Editing Alfred de Vigny (section)

==Biography==
Vigny was born in [[Loches]] (a town to which he never returned) to an aristocratic family. His father was a 60-year-old veteran of the [[Seven Years' War]] who died before Vigny's 20th birthday; his mother, 20 years younger, was a strong-willed woman who was inspired by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]] and took personal responsibility for Vigny's early education. His maternal grandfather, the Marquis de Baraudin, had served as commodore with the royal navy.

Vigny grew up in Paris, and attended preparatory studies for the [[École Polytechnique]] at the [[Lycée Bonaparte]], obtaining a good knowledge of French history and the Bible before developing an "inordinate love for the glory of bearing arms".

As was the case for every noble family, the [[French Revolution]] diminished the family's circumstances considerably. After Napoléon's defeat at Waterloo, a Bourbon, [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]], the brother of [[Louis XVI of France|Louis XVI]], was restored to authority, and in 1814 Vigny enrolled in one of the privileged aristocratic companies of the ''Maison du Roi'' (king's guard) as a second lieutenant.

[[Image:Kinson(AttribueA)AlfredDeVigny.JPG|thumb|left|190px|Portrait of Vigny, attributed to [[François Kinson]] ]]

Though he was promoted to first lieutenant in 1822 and to captain the next year, the military profession in time of peace bored him. After taking several leaves of absence he abandoned military life during 1827, having already published his first poem ''Le Bal'' during 1820 and an ambitious narrative poem ''Éloa'' in 1824 on the popular romantic theme of the redemption of [[Satan]].

Prolonging successive leaves from the army, he settled in Paris with his young English bride Lydia Bunbury, whom he married in [[Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques|Pau]] in 1825. He collected his recent works in January 1826 in ''Poèmes antiques et modernes''. Three months later he published the first important historical novel in French, ''[[Cinq-Mars (novel)|Cinq-Mars]]'', based on the life of [[Louis XIII]]'s favorite [[Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars]], who conspired against the [[Cardinal de Richelieu]]. With the success of these two volumes, Vigny seemed to be becoming a major Romantic celebrity, though one of Vigny's friends, [[Victor Hugo]], soon became much more famous. Vigny wrote of Hugo: "The Victor I loved is no more... now he likes to make saucy remarks and is turning into a liberal, which does not suit him."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vhugo.htm |title=Alfred de Vigny |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140324184201/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vhugo.htm |archive-date=24 March 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Cinq-Mars: Or, A Conspiracy Under Louis XIII.|author1=de Vigny, A.|author2=Hazlitt, W.|date=1890|publisher=Little, Brown|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zWEtAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PR10|access-date=20 August 2017}}</ref> Unlike Hugo and [[Alphonse de Lamartine]], who became gradually liberal and then radical during the 1830s, Vigny remained pliantly centrist in his politics: he accepted the [[July Monarchy]], at first welcomed and then rejected the [[Second French Republic]], and then endorsed [[Napoleon III]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pearson |first1=Roger |title=Unacknowledged Legislators: The Poet as Lawgiver in Post-Revolutionary France |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=508–509}}</ref> Vigny later denounced people he knew well whom he suspected of republican sympathies to the imperial police.<ref>Poliakov, Léon (2003). ''The History of Anti-semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner.'' University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 364.</ref>

[[File:Vigny Maurin.jpg|thumb|right|190px|Alfred de Vigny, by [[Antoine Maurin (painter)|Antoine Maurin]], 1832.]]

The visit of an English theater troupe to Paris in 1827 revived French interest in Shakespeare. Vigny worked with Emile Deschamps on a translation of ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. During 1831 he presented his first original play, ''La Maréchale d'Ancre'', a historical drama recounting events just prior to the reign of [[Louis XIII of France|King Louis XIII]]. Attending the theater, he met the actress [[Marie Dorval]], who became his paramour until 1838.<ref>Price, Blanche A. (1962). "Alfred de Vigny and Julia," ''MLN,'' Vol. LXXVII, No. 5, p. 449.</ref> (Vigny's wife had become a near invalid and never learned to speak French fluently; they did not have any children, and Vigny was also disappointed when his father-in-law's remarriage deprived the couple of an anticipated inheritance.)

