda", 1977.
• Guy de Maupassant. Works in 5 volumes - M .: "Nauka", 1993, 250,000 copies.
• Guy de Maupassant. Collected works in ten volumes. - Chimkent: MP "Aurika", 1994. Circulation 105,000 copies.
• Guy de Maupassant. Full composition of writings. - M: "Terra", 1996. x.
• Guy de Maupassant. Full composition of writings. - M: "NGK group", 2006.

Screen versions of works

• Pyshka, directed by Mikhail Romm. USSR, 1934
• Country walk directed by Jean Renoir. France, 1936
• Rouen maiden nicknamed Pyshka, directors Yevgeny Ginzburg, Rauf Mammadov. THE USSR. 1989
• Dear friend, director Pierre Cardinal. France, 1983
• Short stories by Maupassant, directors Claude Chabrol, Jacques Ruffio, Laurent Einemann, Denis Malval, Gerard Jourduy, Olivier Shatsky, Jacques Santamaria, and others. France (France 2), 2007-2011, TV series, adaptation of short stories, novels and short stories.
• Life Directed by Elizabeth Rapno. France, 2005
• Dear Friend (Bel Ami), Germany, director Willy Forst, 1939
• Dear Friend Directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormrod. UK, France-Italy, 2012

Name: Guy de Maupassant (Henri-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant)

Age: 42 years

Activity: writer

Family status: not married

Guy de Maupassant: biography

Guy de Maupassant is a French writer whose work was in contact with naturalism. The man managed to earn a fortune from literature. Insatiable in love, he turned most women into characters in short stories, short stories and novels. He is also an enthusiastic traveler who traveled around Europe and looked into the remote corners of the world.

Childhood and youth

The full name of the writer is Henri-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant. Born in the Miromesnil estate near the town of Dieppe in a family of impoverished nobles. The grandfather went bankrupt, Father Gustave de Maupassant had no choice but to go to work. The man served as a broker on the stock exchange, was an esthete, loved art, painted with watercolors. He was reputed to be a dandy and a playboy.

But he married his own opposite - childhood friend Laura Le Poitvin was distinguished by a serious and thoughtful character. However, the couple did not get along under the same roof. Having given birth to a second heir, the woman, along with her sons, left for the seaside town of Etretat, where her villa was located.

Maupassant's childhood flew by in carelessness and idleness. The boy was left to himself, so he spent a lot of time on the street. From an early age he learned to fish, made friends with farmers, sailors, fishermen.

At the age of 13, freedom ended. Mom got Guy into a theological seminary. The freedom-loving teenager did not like the severity of the educational institution: he ran away several times, constantly played pranks, as a result, the unlucky seminarian was kicked out in disgrace.

The parent decided to try her luck at the Rouen Lyceum, where she placed her son. Here the young man took root, showed bright abilities for science and art, and most importantly, found guides to the world of literature. The first mentors were the poet Louis Bouillet and the writer Gustave Flaubert. After the lyceum, the young man went to the capital of France, where he entered the Faculty of Law. But his studies were interrupted by the war with Prussia.

Maupassant went through the war as a private, at that time he was inflamed with a passion for astronomy and natural science. Returning home, he could not continue his studies - the economic crisis broke out, his parents were unable to pay for the university. I had to enter the service. Guy gave six years to the Naval Ministry, barely making ends meet on a meager salary. Literature became an occupation that really captured me.

Creation

Working in the ministry, Guy de Maupassant, under the leadership of Flaubert, began to take his first steps in the writing field. For several years he did nothing but write, destroying manuscripts and again sitting down to write. Flaubert insisted that the young man spend time every day "on the muse", in his opinion, the only way to achieve success. And at first he forbade the student to print. With the help of a mentor, Maupassant moved from the Naval Ministry to the department responsible for public education.

The first publication in the creative biography of the beginning writer happened in 1875. The short story “The Hand of a Corpse” was published in the newspaper under a pseudonym, as was the poem “On the Shore”, which, four years later, in a revised form, made a lot of noise and brought the author to court. The work, which received a new name - "The Girl", was considered pornography by representatives of the supervisory authorities. Flaubert again came to the rescue, drawing up a letter of acquittal.

In 1880, the story "Dumpling" saw the light, which was included in the collection. In this volume, along with Guy's debut work, stories by Joris-Karl Huysmans and other French prose writers coexisted.

The story made a splash in the circles of critics and readers with subtle irony and brightness of characters. At work, he was even given six months' leave. Following "Pyshka", the poetry collection "Poems" was published, after which he resigned from his post as an official and worked in a newspaper.

In the 80s, Maupassant traveled a lot. Impressions from Corsica, Algeria and Brittany resulted in novels, short stories and essays. The existence of Corsicans, for example, inspired the creation of the book "Life". Over the past ten years, which fate took away, the writer managed to create a scattering of works.

Literary critics single out Pierre and Jean, On the Water, Under the Sun, novellas and short stories The Necklace, Moonlight, Testament, and, of course, the novel Dear Friend. Guy de Maupassant rose to the first places in the galaxy of stars of French short stories.

The reader adored Maupassant, he managed to make writing a profitable profession. In a year, the writer earned up to 60 thousand francs and lived in a big way, not forgetting to financially support his mother and brother's relatives. By the end of his life, he made a decent fortune, acquired numerous real estate, and kept several yachts.

The secrets of popularity for contemporary writers were obvious. Zola noted that Guy skillfully plays on feelings, speaks good-naturedly with the reader, and if he uses satire, then without a hint of malice and harshness. explained the phenomenon of Maupassant's fame by the fact that the Frenchman saw "the meaning of life in a woman, in love."

The writer made friends with eminent colleagues in literature. He became close friends with Paul Alexis, Leon Dierks and other famous personalities. He was known as a good comrade and a true friend.

