Editing Octave Mirbeau

{{expand French|topic=bio|date=October 2018}}
{{short description|French writer, art critic and journalist (1848–1917)}}
{{For|the sculpture|Octave Mirbeau (sculpture)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Octave Mirbeau
| image            = Octave Mirbeau portrait.jpg
| birth_name       = Octave Henri Marie Mirbeau
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1848|02|16|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Trévières]], France
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1917|02|16|1848|02|16|df=y}}
| death_place      = [[Paris]], France
| resting_place    = [[Passy Cemetery]], Paris
| occupation       = [[Novelist]], [[playwright]], [[journalist]], [[pamphleteer]]
| genre            = [[Novel]], [[comedy]], [[chronicle]]s, [[Art criticism|art critic]]
| movement         = [[Impressionism]], [[expressionism]], [[Decadent movement|decadent]], [[avant-garde]]
| notableworks     = ''[[The Torture Garden]]'' (1899) <br/> ''[[The Diary of a Chambermaid (novel)|The Diary of a Chambermaid]]'' (1900)
| spouse           = {{marriage|[[Alice Regnault]]|1887}}
}}

'''Octave Henri Marie Mirbeau''' ({{IPA|fr|ɔktav miʁbo|lang}}; 16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917) was a French [[novelist]], [[art critic]], [[travel writer]], [[pamphleteer]], [[journalist]] and [[playwright]], who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the literary and artistic [[avant-garde]] with highly transgressive novels that explored violence, abuse and psychological detachment. His work has been translated into 30 languages.

==Biography==

===Aesthetic and political struggles===
[[File:Octave Mirbeau formal portrait.jpg|thumb|Octave Mirbeau.]]
The grandson of Norman notaries and the son of a doctor, Mirbeau spent his childhood in a village in [[Normandy]], [[Rémalard]], pursuing secondary studies at a Jesuit college in [[Vannes]], which expelled him at the age of fifteen.<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=242 « Rémalard »] and [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=254 « Vannes »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> Two years after the traumatic experience of the [[Franco-Prussian War|1870 war]], he was tempted by a call from the [[Bonapartist]] leader Dugué de la Fauconnerie, who hired him as private secretary and introduced him to ''L'Ordre de Paris''.

After his debut in journalism in the service of the [[Bonapartists]],<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=155 « Bonapartisme »], in  [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> and his debut in literature when he worked as a [[ghostwriter]],<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=195 « Négritude »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau'']; and [[Pierre Michel]], [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2363537/ « Quelques réflexions sur la "négritude" »], in ''[[Cahiers Octave Mirbeau]]'', n° 12, 2005, p. 4-34.</ref> Mirbeau began to publish under his own name. Thereafter, he wrote in order to express his own [[ethical]] principles and [[aesthetic]] values. A supporter of the [[anarchist]] cause (cf. ''La Grève des électeurs'')<ref>English translation: [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3436 ''The Voters strike''], The Anarchist Library, 2012.</ref> and fervent supporter of [[Alfred Dreyfus]],<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=147 « Affaire Dreyfus »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> Mirbeau embodied the intellectual who involved himself in civic issues. Independent of all parties, Mirbeau believed that one's primary duty was to remain lucid.<ref>[[Pierre Michel]], [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2383817/ ''Lucidité désespoir et écriture''], Presses de l'Université d’Angers, 2001.</ref>

As an art critic, he campaigned on behalf of the "great gods nearest to his heart": he sang the praises of [[Auguste Rodin]], [[Claude Monet]], [[Camille Pissarro]], [[Paul Cézanne]], [[Paul Gauguin]], [[Félicien Rops]]<ref>Patrick Bade (2003) Félicien Rops. Parkstone Press Ltd, New York, 95 pp. {{ISBN|1859958907}}</ref> [[Auguste Renoir]], [[Félix Vallotton]], and [[Pierre Bonnard]], and was an early advocate of [[Vincent van Gogh]], [[Camille Claudel]], [[Aristide Maillol]], and [[Maurice Utrillo]] (cf. his ''[[Combats esthétiques]]'', 1993).

