Avant-propos de la Comédie humaine

by Honoré de Balzac

"En donnant à une œuvre entreprise depuis bientôt treize ans, le titre de la Comédie humaine, il est nécessaire d’en dire la pensée, d’en raconter l’origine, d’en expliquer brièvement le plan, en essayant de parler de ces choses comme si je n’y étais pas intéressé. Ceci n’est pas aussi difficile que le public pourrait le penser. Peu d’œuvres donne beaucoup d’amour-propre, beaucoup de travail donne infiniment de modestie. Cette observation rend compte des examens que Corneille, Molière et autres grands auteurs faisaient de leurs ouvrages : s’il est impossible de les égaler dans leurs belles conceptions, on peut vouloir leur ressembler en ce sentiment."

24 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

French writer Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac), a founder of the realist school of fiction, portrayed the panorama of society in a body of works, known collectively as La comédie humaine .

Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.

Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.

Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.

Reviews

[howl of minerva]

"Si Buffon a fait un magnifique ouvrage en essayant de représenter dans un livre l'ensemble de la zoologie, n'y avait-il pas une oeuvre de ce genre à faire pour la Société?"

"La Société française allait être l'historien, je ne devais être que le secrétaire. En dressant l'inventaire des vices et des vertus, en rassemblant les principaux faits des passions, en peignant les caractères, en choisissant les événements principaux de la Société, en composant des types par la réunion des traits de plusieurs caractères homogènes, peut-être pouvais-je arriver à écrire l'histoire oubliée par tant d'historiens, celle des moeurs."

"Ce n'était pas une petite tâche que de peindre les deux ou trois mille figures saillantes d'une époque, car telle est, en définitif, la somme des types que présente chaque génération et que La Comédie humaine comportera. Ce nombre de figures, de caractères, cette multitude d'existences exigeaient des cadres, et, qu'on me pardonne cette expression, des galeries. De là, les divisions si naturelles, déjà connues, de mon ouvrage en Scènes de la vie privée, de province, parisienne, politique, militaire et de campagne. Dans ces six livres sont classées toutes les Etudes de moeurs qui forment l'histoire générale de la Société, la collection de tous ses faits et gestes, eussent dit nos ancêtres. Ces six livres répondent d'ailleurs à des idées générales. Chacun d'eux a son sens, sa signification, et formule une époque de la vie humaine."

[moi, k.y.a. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balzac Comédie humaine fikrinin ortaya çıkışını en güzel şu cümle ile anlatıyor bence:

Cette idée vint d’une comparaison entre l’Humanité et l’Animalité.

Bu fikir İnsanlık ve Hayvan soyu arasındaki bir karşılaştımadan geldi.

bir de şu kısım beni benden aldı:

La passion est toute l'humanité. Sans elle, la religion, l’histoire, le roman, l’art seraient inutiles.

Tutku bütün insanlıktır. Onsuz din, tarih, roman ve sanat anlamsızlaşır.

çeviriler bana aittir, minnak not olarak geçeyim dedim.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the general introduction to Balzac’s Comédie humaine, a group of about 75 interconnected novels and novellas, and it is also a sort of manifesto of the Realist movement in literature which arose in reaction to Romanticism. Balzac begins by comparing the evolution of animal species, as proposed by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and the evolution of human societies, and explains that his intention is to describe the “species” or conditions of people in modern society. Thus, unlike the Romantics who wrote about extraordinary individuals in extraordinary situations, he proposes to write about typical individuals in their usual social roles. He then defends his realist program against those critics who insisted that literature should describe “moral” characters and situations rather than the way people and society actually are. He also honestly admits his own standpoint as a Catholic and monarchist.

I have never particularly liked Romanticism, and having just finished reading some representative writings of Lamartine and de Vigny, it is with a certain feeling of relief that I am beginning to read Balzac. My intention is to read the whole of the first division of the Comédie humaine, the “Scenes de la vie privée”, and a few of the more important works of the other divisions; this may change if I decide that it is too much and abridge it, or really get into it and decide to read more. I have read a few books of Balzac back when I was in college and may or may not re-read those in their proper order; I am also going to start with Le Père Goriot out of order because it is this month’s read for the Constant Reader group on Goodreads. Then I will go back to the beginning and start reading them in the order Balzac intended (which is not the order they were written in; actually he modified them all in different editions to unify the whole collection). Since this is only one among many reading projects, I expect it will be a couple years before I get through what I want to read. I will post my reviews as I go along.

[teresa connolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bof qué bueno es este tío… Me pierde un poco cuando se empapa de moralidad para hablar de ideas defensoras sobre la monarquía y el protestantismo. Sin embargo, es una joya. He subrayado tanto y he escrito tantas anotaciones. Cómo habla de su intención, de su visión, de sus referentes, de su lenguaje, de sus ideas, de sus aspiraciones…

“Yo he podido hacer más que el historiador, porque soy más libre. […] La Historia es, o debería ser, lo que fue; por el contrario, la novela debe ser el mundo mejor. […] Captando por completo el sentido de esta composición, se ha de reconocer que concedo a los hechos, constantes, cotidianos, secretos o patentes, a los actos de l ávida individual, a sus causas y a sus principios, tanta importancia como hasta ahora han concedido los historiadores a los acontecimientos en la vida pública de las naciones. […] Así sufrimos todos los días.”

[Manuel Ortega Tierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'est intéressant, il parle de sa conception de la littérature, et même de la politique et la réligion.