Some of the works of Guy de Maupassant became the basis for feature films. For the first time his work came to life on film in the Soviet Union. In 1934, director Mikhail Romm made a silent film "Pyshka". The film adaptation of "Del Friend" was presented by Willy Forst (1936), Pierre Cardinal (1983) and Declan Donnellan (2012). Hollywood stars starred in the last tape,.

Personal life

Guy de Maupassant had an unbridled passion for women, was known as a womanizer, having a bunch of novels and casual relationships. Love affairs became the basis for the lion's share of works. Even disappointment did not stop the man. One day, an 18-year-old boy fell in love with a Parisian named Fanny and dedicated poetry to her. Appearing under the windows to his beloved, he heard the girl laughingly read declarations of love to the company of friends.

Some names of passions are already known from adulthood French: Countess Emmanuela Potocka, Ermina, Marie Cannes. However, the writer tried not to advertise the relationship for the press. Somehow, he even almost arranged a duel with a journalist who mentioned another lady in the newspaper.

In 1882, Maupassant suddenly got ready to get married, but the matter never came to a wedding. The man remained a bachelor until the end of his life. Maybe he just never found the one. Guy is the author of many sayings about girls that have turned into aphorisms. One of them:

"I love only one woman - a stranger who does not exist in reality."

Love affairs turned into a disease: the writer contracted syphilis. And he wrote to his friend about the diagnosis with delight:

“I am proud, I have real syphilis, and I am no longer afraid to pick it up!”

A decade after the death of Guy de Maupassant, the French edition of Eclair published sensational news that the author of Beloved Friend is the father of three children: two girls and a boy. Illegitimate heirs, according to the customs of that time, bore the name of their mother, Josephine Litzelman.

The writer himself never talked about children, and relatives denied the fact of their existence. Guy left a will in which almost the entire fortune passed to his niece. Only a quarter of the inheritance was given to the parents.

Death

Guy de Maupassant had a bad heredity. Mom suffered from psychosis, and her younger brother died altogether in a psychiatric clinic. The writer was afraid of clouding his mind all his life, but this fate did not pass. In addition, his health was undermined by excessive mental stress, because he wrote without stopping.

Guy suffered from headaches, and later nervous attacks. In 1891, a man attempted suicide by cutting his own throat. He ended up in a psychiatric hospital, and two years later he died. The cause of death is brain paralysis. The author, who knows how to write truthfully and touchingly about love, did not live to be 43 years old.

• Maupassant, along with other cultural figures, opposed the construction of the Eiffel Tower, calling the structure "an ugly skeleton." I often dined on the roof of the tower, because only from this point in Paris it was not visible.
• The writer loved to travel, visited many countries. He walked around Brittany and even took a hot air balloon flight from France to Belgium.

• The Frenchman adored the river, was fond of rowing. In 1885 he bought a yacht, which he named "Dear Friend". Three years later, a second yacht appeared, already more spacious, but with exactly the same name.
• About the love affairs of the writer, his servant Francois Tassar created the book “Memoirs of Guy de Maupassant”, which was published in 1911. The author very restrainedly lifts the veil of the owner's personal life.

Quotes

“I collect women. With some I meet once a year, with others - once every six months, with others - once a quarter. With some - when they want it. I didn't love anyone"

“The words of love are always the same, it all depends on whose mouth they come from”

“Yes, love is the only joy in life, but we ourselves often spoil it by making too much demands”

"A legitimate kiss can never compare to a sneak kiss"

“Women are endlessly faithful, or, more precisely, endlessly obsessive”

“Man often makes mistakes. Moreover, all his life he is only engaged in making mistakes. ”

"Anyone standing by state power, is obliged to avoid war in the same way as the captain of a ship avoids a shipwreck"

Bibliography

• 1883 - "Life"
• 1885 - Dear Friend
• 1887 - "Mont-Auriol"
• 1888 - "Pierre and Jean"
• 1889 - "Strong as death"
• 1890 - Our heart"
• "Fire of Desire" (unfinished)
• "Alien Soul" (unfinished)
• "Angelus" (unfinished)

The life and work of Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant (1850 -1893) holds a special place in history French literature. His work completes the development of the French realism XIX century, and at the same time, it clearly reveals features that will become characteristic of the literature of the 20th century.

The English playwright B. Shaw once remarked: "The life of Maupassant is incomparably more tragic than the death of Juliet," referring to Shakespeare's heroine. And it's not just that Maupassant lived short life and died at 43. The artist's tragedy lay in the fact that the "epoch of madness and shame" did not allow the writer's talent to be fully revealed, his creative potential remained largely unrealized. Being the "great painter of human ugliness" (A. France), Maupassant at the same time treated the humiliated and suffering person with deep sympathy and sympathy, passionately defended his right to happiness, which fills the writer's works with the "highest reflection of humanity", and himself puts on a par with the great humanist artists.

Guy de Maupassant was born in the north of France, in Normandy, in a family of poor nobles. He will forever keep in his memory the vivid impressions of his childhood: the gray sea, crashing heavy waves on the coastal sand; brown fishing nets hung to dry at the door of houses; boats overturned on the shore; air saturated with the smells of algae and fish; a feeling of complete freedom ... Normandy with its nature, life and customs of the fishermen and peasants inhabiting it will always be present on the pages of Maupassant's works.

Having received his initial education at the Seminary of Yveto and the College of Rouen, Maupassant entered the Faculty of Law in Paris in the autumn of 1869. However, the classes were soon interrupted by the outbreak Franco-Prussian War and he was drafted into the army. The events of this time were of great importance in the spiritual and creative development writer. The defeat of the French army at Sedan, the siege and capture of Paris by the Prussians, the crimes committed by the invaders, the heroic resistance of the French aroused patriotic feelings in Maupassant, helped to understand the heroism of the people and at the same time inspired him with indestructible hatred for any war that brings blood and suffering. The anti-war theme will become the leading one in the work of Maupassant.