As a literary critic and early member of [[Académie Goncourt]], he 'discovered' [[Maurice Maeterlinck]] and [[Marguerite Audoux]] and admired [[Remy de Gourmont]], [[Marcel Schwob]], [[Léon Bloy]], [[Georges Rodenbach]], [[Alfred Jarry]], [[Charles-Louis Philippe]], {{ill|Émile Guillaumin|fr}}, [[Valery Larbaud]] and [[Léon Werth]] (cf. his ''[[Combats littéraires]]'', 2006).

===Mirbeau's novels===

====Autobiographical novels====
[[Image:CalvaireJeanniot2.JPG|thumb|left|[[Pierre-Georges Jeanniot]], ''Le Calvaire'' (1901)]]
Mirbeau [[ghostwriting|ghostwrote]] ten novels,<ref>For instance, [http://www.leboucher.com/pdf/mirbeau/mirbeau-ecuyere.pdf ''L'Écuyère''], [http://www.leboucher.com/pdf/mirbeau/mirbeau-levassart.pdf ''La Belle Madame Le Vassart''] and [http://www.leboucher.com/pdf/mirbeau/mirbeau-rue.pdf ''Dans la vieille rue''].</ref> including three for the Swiss writer [[Dora Melegari]].<ref name="Gagel2016">{{cite book|author=Amanda Gagel|title=Selected Letters of Vernon Lee, 1856 - 1935: Volume I, 1865-1884|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rUMlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA548|date=26 October 2016|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-134-97673-7|page=548}}</ref> He made his own literary debut with ''[[Le Calvaire]]'' (''Calvary'', 1886), in which writing allowed him to overcome the [[Psychological trauma|traumatic]] effects of his devastating liaison with the ill-reputed Judith Vinmer (1858–1951), renamed Juliette Roux in the novel.<ref>Cf. Jean-Michel Guignon, « Aux sources du ''Calvaire'' – Qui était Judith/Juliette ? », ''[[Cahiers Octave Mirbeau]]'', n° 20, 2013, p. 145-152.</ref>

In 1888, Mirbeau published [[:fr:L'Abbé Jules|''L'Abbé Jules'']] (''[[Abbé Jules]]''), the first pre-[[Sigmund Freud|Freudian]] novel written under the influence of [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoevsky]] to appear in French literature;<ref>[[Pierre Michel]], [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/darticlesfrancais/PM-preface%20%20Abbe%20Jules.pdf « ''L'Abbé Jules'' : de Zola à Dostoïevski »], Éditions du Boucher, 2003, p. 3-18.</ref> the text featured two main characters: l'abbé Jules and [[Père Pamphile|Father Pamphile]]. In [[:fr:Sébastien Roch, roman d'Octave Mirbeau|''Sébastien Roch'']] (1890) (English translation: ''[[Sébastien Roch (novel)|Sébastien Roch]]'', 2000), Mirbeau purged the traumatic effects of his experience as a student at a [[Jesuits]] school in [[Vannes]]. In the novel, the 13-year-old Sébastien is sexually abused by a priest at the school and the abuse destroys his life.<ref>[[Pierre Michel]], [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/darticlesfrancais/PM-preface%20Sebastien%20Roch.pdf « ''Sébastien Roch'', ou le meurtre d'une âme d'enfant »], Éditions du Boucher, 2003, p. 3–24.</ref>

