Dumas, Alexandre (redirected from père)

Dumas, Alexandre(Dumas fils), 1824–95, French dramatist and novelist

Dumas, Alexandre, known as Dumas fils (älĕksäN`drə dümä`, fēs), 1824–95, French dramatist and novelist, illegitimate son of Dumas Père. He was the chief creator of the 19th-century comedy of manners. His first important play, La Dame aux camélias (1852, tr. 1856), known in English as Camille, was a sensation. It was based on a partly autobiographical novel of the same title, which he had published in 1848. Portraying a love affair of a courtesan, the play became the vehicle of many famous actresses, and it was the basis of Verdi's opera La Traviata. Another successful play, Le Demi-Monde (1855, tr. 1858), aroused much discussion because of its portrayal of the disreputable world of French society. In later plays Dumas preached a revolt against romantic morality, the excesses of the wealthy, and bourgeois puritanism and propounded social and psychological questions. His stage works are notable for skillful construction, though the characterizations are somewhat lacking in vitality. His novels include Tristan le Roux (1850) and Diane de Lys (1853). Among his best plays are also The Money Question (1857, tr. 1915), Le Fils naturel [the natural son] (1858), Les Idées de Mme Aubray (1867), L'Étrangère [the strange woman] (1876), and Denise (1885). His early essays, Entr'actes (1878–79), are mostly on social subjects. In 1874 he was elected to the French Academy.

Bibliography

See study by H. S. Schwarz (1927, repr. 1971).

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Dumas, Alexandre(Dumas père), 1802–70, French novelist and dramatist

Dumas, Alexandre (älĕksäN`drə dümä`), known as Dumas père (pĕr), 1802–70, French novelist and dramatist. His father (an illegitimate son of the marquis de la Pailleterie and a black woman, Louise Cosette Dumas), was a general in the Revolution. Dumas delighted many generations of readers with his highly romantic novels immortalizing the adventures of the Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo. Largely self-educated, Dumas was a flamboyant youth with a gift for storytelling and a penchant for love affairs. At the age of 20 he obtained a minor post with the duc d'Orléans in Paris, and later he was active in the Revolution of 1830. His first successes were the historical dramas Henri III et sa cour (1829), Christine (1830), Antony (1831), and La Tour de Nesle (1832), notable for its evocation of the Middle Ages. After a number of novels, written independently or in collaboration, he produced his great triumphs, The Three Musketeers (1844, tr. 1846) and its sequels—Twenty Years After (1845, tr. 1846) and The Vicomte de Bragelonne (1848–50, tr. 1850?)—and The Count of Monte Cristo (1845, tr. 1846), which in its dramatic version was made famous by James O'Neill. Although these historical novels and their successors, written with the aid of numerous collaborators, especially Auguste Maquet, are scorned by critics, who find them lacking in style and characterization, they have had enormous popularity and have been translated into nearly every language. Among his other works are Queen Margot (1845, tr. 1845), The Lady of Monsoreau (1846, tr. 1847), The Forty-Five (1848), The Black Tulip (1850), and The Journal of Madame Giovanni (tr. 1944). Dumas père's incredible output of novels, travel works, memoirs, and historical studies made him wealthy, but he spent more than he earned on a horde of pensioners at his home, "Monte-Cristo," near Saint-Germain. His memoirs (1852–54) end with the year 1832. He was interested in Italian unification, and among his activities was a part in Garibaldi's expedition in 1860.

Bibliography

See studies by F. W. Hemmings (1980) and C. Schopp (1988).

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Dumas, Alexandre

 known as Dumas père

Alexandre Dumas.

(credit: Gramstorff Bros.)

(born July 24, 1802, Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, France—died Dec. 5, 1870, Puys, near Dieppe) French playwright and novelist. Dumas's first success was as a writer of melodramatic plays, including Napoléon Bonaparte (1831) and Antony (1831). His immensely popular novels, set in colourful historical backgrounds, include The Three Musketeers (1844), a romance about four swashbuckling heroes in the age of Cardinal Richelieu, and its sequel Twenty Years After (1845); The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–45); and The Black Tulip (1850). His illegitimate son Alexandre Dumas (1824–95), called Dumas fils, is best known for his play La Dame aux camélias (1848), the basis of Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata and later of several films titled Camille.

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Dumas, Alexandre 

(Dumas fils). Born July 28, 1824, in Paris; died Nov. 27, 1895, in Marly-le-Roi, Seine-et-Oise Department. French writer. member of the Académie Franchise from 1874. Son of A. Dumas.