Financial difficulties did not allow Maupassant to continue his studies, and he was forced to enter the service, first in the maritime ministry, and then in the ministry of public education. And although the service seems to him "hard labor", it still leaves time for literary pursuits and provides invaluable material for future works. An endless line of officials - the heroes of Maupassant's short stories - were met by him in the offices and corridors of ministries. During this period, he wrote a lot, trying himself in various genres: short stories ("The Hand of a Corpse", 1875), stories ("Doctor Heraclius Glosse", 1875), poems ("On the Shore", 1876), dramas ("Treason of the Countess de Ryun", 1877). These works were artistically weak and were frankly imitative in nature, however, while working on them, Maupassant mastered the techniques of writing, acquired the habit of persistent systematic work. an exceptional role in human and creative destiny The writer was played by Flaubert. The main thing that Maupassant took out of the master's school was the ability to see behind single, concrete facts and life events a manifestation of the natural, typical; attraction to the "objective manner" of writing, excluding direct authorial intervention in the narrative; close attention to questions of art form; striving for accuracy and expressiveness of the word. Flaubert read and corrected Maupassant's manuscripts, looked for publishers for his works, introduced him to famous writers who visited his house.

Here Maupassant first met J.S. Turgenev, who had a significant influence on his work. The Russian writer helped him, to some extent, to overcome the skepticism in the view of man, characteristic of French literature of the late 19th century, to see the spiritual, noble beginning in him, bright poetic sides life; introduced him to humanistic Russian literature. Highly appreciating the works of his young friend ("Maupassant is undoubtedly the most talented of all modern French writers ..."), Turgenev widely promoted them in Russia. In turn, Maupassant expressed admiration for Turgenev as a man and artist in the articles "Inventor of the word" nihilism "," Ivan Turgenev ", as well as in the dedication to the first collection of short stories" Tellier's Establishment ".

By the end of the 70s. relates the rapprochement of Maupassant with E. Zola and his entourage. In their collective collection "Medan Evenings" (1880), the short story "Pyshka" was published, straightaway which made the name of its author widely known. He leaves the service and devotes himself completely to literature. One after another, his novels "Life" (1883), "Dear Friend" (1885), "Mont-Auriol" (1886), collections of short stories "The Tellier's Establishment" (1881), "Mademoiselle Fifi" (1882), "Woodcock Tales" (1883), "Moonlight" (1884), "Miss Harriet" (1884), "The Sisters Rondoli" (1884), "Yvette" (1884), "Tales of Day and Night" (1885), " Tuan" (1886), "Mr. Paran" (1886), "Little Rock" (1886), critical articles, books of travel essays.

A resounding success comes to Maupassant: publishers dispute the right to print a new work of the writer and pay him huge fees, newspapers print his reviews almost daily, hostesses of aristocratic salons consider it an honor to receive him, his fellow writers openly envy him. However, Maupassant is burdened by this "hard labor of success", and, fleeing from it, he travels a lot: to Corsica, Algeria, Italy, England, Tunisia. Gradually, fatigue accumulates, a feeling of inner emptiness arises, dissatisfaction with oneself grows.

Since 1887, the last period of Maupassant's work begins, marked by an increase in crisis phenomena in him, a deepening of pessimistic moods. The artist's pessimism was fed both by the very French reality of the 80s, which he called "a blessed time for scoundrels and nonentities", and by the deterioration of his health. In novels (Pierre and Jean, 1888; Strong as Death, 1889; Our Heart, 1890) and short stories (collections Orlya, 1887; From the Left Hand, 1889; Useless Beauty, 1890) motives of powerlessness and insignificance of a person in the face of death, his tragic loneliness and loss in a cruel world sound. They are imbued with moods of hopeless despair, hysterical melancholy, inexplicable horror. Maupassant's illness is progressing, it is becoming more and more difficult for him to work (the novel "Angelus" will remain unfinished), the thought of suicide is increasingly visited. After an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide in January 1892, the writer was placed in a psychiatric hospital in Paris, where he died in July 1893.

In a large and multifaceted creative heritage Maupassant a special place belongs to the short story. “It was I who again instilled in France a taste for the story and the short story,” the writer asserted with good reason. The genre traditional for French literature was enriched by his efforts with new content and reached the heights of artistic perfection.

Maupassant's short stories (there are about 300 of them, united in 16 collections) are extremely diverse in subject matter, genre features(novella-joke, novella-pamphlet, novella-confession, lyrical novella, novella of characters, etc.), tone and language. Taken together, they give a comprehensive picture of the French reality of the late 19th century, reveal the richness of social types and human characters, and allow us to trace the evolution of the writer's creative method.

In the short stories of the first collections ("A Bourgeois' Sunday Walk", "The Tellier's Establishment"), the influence of naturalism is clearly manifested in a predilection for depicting the dark sides of life, in an exaggeration of the role of the biological principle in a person ("In the bosom of the family"), the conditioning of his actions by instincts ("Girlfriend Fields"), in a deliberately objective, nonjudgmental manner of narration ("The Tellier's Establishment").

Collections from the mid 80's. expanding the subject matter of the novels, social conflicts become leading, they increasingly sound the angry and passionate voice of the writer himself, which, according to L.N. Tolstoy, "is tormented ... by the unreasonableness of the world and ... by its ugliness." Maupassant comes to the creation of classic examples of a realistic short story. One of them was Pyshka (1880), which opened a cycle of stories dedicated to the events of the Franco-Prussian war. In it, for the first time, the whole truth was told about the reasons for the defeat of France, about the heroism of its people and the venality of those in power.

The plot of the novel is extremely simple. Rouen captured by the Prussians is left by a group of people: the wine merchant Loizeau and his wife, the manufacturer Carré-Lamadon and his wife, the Count and Countess de Breville, personifying "wealthy, self-confident and powerful strata of society." They are guided not by patriotic feelings, but by selfish motives - the fear of losing their capital. Their random stagecoach neighbor was Elisabeth Rousset, lung woman behavior, nicknamed Pyshka. She leaves Rouen because she hates the invaders.

