Arnault, Antoine Vincent

Arnault, Antoine Vincent 

Born Jan. 22, 1766, in Paris; died Sept. 16, 1834, in Goderville, Seine-Maritime Department. French playwright and poet; member of the Académie Française.

Arnault was the author of tragedies written in the spirit of classicism that contained scathing allusions to his time, including Lucretia (staged in 1792), in which Brutus delivers republican tirades. His witty, sometimes sharply satirical fables (published in 1814 and 1819) and lyric poems were well known. One of them—“The Leaf,” 1815—was exceptionally popular and was translated into almost all European languages. There are more than eight Russian translations of “The Leaf (V. A. Zhukovskii, V. L. Pushkin, D. V. Davydov, and others). Arnault also wrote interesting memoirs.

WORKS

Oeuvres, vols. 1–8. Paris, 1824–27.
Souvenirs d’un sexagénaire, vols. 1–4. Paris, 1833; 2nd ed., 1910.
“La Feuille”—“Listok.” In Frantsuzskie stikhi ν perevode russkikh poetov XIX-XX vv.: Na frantsuzskom i russkom iazykakh. Moscow, 1969.

REFERENCES

Pushkin, A. S. “Frantsuzskaia akademiia.” In Poln. sobr. soch., 2nd ed. AN SSSR, vol. 7. Moscow, 1958.
Oksman, Iu. “Siuzhety Pushkina.” In Pushkin i ego sovremenniki, issue 28. Paris, 1917. Pages 76–87.
Oblomievskii, D. Literatura frantsuzskoi revoliutsii (1789–1794). Moscow, 1964.
Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, new ed., vol. 2. Published under the direction of M. Michaud. Paris, 1843. Pages 255–65.

A. IU. NARKEVICH