The first published work by Dumas fils was the collection of poems Sins of Youth (1845). He was the author of the novels La Dame aux camelias (vols. 1-2, 1848; Russian translation, 1892), Doctor Servan (vols. 1-2, 1849; Russian translation, 1850), and Three Strong Men (vols. 1-4, 1850), and he also wrote petit bourgeois philanthropic plays. Dumas won wide acclaim in 1852 with the staging of the drama La Dame aux camelias (in English, Camille), which was based on his novel of the same name. (Verdi’s opera La Traviata was based on the plot of La Dame aux camélias.)

Dumas understood well the rules of the stage and knew how to develop intrigue and dialogue. His plays are not devoid of fundamental truth, but many of them tend to moralize and are imbued with petit bourgeois morals affirming the stability of the bourgeois family and society (The Demimonde, 1855, The Natural Son, 1858, The Wife of Claude, 1873, and The Stranger, 1876).

WORKS

Théátre complet, vols. 1-10. Paris, 1923.

REFERENCES

Istoriia frantsuzskoi literatury, vol. 2. Moscow, 1956.
Maurois, A. Tri Diuma. Afterword by K. Andreev. Moscow, 1962. (Translated from French.)
Claretie, J.A. Dumas fils. Paris, 1883.
Bourget, P. Essais de psychologie contemporaine. Paris, 1886.
Doumic, R. Portraits d’écrivains. Paris, 1897.

I. A. LILEEVA

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Dumas, Alexandre 

(Dumas père). Born July 24, 1802, in Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne; died Dec. 5, 1870, in Puys, Seine-Inférieure Department. French writer. Son of a republican general.

Dumas père began his literary career in 1825 as a playwright, achieving fame with the staging of his play Henry III and His Court (1829), one of the first French romantic dramas. His most famous plays are Antony (1831), The Tower ofNesle (1832), and Kean (1836). The plays of Dumas perè were a milestone in the history of romantic theater.

In 1835, Dumas pere published his first historical novel, Isabella of Bavaria. In the 1840’s his historical adventure novels appeared one after the other in Parisian newspapers. Among them was a trilogy united by its main characters (The Three Musketeers, 1844, Twenty Years After, 1845, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne, which was published separately between 1848 and 1850). Also published serially was the trilogy on Henry of Navarre— Queen Margot (1845), Lady Monsoreau (published separately in 1846), and The Forty-five (published separately in 1847-48). Dumas perè created an enormous number of works. In addition to novels and plays, he wrote memoirs (vols. 1-22, 1852-54) and travel notes, including a description of his visit to Russia in 1858 that abounds in errors but is imbued with sympathy for Russia (From Paris to Astrakhan, vols. 1-5, 1858).

Dumas perè’s best novels are inherently entertaining, with swiftly developing plots, vitality, and a spirit of enterprise. His heroes are all endowed with great energy, daring, and ingenuity, and they overcome all obstacles. This accounts for the exceptional popularity of Dumas’s work. His last works, however, were permeated with pessimism, gloomy fatalism, and lack of faith in the power of human reason.

WORKS

Oeuvres complètes, vols. 1-301. Paris [1846-68].
Théâtre complet, vols. 1-15. Paris, 1863-74.
In Russian translation:
Poln. sobr. romanov, vols. 1-24 (in 84 books). St. Petersburg, 1812-13.
Izbr. soch., vols. 1-8. Leningrad, 1928-29.
Dvadtsat’ let spustia, vols. 1-3. Moscow, 1957.
Vikont de Brazhelon, ili Desiat’ let spustia, vols. 1-3. Moscow, 1957.
Sheval’e d’Armantal’. Moscow, 1962.
Askanio. Moscow, 1962.
P’esy. Leningrad-Moscow, 1965.

REFERENCES

Durylin, S. “Aleksandr Diuma-otets i Rossiia.” In Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vols. 31-32. Moscow, 1937.
Andreev, K. “Khoziain zamka: Monte-Kristo.” Mir prikliuchenii, no. 4. Moscow, 1959.
Kuprin, A. “Diuma-otets.” Don, 1961, no. 3.
Maurois, A. Tri Diuma. Afterword by K. Andreev. Moscow, 1962. (Translated from French.)
Craig Bell, A. A. Dumas: A Biography and Study. London, 1950.
Clouard, H. A. Dumas. Paris, 1955.
“Alexandre Dumas père.” Europe, 1970, nos. 490-91. (Special issue.)
Talvart, H., and J. Place. Bibliographie des auteurs modernes de langue francaise (1801-1934), vol. 5. Paris, 1935. Pages 1-65.

A. IU. NARKEVICH