On the road, these respectable gentlemen, using Pyshka's kindness and responsiveness, force her to serve their own interests. At their insistence, in order to be able to continue the journey, she succumbs to the harassment of a Prussian officer, who was "a magnificent example of rudeness characteristic of a victorious martinet."

And again the stagecoach moves along winter road. In the corner of it, Pyshka is crying softly. "Honest bastards" who "first sacrificed her, and then threw her away like an unnecessary dirty rag," show Pyshka their contempt. The patriotic pathos of the novella, its artistic merits were highly appreciated by G. Flaubert: "I consider "Dumpling" a masterpiece. It is very original in concept, perfectly taken as a whole and superb in style. You can see the landscape and characters clearly, and the psychology is outlined strongly. This little story will remain."

In other military short stories ("Saint Antoine", "Prisoners", "Papa Milon", "Old Sauvage", "Two Friends", "Mademoiselle Fifi", etc.), the writer shows how in the most ordinary, unremarkable, crushed In the dull everyday life of people, love for the motherland awakens amazing fortitude and unbending courage.

So, the old woman Sauvage, avenging her murdered son, burns down her house together with four Prussian soldiers and calmly, with a sense of duty performed, accepts death. Laconically, restrainedly, Maupassant describes the last minutes of the life of an old peasant woman: “They seized the old woman, set her on the wall of her house, which had not yet had time to cool down. Then twelve people lined up opposite her at a distance of twenty meters. She did not move, she understood, she was waiting ... "

Peaceful townsfolk watchmaker Morisseau and haberdasher Sauvage ("Two Friends") suddenly grow into true heroes. Having gone fishing in the vicinity of besieged Paris and captured by the Prussians, they refuse to tell them the password to enter the city and die without staining themselves with betrayal.

In these novels huge force Maupassant's patriotism was revealed and at the same time a deep rejection of war as a means of resolving any conflicts was revealed. Endowed with common sense, the peasant woman in "Pyshka" decisively declares: "Isn't it meanness to kill people, be they Prussians, or English, or Poles, or French?" Hatred of the invaders and hatred of war drives Maupassant's pen in military novels, and in this he is certainly in tune with the anti-war literature of the 20th century.

In short stories about modernity, Maupassant, developing the traditions of French realism, shows the destructive power of money, the spiritual refinement of a person in a world where "to accumulate fortune and have as many things as possible is the main code of morality" (Dostoevsky), the triumph of militant vulgarity in all spheres of life.

The central figure of the short stories of this cycle is a cowardly and narrow-minded man in the street, all of whose thoughts are aimed at acquiring wealth, position in society, and awards. In his depiction, Maupassant widely uses a variety of satire techniques: humor, irony, sarcasm.

Thus, Mr. Sacrement ("Rewarded with an order"), who is engaged in unnecessary library research, writes ridiculous pamphlets, is contemptible in order to be awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor. In the end, he receives it for "special merits", expressed in the fact that Mr. Sacrement turns a blind eye to his wife's connection with the deputy, who is busy with the award. Greed, indifference, envy penetrate family relationships, destroying the natural human feelings of love and affection. Even such a sacred feeling as motherly love cannot resist the greed.

The heroine of the short story "Mother of Freaks" gains wealth by deliberately giving birth to crippled children and selling them to fair booths. Maupassant portrays her not as some kind of romantic villain, but as the most ordinary woman who commits her crime with everyday efficiency.

In his short stories, the writer, like no one else, managed to convey the tragedy of modern life, "in which nothing happens except boredom" (B. Shaw), to pose the cardinal problem for the literature of the 20th century, the alienation of people in society, their inescapable loneliness in a cruel world. "

The old accountant Lera ("Walk"), who had worked for forty years in one office, one spring evening, going out onto the boulevard filled with a crowd of people walking, suddenly felt "all the squalor, all the hopeless squalor of his life, the squalor of the past, the squalor of the present, the squalor of the future ... and realized that there is nothing ahead, nothing behind, nothing around, nothing in the heart, nothing anywhere. And he could not return to his empty room, to an empty, meaningless life - he hanged himself in the Bois de Boulogne.

The hero of the short story "Loneliness" mournfully reflects on the tragic disunity of people, on the futility of their efforts to achieve happiness: "We suffer most in life from eternal loneliness, and all our actions, all efforts are aimed at running away from it ... in order to no matter what we do, no matter how we rush about ... we are always alone. We are farther apart than the stars of heaven ... "

Maupassant sought refuge from the rough prose reality in the poetic world of nature and love, to which he devoted many short stories, poems, and novels. In a number of short stories in the burlesque traditions of the French fables and Rabelais, he describes the love affairs of his heroes and the comic side of love ("This pig Moren", "The Sisters of Rondoli", "The Mistress", "Get rid of", etc.). In others, he talks about a real, great feeling that elevates a person above the everyday life, reveals the best in him ("Chair Weaver", "Testament", "Hromulya", "Farmer", "Madame Paris", etc.).

The anthem of triumphant love sounds the short story "Moonlight". The stern ascetic Abbé Martinac, who hates women as insidious tempters of men, armed with a club, goes out at night into the moonlit garden to prevent the meeting of his niece and her lover. But shocked by the magical beauty of nature, he suddenly comes to the conclusion that "it means the Lord allowed people to love each other if he surrounds their love with such magnificence."

But most of all, the writer of bitter short stories about the impossibility and doom of love in a world where everything is sold and bought ("Confession of a Woman", "Mr. Paran", "Revenge", "Scream of Alarm", "Date", "Testament", "Mademoiselle Pearl", "Yvette", etc.). The feeling is sacrificed to self-interest, selfishness, prejudice.