====Crisis of the novel====
Mirbeau then underwent a grave [[Existential crisis|existential]] and literary crisis, yet during this time, he still published in serial form a pre-existentialist novel about the artist's fate, ''[[Dans le ciel]]'' (''In the Sky''), introducing the figure of a painter ([[Lucien (Mirbeau)|Lucien]]), directly modeled on [[Van Gogh]]. In the aftermath of the [[Dreyfus Affair]] — which exacerbated Mirbeau's pessimism<ref>[http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=201 « Pessimisme »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> — he published two novels judged to be scandalous by self-styled paragons of virtue: [[:fr:Le Jardin des supplices|''Le Jardin des supplices'']] ''([[The Torture Garden|Torture Garden]]'' (1899) and [[:fr:Le Journal d'une femme de chambre|''Le Journal d'une femme de chambre'']] (''[[The Diary of a Chambermaid (novel)|Diary of a Chambermaid]]'') (1900), then ''[[Les Vingt et un Jours d'un neurasthénique]]'' (The twenty one days of a [[Neurasthenia|neurasthenic]] person) (1901). In the process of writing these works, Mirbeau unsettled traditional novelistic conventions, exercising  [[collage]] techniques,<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=674 « Collage »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> transgressing codes of verisimilitude and fictional credibility, and defying the hypocritical rules of propriety.

====Death of the novel====
In his last two novels, ''[[La 628-E8]]'' (1907) – including ''[[La Mort de Balzac]]'' – and ''[[Dingo (novel)|Dingo]]'' (1913), he strayed ever further from [[Realism (arts)|realism]], giving free rein to clinical [[fantasy]] elements and casting his cat and his own dog as heroes. These last Mirbeau stories show a complete break with the conventions of realist fiction, also signifying a breakdown of reality.<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=695 « Réalisme »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau'']; and [[Pierre Michel]], [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/darticlesfrancais/PM-OM%20et%20le%20roman.pdf ''Octave Mirbeau et le roman''], Société Octave Mirbeau, 2005.</ref>

===Mirbeau's theatre===
In the theatre, Mirbeau made his first steps with a proletarian drama and modern tragedy, ''[[Les Mauvais bergers]]'' (''The Bad Shepherds'', 1897). Then he experienced worldwide acclaim with [[:fr:Les affaires sont les affaires|''Les affaires sont les affaires'']] (''[[Business is business]]'', 1903) — his classical [[comedy of manners]] and characters in the tradition of [[Molière]]. Here Mirbeau featured the character of [[Isidore Lechat]], predecessor of the modern master of business intrigue, a product of the new world, a figure who makes money from everything and spreads his tentacles out over the world.

In 1908 — at the end of a long legal and media battle<ref>[[Pierre Michel]], « La Bataille du ''Foyer'' », ''Revue d'histoire du théâtre'', 1991, n° 3, p. 195-230.</ref>
— Mirbeau saw his play ''[[Le Foyer]]'' (''Home'') performed by the [[Comédie-Française]]. In this work he broached a new taboo subject: the economic and sexual exploitation of adolescents in a home that pretended to be a charitable one.
[[Image:MirbeauHome01.jpg|thumb|''Le Foyer'']]

He also wrote six [[one-act play]]s, published under the title of ''[[Farces et moralités]]'' (1904), among them being ''L'Épidémie'' (''Epidemics'', 1898). Here, Mirbeau can be seen as anticipating the theatre of [[Bertolt Brecht]], [[Marcel Aymé]], [[Harold Pinter]], and [[Eugène Ionesco]].<ref>[[Pierre Michel]], [https://www.scribd.com/doc/3065923/Pierre-Michel-Octave-Mirbeau-et-Eugene-Ionesco- « Octave Mirbeau et Eugène  Ionesco »], ''[[Cahiers Octave Mirbeau]]'', n° 13, 2006, p. 163-174.</ref> He calls language itself into question, demystifying law, ridiculing the discourse of politicians, and making fun of the language of love (''Les Amants'', ''The Lovers'', 1901).

===Posthumous fame===
There has been no interruption in the publication of Mirbeau's works. Yet his immense literary production has largely been known through only three works, and he was considered as literally and [[Political correctness|politically incorrect]].