During 1835 Vigny produced a drama titled ''Chatterton'', based on the life of [[Thomas Chatterton]], an English poet who committed suicide while young, with Marie Dorval acting as Kitty Bell. ''Chatterton'' is considered to be one of the best of the French romantic dramas and is still performed regularly.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}} The story of Chatterton had inspired one of the three episodes of Vigny's philosophical novel ''Stello'' (1832), in which he examined the relationship of poetry to society and concluded that the poet, doomed to be regarded with suspicion by people of every social order, must remain somewhat aloof from the social order.<ref name="britannica">{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Victor-comte-de-Vigny|title=Alfred-Victor, count de Vigny &#124; French author|website=Britannica.com|access-date=20 August 2017}}</ref> ''[[Servitude et grandeur militaires]]'' (1835) was a similar tripartite meditation on the condition of a soldier. It is discussed by characters in the novel, ''[[The Valley of Bones]],'' by [[Anthony Powell]].<ref>Michael Jay, "Alfred de Vigny-The Life of a Warrior." ''APS Newsletter'' 97 (winter 2024):14-20.
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[[Image:Alfred de Vigny, dessin de Mérimée.jpg|thumb|left|190px|Sketch of Alfred de Vigny, by [[Prosper Mérimée]].]]

Although Vigny gained success as a writer, his personal life was often unhappy. His marriage was a disappointment; his relationship with Marie Dorval was plagued by jealousy; and eventually even his literary fame was diminished by the achievements of others. After the death of his mother in 1838 he inherited the property of Maine-Giraud, near Angoulême, where it was said that he had withdrawn to his '[[ivory tower]]' (an expression [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve|Sainte-Beuve]] coined with reference to Vigny).<ref>Bartlett, John (1968). [https://archive.org/stream/familiarquotatio017007mbp#page/n5/mode/2up ''Familiar Quotations.''] Boston: Little, Brown and Company, p. 615.</ref> There Vigny wrote some of his most famous poems, including ''La Mort du loup'' and ''La Maison du berger''. Proust regarded ''La Maison du berger'' as the greatest French poem of the 19th century.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}} In 1845, after several unsuccessful attempts to be elected, Vigny became a member of the [[Académie française]].

[[File:Paris Tombe Vigny 2012.jpg|thumb|right|190px|Tomb of Alfred de Vigny, his mother and his wife at [[Cimetière de Montmartre|Montmartre cemetery]], Paris.]]

During later years, Vigny ceased to publish. He continued to write, however, and his ''Journal'' is considered by modern scholars to be a great work in its own right, though it awaits a definitive scholarly edition.<ref>Bird, C. Wesley (1934). "Alfred de Vigny's 'Journal of a Poet'," ''The Modern Language Journal,'' Vol. XVIII, No. 8, p. 543.</ref> Vigny considered himself a philosopher as well as a literary author; he was, for example, one of the first French writers to take a serious interest in [[Buddhism]]. His own philosophy of life was [[Philosophical pessimism|pessimistic]] and stoical, but valued human fraternity, the growth of knowledge, and mutual assistance{{Citation needed|date=November 2014}}. He was the first in literary history to use the word spleen in the sense of woe, grief, gall, descriptive of the condition of the soul of modern man. During his later years he spent much time preparing the posthumous collection of poems known now as ''Les Destinées'', for which his intended title was ''Poèmes philosophiques''. It concludes with Vigny's final message to humanity, ''L'Esprit pur''.

Vigny developed what is believed to have been stomach cancer during his early sixties. He endured its torments with exemplary stoicism for several years: 'When we see what we were on Earth and what we leave behind/Only silence is great; everything else is weakness.' ({{lang|fr|A voir ce que l'on fut sur terre et ce qu'on laisse/Seul le silence est grand&nbsp;; tout le reste est faiblesse.}})<ref>''La Mort du loup''. In English Translation: [https://sites.google.com/site/lamortduloupenglishtranslation/ ''The Death of the Wolf''].</ref> Vigny died in Paris on 17 September 1863, a few months after the death of his wife. He was buried beside her in the [[Cimetière de Montmartre]] in Paris. Several of his works were published posthumously.
In 1876, the composer [[Ruggero Leoncavallo]] wrote an opera [[Chatterton (opera)|CHATTERTON]] based upon Vigny's play and novel.