Maupassant, in the article "The inventor of the word" nihilism ", spoke with admiration of the skill of Turgenev as a storyteller: "He is able to give a perfect work on several pages, miraculously group circumstances and create living, tangible, exciting images, outlining them with just a few strokes. " These words in can be fully attributed to Maupassant himself, whose short stories are distinguished by in-depth psychologism, accuracy and picturesque detail, subtle irony that serves to express the author's attitude, conciseness and expressiveness of the language.According to A. France, "he writes the way a good Norman farmer lives - carefully and joyfully." Belarusian language short stories by Maupassant translated by S. Shchup.

In 1883, the novel "Life" was published, the best and most personal work of Maupassant. It reflects the impressions of childhood, difficult relationship father and mother, own sad experience. The main theme of the novel is revealed already in the title itself: the history human life with her unfulfilled hopes, lost illusions, bitter disappointments. maupassant short story french literature

The main character Jeanne de Vaux, a pure, kind, full of charm and youthful charm, leaves the monastery and dreams of love and happiness, for which she seemed to have been created. She is surrounded by caring parents, the comfort of an old landowner's house, the beautiful nature of the Normandy coast. But the girl's romantic dreams come into collision with rough and prosaic reality. Viscount Julien de Lamar, whom she marries, turned out to be an unkind, cynical, prudent man. He takes over the state of Jeanne, constantly deceives her, cheating either with the maid Rosalie, or with Countess Fourville. Jeanne begins to feel that "her life is broken, her happiness is over, there are no more hopes, and she has a terrible future full of torment, betrayal and grief."

The gloomy forebodings of the heroine come true. Julien dies, thrown into the abyss by Count Fourville along with his mistress. Jeanne's mother dies, and it turns out that this loving and tender wife also cheated on her husband. Now she connects all her hopes with her son. But it is the son who brings Jeanne the most cruel disappointments. Spoiled in childhood, not adapted to any work, he grows up as an egoist and a loser: he indulges in various speculations, constantly goes bankrupt, forgets his mother for the sake of his mistress.

The old baron dies, the family estate is sold for debts, and the sick and lonely Jeanne lives only with memories of the past. “Everything in the world is only grief, torment, sorrow and death. Everything deceives, everything lies, everything makes you suffer and cry,” she thinks, summing up her life. It may seem that these words express the views of Maupassant himself. However, the philosophical thought of the work is much more complicated. No matter how much the author loves his heroine, no matter how much he sympathizes with her, he still does not lose his critical attitude towards her. It manifests itself primarily in the opposition of Jeanne to her maid Rosalie, who also had a difficult fate. But unlike her mistress, she retained her presence of mind and courage in life's trials, raised a hardworking and loving son. It is Rosalie who comes to the aid of Jeanne at a difficult moment for that moment, takes over the management of the household, saves her from poverty and loneliness. She, a simple peasant woman, embodying folk wisdom, is instructed by Maupassant at the end of the novel to make the final verdict on life: "You see what life is like: not as good, and not as bad as you think."

Life is not only psychological novel about the personal drama of a person, but also a broad social canvas depicting the death of the noble-landlord world and its culture under the onslaught of developing capitalist relations. The wide and humane culture of the Age of Enlightenment is represented in the novel by the eccentric Baron de Vaux, "an enthusiastic follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau", who has "a loving tenderness for nature, for fields, forests, animals"; his sentimental wife shedding tears over romantic books; "merry and kind" Abbé Pico, alien to fanaticism and intolerance; Jeanne herself. These educated, kind, devoid of class arrogance, but inactive, impractical, weak-willed people are naturally forced out by representatives of the new time, such as the bourgeois nobleman de Lamar, the wealthy peasant Lecoq, the fanatical fanatic Abbé Tolbiac.

The scene at the end of the novel is symbolic, when Jeanne, going to Paris in search of her son, first sees a train that seems to her a monster, approaching her with a deafening roar.

The novel "Life" was attributed by French criticism to naturalistic works, although in reality it retains all the features of a traditional realistic novel. In it, a large place belongs to the setting (a detailed description of the interior decoration of Poplars), details (each time the exact figure of income is indicated: "six thousand four hundred francs", "twenty thousand francs", etc.), portrait ("she resembled the portraits of Veronese golden - blond hair, which seemed to cast a reflection on her skin, the skin of an aristocrat ... Her eyes were dark blue, like those of little men from Dutch faience").

Modern researchers of Maupassant's work note the undoubted dependence of the novel "Life" on the experience of J.S. Turgenev, manifested in the choice of theme (elegiac image of the departing "noble nests"), in the interpretation of the character main character(pure, loving, selfless Jeanne, with her inner appearance is close to Turgenev's girls), in a subtle lyricism that permeates all components of the story.

Like Turgenev, the landscape plays an important role in the novel, acting as one of the means of psychological analysis. Here the heroine, on the threshold of a new life, listens to the sounds and rustles of a beautiful spring night: “It seemed to Jeanne that her heart was expanding, filled with a whisper, like this clear night. There was some kind of affinity between her and this living poetry, and in the warm whiteness of a summer evening she imagined unearthly shudders, a thrill of elusive hopes, something close to a whiff of happiness, and she began to dream of love.

The first sad disappointments in life make Zhanna see the familiar landscape in a new way: “Is it really the same garden, the same grass, the same trees that were in May? Where did the sunny joy of foliage, the emerald poetry of the lawn go? , covered with a dense carpet of fallen leaves, the alleys stretched under the chilled, almost bare poplars ... And then the autumn, damp, harsh nature around her, the mournful leaf fall and the gray shroud of clouds carried by the wind, plunged her into such an abyss of longing that she hurried back home, afraid to burst into tears.

But the aged, lonely, unhappy Zhanna again observes the spring awakening of nature: “It seemed to her that something had changed in the world. The sun became, perhaps, not as hot as in the days of her youth, the sky is not so blue, the grass is not so green; the flowers were also not so bright and fragrant, they did not intoxicate as before. Maupassant strives not so much to reproduce in detail and accurately signs real world how much to convey an emotional reaction to them, a variety of emotional moods and experiences of the characters that arise under the influence of nature, which is typical for an impressionistic landscape. The brilliant pages devoted to the description of the boat trip of Jeanne and Julien in Etretat are reminiscent of the canvases of C. Monet and A. Sisley.