But, more recently, Mirbeau has been rediscovered and presented in a new light. A fuller appreciation of the role he played in the political, literary, and artistic world of la [[Belle Époque]] is emerging.<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/index.html Société Octave Mirbeau].</ref>

Mirbeau lies buried in the [[Passy Cemetery]], in the [[16th arrondissement of Paris]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Works==
[[File:Grimaces(2).jpg|thumb|200px|''Les Grimaces'' (1883)]]
[[Image:Sébastien Roch Ibels 1906.jpg|thumb|''Sébastien Roch'', illustrated by [[Henri-Gabriel Ibels]], 1906]]

===Novels===
* ''[[Le Calvaire]]'' (1886) (''Calvary'', New York, 1922).
* ''L'Abbé Jules'' (1888) (''[[Abbé Jules]]'', Sawtry, Dedalus, 1996).
* ''[[Sébastien Roch (novel)|Sébastien Roch]]'' (1890) (''Sébastien Roch'', Sawtry, Dedalus, 2000).
* ''[[Dans le ciel]]'' (1892–1893) (''In the Sky'').
* ''[[The Torture Garden|Le Jardin des supplices]]'' (1899) (''Torture Garden'', New York, 1931; ''The Garden of Tortures'', London, 1938) .
* ''[[The Diary of a Chambermaid (novel)|Le Journal d'une femme de chambre]]'' (1900) (''A Chambermaid's Diary'', New York, 1900 ; ''The Diary of a Lady's Maid'', London, 1903 ; ''Célestine, Being the Diary of a Chambermaid'', New York, 1930 ; ''Diary of a Chambermaid'', New York, 1945).
* ''[[Les Vingt et un Jours d'un neurasthénique]]'' (1901).
* ''[[Dingo (novel)]]'' (1913).
* ''[[Un gentilhomme]]'' (1919).
* ''[[Les Mémoires de mon ami]]'' (1920).
* ''Œuvre romanesque'', 3 volumes, Buchet/Chastel – Société Octave Mirbeau, 2000–2001, 4 000 pages. Website of Éditions du Boucher, 2003–2004.

===Theatre===
* ''[[Les Mauvais bergers]]'' (''The Bad Shepherds'') (1897).
* ''Les affaires sont les affaires'' (1903) (''[[Business is business|Business Is Business]]'', New York, 1904).
* ''[[Farces et moralités]]'', six [[morality play]]s (1904) (''Scruples'', New York, 1923 ; ''The Epidemic'', Bloomington, 1949 ; ''The Lovers'', translation coming soon).
* ''[[Le Foyer]]'' (1908) (''Charity'').
* ''Dialogues tristes'', Eurédit, 1905.

===Short stories===
* ''Dans l'antichambre (Histoire d'une Minute)'' (1905).
* ''[[La Mort de Balzac]]'' (1889).
* ''[[Contes cruels (Mirbeau)|Contes cruels]]'', 2 volumes (1890 and 1900).
* ''Contes drôles'' (1895).
* [http://www.leboucher.com/pdf/mirbeau/avocat.pdf ''Mémoire pour un avocat''] (2007).

===Art chronicles===
* ''[[Combats esthétiques]]'', 2 volumes (1893).
* ''Premières chroniques esthétiques'' (1895).
* ''[[Combats littéraires]]'' (1906).

===Travelogues===
* ''[[La 628-E8]]'' (1907) (''Sketches of a journey'', London, 1989).

===Political and social chronicles===

* ''[[Voters strike]]'' (1888)
* ''Combats politiques'' (1890).
* ''L'Affaire Dreyfus'' (1891).
* ''[[Lettres de l'Inde]]'' (1891).
* ''[[L'Amour de la femme vénale]]'' (1894).
* ''Chroniques du Diable'' (1895).
* ''Interpellations'' (1911).

===Correspondence===
* ''Lettres à Alfred Bansard des Bois'' (1989)
* ''{{lang|fr|Correspondance avec Rodin}}'' (1988), ''avec Monet'' (1990), ''avec Pissarro'' (1990), ''avec Jean Grave'' (1994), ''avec Jules Huret'' (2009).
* ''{{lang|fr|Correspondance générale}}'', 3 volumes already published (2003-2005-2009).

