Henri Murger - biography, career, poetry
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Henri Murger |
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Henri Murger (March 27, 1822- Paris, January 28, 1861) was a French novelist and poet, born at Paris.
He is chiefly distinguished as the author of Scènes de la Vie de Bohème, from his own experiences as a desperately poor writer living in a Parisian attic, member of a loose club of friends who called themselves "the water drinkers" (never money for wine). In his writing he combines instinct with pathos and humour, sadness his predominant tone. The book is the basis for the operas La Bohème (Puccini) and La Bohème (Leoncavallo), and, at greater removes, the zarzuela Bohemios (Amadeu Vives), the operetta Das Veilchen vom Montmartre (Kálmán) and the Broadway musical Rent. He wrote lyrics as well as novels and stories, the chief being La Chanson de Musette, "a tear," says Gautier, "which has become a pearl of poetry".
Henri Murger was born in 1822 and was the son of a man who exercised the joint calling of tailor and doorkeeper in the Rue Saint Georges, Paris. After receiving a scanty and fragmentary education he entered a lawyer’s office, but like many another "youth foredoomed his father’s soul to cross,” thought more of scribbling stanzas than of engrossing deeds. His verses, however, gained him the patronage of M. de Jouy, the Academician. Thanks to this gentleman, he obtained the position of secretary to Count Tolstoi, a Russian nobleman, who paid him infinitely less than his coachman or cook, but who, on the other hand, does not seem to have exacted much in return for the fifty francs a month disbursed. Murger’s literary career began about 1841. His first essays were mainly poetical, but under the pressure of stern necessity he wrote whatever he could find a market for, turning out prose, to use his own expression, at the rate of eighty francs an acre, and scattering his talent in the columns of petty literary journals so shaky that they never dared announce anything as “to be continued in our next,” and even in trade periodicals. Like his own Rodolphe, he edited a fashion paper, the Moniteur de la Mode, and the Castor, an organ of the hat trade. His struggles and privations had been terrible, but his position gradually improved, especially under the influence of Champfleury, with whom he resided for some time and who urged him to devote himself to prose fiction.
About the year 1844 Murger joined the staff of the Corsaire, in which, in 1848, he published The Bohemians. The work caused a sensation in literary circles, but the limited circulation of the periodical prevented this from extending to the general public. It may be worthy of note that the author received fifteen francs for each installment of the work as it appeared in the Corsaire, and that he sold the complete volume for five hundred francs to a publisher who got rid of seventy thousand copies. Murger found life still hard till M. Barrière, a young dramatic author, proposed to him that they should turn the book into a play. At this time Murger was living in an attic in the Latin Quarter, and on the afternoon when the playwright presented himself there he found the novelist in bed. Presuming that he was ill Barrière was about to beat a retreat, but Murger courteously begged of him to enter and avail himself of the only chair which the room contained. When had broached the subject of his visit Murger readily fell in with his suggestion, and the pair soon became so friendly that the dramatist suggested an adjournment to a neighboring cafe. "I am sorry to say that I can’t come,” replied Murger, with some little embarrassment. "Why not? Surely you are not ill,” urged Barrière. "No,” responded the novelist, “but the fact is,” I haven’t a pair of trousers to put on.” Then, as Barrière looked at him in amazement, he proceeded to relate that an impecunious Bohemian friend, having to solicit a favor of some functionary, had borrowed his only pair of trousers that morning, and that he, Murger, was compelled to remain in bed until his friend turned up again. After a hearty laugh Barrière offered to go and buy his new acquaintance another pair of pantaloons, but Murger declined the proposal, and they parted,” soon to meet again, however, to set to work upon the contemplated play.
The piece was produced at the Variétés towards the end of 1849, and met with phenomenal success. From that moment Murger’s career was assured. He at once took a position amongst contemporary writers and left the Latin Quarter, though still continuing to draw models for the characters of several of his subsequent works from the associates of his youth. He continued to work steadily for several years, the best part of the last of these being mainly spent at Marlotte in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where he had a little cottage. Seized with a sudden illness during a visit to Paris in January, 1861, he was removed to Dubois Hospital, where he expired a few days later. He was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris.
It is questionable after all whether Murger was at heart a Bohemian. He has, indeed, been reproached that after having swam vigorously away from the Raft of the Medusa, on which so many of his comrades were starving, he opened a fusillade of irony upon them, a task that he might well have left to others. His dress was decent, his manners those of a man of the world, and his conversation, if witty, not over laden with artistic and literary slang. He felt, indeed, that his early life and work told against him in certain quarters, and that there were people who cannot understand that one can cross a muddy street without getting splashed, or that there are pavements in the Latin Quarter. This recalls an anecdote. One day he had only two sous in his pocket and had not breakfasted. But he had to call on an editor, and in order to look smart decided upon having his boots cleaned. The boot-black set to work and was just finishing the first boot when it began to rain. “It would be useless extravagance to go on,” said Murger, handing him one sou and walking off.
About the author:
http://www.wikipedia.org
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