Maupassant's work was highly appreciated by Russian writers. I.S. Turgenev believed that "the novel is charming - and of almost Schillerian purity," and L.N. Tolstoy believed that "Life" is not only incomparably best novel Maupassant, but perhaps the best french novel after Hugo's Les Misérables.

In 1885, Maupassant's novel "Dear Friend" appeared, containing a broad panorama of the socio-political life of France during the time of the III Republic. In the center of the work is the story of a young man striving to conquer Paris. This theme, traditional for the French realistic literature, under the pen of Maupassant acquires a modern sound.

The protagonist of the novel, Georges Duroy, the son of a village innkeeper, a former non-commissioned officer of the colonial troops in Algeria, "corrupted in a conquered country", after demobilization comes to Paris "to make a career". However, he does not have the necessary qualities for this: he does not have a penny in his pocket, he does not shine with intelligence and good manners, he is not educated, he has no connections with influential people. The only thing he has is the attractive appearance of the "seducer from the tabloid novel", the most remarkable detail of which was "beautiful, fluffy, lush, golden with a reddish tint ... curled mustache."

A happy accident - a meeting with a former brother-soldier Charles Forestier, now head of the policy department of the newspaper French Life, opens the way for Duroy to journalism. Starting from a modest position as an information collector, this "cunning, rogue, trickster", as many characters characterize him, quickly makes a dizzying career: he becomes the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, receives the Order of the Legion of Honor, and makes a fortune.

The peasant son Duroy turns into the aristocrat Du Roy, before whom a brilliant future opens up: "he will be a deputy, a minister." This impudent and cynical predator, who, as if in mockery, is called a "dear friend", owes his success in life to women, numerous connections with which help him climb the steps of the social ladder. Unlike the active and talented careerists Balzac and Stendhal, Duroy is organically incapable of heroic deed, does not possess their mind, energy, will. Its advantage lies in the ability to "deceive everyone, exploit everyone."

A "dear friend" cannot have "lost illusions" because he never had them; he is not tormented by remorse, because it has long turned into "a box with a triple bottom, where you can find anything you want."

Maupassant is truly an artist of the 20th century, because he saw in life and brilliantly displayed in the novel the transformation of the heroic bourgeois Rastignac into the cowardly and vulgar Duroy. "Dear friend" born of time, the atmosphere of general venality that prevailed in the III Republic. Street prostitutes (Rachel), social ladies (Ms. Marelle, Madelena Forestier), politicians (deputy Laroche-Mathieu), and journalists (Saint-Potin, Forestier, Walter) are sold here.

An expressive episode of the novel, in which Duroy observes on a winter morning in the Bois de Boulogne a walk of people from high society, whose backstage side of life he knows well: "What a rabble!" he repeated. "A gang of swindlers, a gang of swindlers."

The social problems that dominate in the novel "Dear Friend" do not at the same time exclude the writer's deep philosophical reflections on the meaning of human life. "Breathing, drinking, eating, sleeping, working, dreaming ... all this means dying. To live, finally, also means dying." These words of the old poet Norbert de Varen reflected the growing pessimism of Maupassant, associated both with an increased critical attitude towards contemporary reality, and with a passion for the ideas of Schopenhauer and the positivists.

The novel "Dear Friend" gained great fame in Russia, where it appeared almost simultaneously with the French edition. L.N. Tolstoy, in his response to it, singled out the main idea of ​​the work: "Everything pure and good in our society has perished and perishes, because this society is depraved, insane and terrible."

In 1886, the psychological novel Mont-Auriol was published, which, according to Maupassant, is based on "a story of passion very lively and very poetic." Talking about the birth, development and death of the love of Paul Bretigny and Christiane Andermatt, the writer once again showed the unattainability of happiness in a world of universal venality, the impossibility of spiritual unity of people, the doom of a person to eternal loneliness. These motifs sound even stronger in Maupassant's latest novels: "Pierre and Jean", "Strong as Death", "Our Heart", in which social problems give way to "pure psychology".

Contemporaries often reproached Maupassant for indifference, dispassion, and excessive objectivity. Answering his critics, he bitterly noted in one of his letters in 1890: "... I am one of those people whose skin is torn off and their nerves are exposed. Without a doubt, they consider me one of the most indifferent people in the world. I am a skeptic , which is not the same thing, skeptic, because I have good eyes. My eyes tell my heart: hide, old man, you're funny! And the heart hides..."

Maupassant is a writer who suffered from all human troubles and sorrows, but did not see the opportunity to change the world for the better. But love for people, hatred for everything that disfigures their lives and cripples souls, he expressed in his works. The importance of Maupassant as an artist is great. The new means and methods of psychological analysis he developed have enriched modern literature. According to A.P. Chekhov, "he, as an artist of the word, set such enormous demands that it became no longer possible to write in the old fashioned way."

Henri-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant.

His childhood was spent in Normandy, where the boy mastered the local dialect and became very close to the local fishermen, learning from them fishing and the ability to sail.

At the age of thirteen, Maupassant, in accordance with the will of his mother, entered the theological seminary in Yveto. Studying in conditions of harsh discipline did not suit him, and, in the end, he was expelled.

In 1866, he entered the Rouen Lyceum, graduating three years later. While studying at the Lyceum, one of Maupassant's teachers was the poet Louis Bouillet, who had a noticeable influence on the formation of the literary taste of the writer.

After graduating from the Lyceum as a bachelor, Maupassant entered the Faculty of Law in the city of Cannes, but during the period he was called to the front, after which financial position family so deteriorated that complete higher education The young man couldn't.

From 1872 to 1878 he served in the Naval Ministry, barely making ends meet and dedicating free time rowing and literature. The writer reflected this period of his life in such works as "Inheritance", "In the bosom of the family" and others. Maupassant also became very close to Flaubert, who secured a transfer for him to the Ministry of Public Education.