==Bibliography==
* [[Reginald Carr (librarian)|Reginald Carr]], ''Anarchism in France - The Case of Octave Mirbeau'', Manchester University Press, 1977. {{isbn|9780719006685}}
* [[Pierre Michel]] and Jean-François Nivet, ''Octave Mirbeau, l'imprécateur au cœur fidèle'', Séguier, 1990, 1020 pages.
* Pierre Michel, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/8919528/Pierre-Michel-Les-Combats-dOctave-Mirbeau ''Les Combats d'Octave Mirbeau''], Annales littéraires de l'université de Besançon, 1995, 386 pages.
* Christopher Lloyd, ''Mirbeau's fictions'', Durham, 1996.
* Enda McCaffrey, ''Octave Mirbeau’s literary intellectual evolution as a french writer (1880-1914)'', Edwin Mellen Press, 2000, 246 pages.
* Pierre Michel, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2383817/Pierre-Michel-Lucidite-desespoir-et-ecriture ''Lucidité, désespoir et écriture''], Presses de l'Université d'Angers (2001).
* Samuel Lair, ''Mirbeau et le mythe de la nature'', Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2004, 361 pages.
* Pierre Michel [https://www.scribd.com/doc/8353841/Pierre-Michel-Octave-Mirbeau-et-le-roman ''Octave Mirbeau et le roman''], Société Octave Mirbeau, 2005, 276 pages.
* Pierre Michel [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2383792/Pierre-Michel-Bibliographie-dOctave-Mirbeau  ''Bibliographie d'Octave Mirbeau''], Société Octave Mirbeau, 2009, 713 pages.
* Pierre Michel [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2358736/Pierre-Michel-Albert-Camus-et-Octave-Mirbeau ''Albert Camus et Octave Mirbeau''], Société Octave Mirbeau, Angers, 2005, 68 pages.
* Pierre Michel [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2358674/Pierre-Michel-JeanPaul-Sartre-et-Octave-Mirbeau ''Jean-Paul Sartre et Octave Mirbeau''], Société Octave Mirbeau, Angers, 2005, 67 pages.
* Pierre Michel, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2358794/Pierre-Michel-Octave-Mirbeau-Henri-Barbusse-et-lenfer ''Octave Mirbeau, Henri Barbusse et l'enfer''], 51 pages.
* Robert Ziegler, ''The Nothing Machine : The Fiction of Octave Mirbeau'', Rodopi, Amsterdam – Kenilworth, September 2007.
* Samuel Lair, ''Octave Mirbeau l'iconoclaste'', L'Harmattan, 2008.
* Yannick Lemarié - [[Pierre Michel]], ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau'', L'Age d'Homme, 2011, 1,200 p.
* Anita Staron, ''L'Art romanesque d'Octave Mirbeau - Thèmes et techniques'', Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego, 2014, 298 p.
* ''[[Cahiers Octave Mirbeau]]'', n° 1 to n° 21, 1994–2014, 7 700 pages.

==External links==
{{commonscat}}
{{wikisource author}}
{{wikiquote}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/octave-mirbeau}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id= 6950}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Octave Mirbeau}}
* {{Librivox author |id=11224}}
* {{in lang|fr}} [http://start5g.ovh.net/~mirbeau/ Website of Société Octave Mirbeau]. More than 800 essays about Mirbeau, in twenty-three different languages.
* {{in lang|fr}} [http://www.mirbeau.org/index.html Other website of Société Octave Mirbeau]
* {{in lang|fr}} ''[http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau]''
* {{in lang|fr}} [http://michelmirbeau.blogspot.com/ Pierre Michel's blog... and Octave Mirbeau's]

{{Octave Mirbeau}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mirbeau, Octave}}
[[Category:Octave Mirbeau| ]]
[[Category:1848 births]]
[[Category:1917 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Calvados (department)]]
[[Category:French anarchists]]
[[Category:Anarchist writers]]
[[Category:19th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:French male essayists]]
[[Category:French art critics]]
[[Category:Writers from Normandy]]
[[Category:Decadent literature]]
[[Category:French travel writers]]
[[Category:19th-century French dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:20th-century French dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:French satirists]]
[[Category:French anti–death penalty activists]]
[[Category:Burials at Passy Cemetery]]