The love for the water element, which Maupassant experienced from childhood, was reflected in his early stories: back in the 1870s, he planned to publish a collection of short stories called “Boat Tales”, the material of which was later reworked into the short stories “Field’s Girlfriend”, “Yvette ”, “On the river”, “Trip out of town” and others. Another passion of the writer - travel - allowed him to feel unity with nature and observe the life of ordinary people.

Maupassant's first short story entitled "The Hand of a Corpse" (subsequently edited and published under the name "Hand") was published in 1875 under a pseudonym, in 1876 he published the poem "On the Shore" and an essay on the work of Flaubert (in the journal republic").

Reprinted in 1879 under the title "The Wench," the poem led to prosecutions "for pornography," which were brought to an end with the help of Flaubert, who had previously encountered similar difficulties. After the success of Pyshka, Maupassant began working with the Gaulois newspaper, where his Sunday Walks of the Parisian Bourgeois were published.

In the early 1880s, Maupassant became close friends with Turgenev and undertook a series of travels, the impressions of which were reflected in many of his works. Then he goes headlong into writing, working hard on his works and experiencing chronic overwork. These efforts were expressed in the creation of the main works of the writer - the novels "Life" (1883), "Dear Friend" (1885), "Mont-Auriol" (1887), as well as essays: "Under the Sun" (1884), "On the Water" (1888) and many other works. These books brought Maupassant recognition and wealth.

The main themes of Maupassant's work were Norman life, family relations and women's fate, the search for meaning in the individual existence of a person, as well as depression and paranoia. In general, Maupassant's work is characterized by pessimism and a constant search for a better life in the face of inevitable loneliness and unhappiness. In aesthetic terms, the writer sought not to psychological analysis of his characters, but to the presentation of facts and actions, that is, non-judgmental realism in the description of ongoing events.

Back in the 1870s, Maupassant complained about his health, which deteriorated due to constant exhausting work, and especially after he fell ill with syphilis. Nervous attacks caused the writer a deep depression and led to an attempted suicide in December 1891. Maupassant ended up in an asylum for the mentally ill, where he was overtaken by paralysis of the brain. On July 6, 1893, the writer died without regaining consciousness. He was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

Composition

Henri-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born in 1850 in northern France, in Normandy, a country of picturesque meadows and fields. By nature, Maupassant was neither a pessimist nor a misanthrope. Maupassant loved life deeply, strongly, passionately.

Maupassant was from noble family. He learned and rethought Flaubert's traditions. The creative path is intense, but short. Just a few novels: "Life", "Dear friend", "Pierre and Jean" and others. He was also the master of the short story: “Dumpling”, “Yvette”, short “Father Simon”, “Moonlight”, “My Uncle Jules”.

Maupassant is the creator of wonderful examples of concise, precise, expressive French prose attached great importance to the word. Like Flaubert, Maupassant avoided the repetition of words, took care of economy means of expression.

The nature of Maupassant's artistic method was complex. Continuing the best literary traditions of realism of the past, he was not free from some influence of naturalism.

Therefore, along with peculiar realistic works, he also has much weaker ones both in ideological significance and in art form.

Maupassant lived for 42 years. I haven't been able to write for the last 3-4 years. He went crazy, he said that the Eiffel Tower was pressing on the brain. Therefore, the creations of the last years of the writer's life are significantly inferior to those that were written during the heyday of his talent. And yet we can safely say that realistic tendencies were leading in his work.

Fame came to Maupassant in 1880 after the publication of his short story "Dumpling", the first evidence of his creative maturity. Novels and bring him fame as a wonderful French storyteller.

Numerous short stories of his are very diverse in terms of topics, intonation (sometimes sad, sometimes cheerful; sometimes ironic, sometimes evil), according to genre characteristics. But most of them, just like novels, are united by the idea of ​​the ugliness of many forms of reality, united by a longing for beauty. human relations.

He never has long descriptions. There are no extended features either. The essence of a person, the idea of ​​a work stem from behavior, actions actors. The main thing for the writer is to select the circumstances, to depict the situation in which the characters act.

A significant place in the writer's work is occupied by novels. Maupassant turned to the novel because he sought to reflect more life phenomena, to show all kinds of people. The very possibilities of this genre made it possible to widen the social background of the events depicted, to introduce a more diverse circle of actors. Their themes are often much broader than in short stories, the range of problems is varied.

In each of his novels, Maupassant introduced new themes and special tricks their disclosure, which determined their genre difference from each other.

Guy de Maupassant died in 1893 after several years of a serious illness, from which neither the efforts of doctors nor the selfless love of his mother could save him.

Fame came to Maupassant in 1880 after the publication of his short story "Dumpling", the first evidence of his creative maturity. Novels and bring him fame as a wonderful French storyteller. Numerous short stories of his are very diverse in terms of topics, intonation (sometimes sad, sometimes cheerful; sometimes ironic, sometimes evil), according to genre characteristics. But most of them, just like novels, are united by the idea of ​​the ugliness of many forms of reality, united by a longing for the beauty of human relationships.

Maupassant's mastery as an artist manifested itself in the fact that, having an unusually subtle observation, the ability to select bright "talking" facts, the ability to generalize, typify, he managed to reveal big topics in small stories, on a small material, to make important social generalizations.

He never has long descriptions. There are no extended features either. The essence of a person, the idea of ​​a short story stem from the behavior and actions of the characters. The main thing for the writer is to select the circumstances, to depict the situation in which the characters act.

The novel "Pope Simon" is almost naive. It's about an orphan boy. He lives in the village with his mother, there is no one to stand up for him, the boys tease him. Suddenly, a blacksmith stands up for him and becomes his friend, and the forge is his favorite place. A young visitor sees him one day, sees his mother, says thank you and leaves. While the mother is alone, they look askance at her. She is hardworking. The appearance of a blacksmith, who feels sympathy for Marie, changes everything. Gradually, everyone begins to talk about her otherwise, as a decent woman. When the blacksmith openly takes care of Simon's mother, talks about the engagement, the whole village is happy. Public opinion can change.

The narrator plays an important role in Maupassant's short stories. The introduction of the narrator is not a new technique invented by Maupassant. In Maupassant, the narrator gives the narrative a lively character, helps to create the impression of the authenticity of what is being said. Very often he recalls his story about some incident that excited his interlocutor.

The composition of his short stories is very skillful. An important role in them is played by the denouement, which Maupassant always diversifies, invariably striving to intrigue the reader, but also in order to direct his thought to understanding. ideological meaning short stories. Sometimes there is no denouement in the exact sense of the word in the short stories at all. Readers must suggest it themselves.

In the short story "Necklace" the denouement is important. Basically it's completely random. The short story begins with the statement that sometimes in bureaucratic boring families appears amazing woman to shine in the highest light. And Madame Fourestier from this breed. She is young, pretty. The husband once brings 2 tickets to the ball, there is money for a ball gown. The next day there is a ball, and the woman says that there is no way to go without decorations. She remembers her friend, she comes and she gives her a small chest. Madame Fourestier chooses a diamond necklace. Everyone at the ball is delighted. They return home and the necklace is gone. In the morning they go round all the shops, buy a necklace, getting into huge debts. 10 years pass. During this time, the debt was paid, Madame was content with the most minimal opportunities. Friends meet again. Madame Fourestier tells what happened. And it turns out that the necklace was fake. Then there is a rethinking ... What is the true value? This heavy joyless life an honest, impeccable family, or a necklace that for 10 years was still considered fake?

Not in all of his short stories Maupassant turned out to be a realist. In some of them, he manifests himself as an artist, delivering funny anecdotes with erotic content. These are the short stories-anecdotes \"Andre's illness\",\"The case of Ms. Luno\",\"Sage\",\"Latch\",\"Mustache\",\"Nod of the head\", \"Meeting\ ", \"Stranger\",\"Carelessness\",\"Crime uncovered by Uncle Bonifas\",\"Rust\", etc.

Maupassant's naturalism was reflected in them: the absence of social generalizations, attention not to the social aspects of a person's life and character, but only to his physiological essence. They are built on an acute "spicy" situation and are intended to entertain the reading public, and not to excite the minds and hearts.

He has a whole group of short stories, which reflect mystical sensations, pathological feelings, some special perception of the world ("Fear", "Night", "Vision", "He?", " Orlya\",\"Who knows?\", \"Deceased \", etc.). They were obviously born of those painful moods that sometimes disturbed the writer and developed later into a difficult mood. mental illness.

It is interesting that in these short stories, which are nothing more than a description of hallucinations, nightmares that haunt the narrators, the narrator himself very often expresses doubts about the reality of everything depicted. Such doubts could only be expressed by a healthy person. A realist painter, Maupassant did not want to succumb to his illness. But sometimes he was unable to fight it, and then such novels appeared.

Analysis of Maupassant's novel "Life"

In 1883, Maupassant's first novel, Life, was published, which was highly praised by Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy. The heroine of the novel Jeanne is one of the most attractive female images in the work of Maupassant. However, the suffering to which Jeanne is doomed is by no means limited to personal and family reasons, but goes back to general historical and social prerequisites.

The incessant misfortunes that befall Jeanne - the death of her mother, second child, husband, father - exacerbate the loneliness of the heroine of the novel and make her especially painfully experience the process of constant loss of her dear illusions. A woman of the era of romanticism, Jeanne loves to live in dreams, to which she is so disposed by the measured and sleepy local life. Neither her monastic upbringing nor her family prepared her for an active life. As a girl, Jeanne lives with illusions about the celebration of life awaiting her, beautiful as the sunrise, illusions about great love that will fall to her lot, about a happy marriage. Having become a mother, she lives with illusions about her son, a future great person... As soon as one of these illusions died, others came to replace them to die in their turn. The birth of an illusion, which Zhanna clings to, as if finding the meaning of her existence in it, and its loss - this is where her whole life goes.
Although Maupassant has already spoken in some previous stories about how often it is inherent in people to live in illusions and lose them, one cannot think that in his novel he only wanted to prove that the whole human existence consists in the birth and death of illusions. Maupassant showed that this kind of life is typical for Jeanne as a collective image of beautiful in her own way, but inactive, inert women from the nobility-local environment. The reader who easily succumbs to Maupassant's obvious compassion for his heroine is convinced that the writer only loves her and never condemns her in anything. However, this conclusion is wrong, because it is made without taking into account that hidden irony that is always inherent in the works of Maupassant, written in an objective manner. Maupassant really loves Jeanne, loves all the beauty of her feminine appearance and, in particular, her high humanity, which has not yet been disfigured by bourgeois influences, but, on the contrary, courageously opposes them. But all this does not exclude the writer's critical attitude towards Jeanne, which is not difficult to catch in a number of episodes of the novel and which grows towards its finale.

Maupassant's democracy, which often prompted him to adhere to popular assessments in depicting life phenomena, folk wisdom is evident in this novel as well. “And what would you say,” Rosalie says in response to Jeanne’s complaints, “if you had to get up every day at six in the morning and go to day labor? However, there are many such women who are forced to do this, and when they become old, they die of poverty. What a harsh and merciless truth in these words! Rosalie had a lot of sorrows, but work healed her of all sorrows, and unlike Jeanne, she raised her son not in idleness, but in healthy peasant labor.

Last hope Zhanna's beggarly life will be her granddaughter, Paul's child from her deceased mistress.

As a sentence by Maupassant himself over the idle and inactive life of the nobility and even over its best representatives, such as Jeanne and her father in the novel, as a sentence based on folk wisdom, the final words of the novel, uttered by the same Rosalie, sound: “Life, whatever you say not as good, but not as bad as people think.