Andre Chénier

Biography

Born with Constantinople from a Greek mother (Elisabeth Lomaca) and from a French father, it translates as of the adolescence of the Greek poets and is filled with enthusiasm for traditional poetry. Income in France, it attends the literary circles and the aristocratic living rooms. Its work, short, was published only in 1819: it marks a return to the hellenism.

After having travelled in Swiss and Italy, worked as secretary with the embassy of France with London during three years, (1787-1790), in its return, it took part in the revolutionary movement, but remained an enthusiastic defender of the royalty, taking part in particular in the defense of Louis XVI. He collaborated in the Journal of Paris , body of moderate, condemning to it excesses of the Revolution in violent one articles against Jacques Pierre Brissot, Jean-Paul Marat and others.

Decree the March 7th 1794 and imprisoned with Saint-Lazare, it was condemned to died by the revolutionary Tribunal and guillotine the July 25th (Thermidor 7), two days before the arrest of Robespierre, which would have perhaps saved the life to him. During the night before its death he would have written to the ode the Young prisoner, poem which speaks about Aimée de Coigny.

" The incipient ear matures of the respected forgery;

Without fear of the press, the vine branch all the summer

Drinks the soft present of the dawn;

And me, like him beautiful, and young person like him,

No matter what the hour presents has of disorder and trouble,

I do not want to still die.

That stoical with the dry eyes flies to embrace death,

Me I cry and I hope; with the black blows of North

I fold and raise my head.

If it is bitter days, it is of so soft!

Alas! which honey never didn't leave dislikes?

Which sea doesn't have a storm?

The fertile illusion lives in my center.

Of a prison on me the walls weigh in vain.

I have the wings of the hope:

Escaped the networks from the cruel bird-catcher,

Sharper, happier, in the campaigns of the sky

Philomene sings and springs.

Is this with me to die? Quiet I fall asleep,

And quiet I take care; and my day before with the remorses

Nor my sleep are not in prey.

My welcome at the day laughs me in all the eyes;

On shot down faces, my aspect in these places

Revive almost joy.

My beautiful voyage still is so far from its end!

I leave, and of ormeaux which borders the way

I passed the first hardly,

With the banquet of the life hardly started,

One moment only my lips pressed

Cut in my hands encor full.

I am only in spring, I want to see the harvest;

And like the sun, of season in season,

I want to complete my year.

Brilliant on my stem and honor of the garden,

I saw shining encor only fires of the morning;

I want to complete my day.

Dead O! you can wait; move away, moves away;

Will comfort the hearts that shame, fear,

Pale despair devours.

For me Palès still has green asylums,

Loves of the kisses, Muses in the concerts.

I do not want to still die. "

Thus, sad and captive, my quadrant however

Woke up, listening to these complaints, this voice,

These wishes of a young prisoner;

And shaking the burden of my languid days,

With the soft laws of the worms I folded the accents

Of its pleasant and naive mouth.

These songs, of my prison harmonious witnesses,

Will make with some lover studious leisures

To seek which was this beautiful:

The grace decorated its face and its speeches,

And, like she, will fear to see finishing their days

Those which will pass them close to it.

Its last words, marked at the time to go up on the scaffold, would have been (indicating the head): " However, I had something there! ". It was probably buried with the other victims of the Terreur in the Cimetière of Picpus to Paris.

It is, with Chatterton and Gilbert, one of the three " authors; maudits" presented by the Doctor Noir in the Stello of Alfred de Vigny. Regarded by the Romantic ones as their precursor, its intended inspired the verist opera of Umberto Giordano, André Chénier , of which the first took place with La Scala of Milan, the March 28th 1896.

Its worms: " She lived Myrto, the Tarentine" young person; remain indissolubly related to its name.

See with Charlotte Corday, the poem which he wrote in his honor.

His/her younger brother, Marie-Joseph Chénier, was writer, Dramaturge, and carried out of par a political career.

Quotation

Like a last ray, as the last zéphi/Animate the one beautiful day end,/With the foot of the scaffold, I test encor my quadrant. /Peut-être is this soon my turn. …

Works

Bucoliques , posthumous (1819)
has Abel (Elegies)
has Charlotte Corday (Anthems and Odes)
to count our ewes I replace my mother (Ancient Poetries)
has of elder Pange (Epistles)
has of Pange (Elegies)
has Fanny (I) (Elegies)
has Fanny (II) (Elegies)
has Fanny (III) (Elegies)
has sick Fanny (Elegies)
With the swallow (Ancient Poetries)
In France (Anthems and Odes)
Ah! I recognize them, and my heart awakes (Elegies)
Ah! let us carry in wood my sad concern (Elegies)
Ah! take a human heart, too avid plowman (Ancient Poetries)
Amymone (Ancient Poetries)
Art to like, fragment III (Poems)
Art to like, fragment II (Poems)
Art to like, fragment VIII (Poems)
Art to like, fragment VI (Poems)
With the knight of Pange (Elegies)
With the brothers of Pange (Elegies)
Bacchus (Ancient Poetries)
Bel star of Venus… (Ancient Poetries)
Chrysé (Ancient Poetries)
Like a last ray, the last zéphyre (Last poetries)
Epilog (Ancient Poetries)
Euphrosyne (Ancient Poetries)
Girl of the Pasteur old man, who with a nimble hand (Ancient Poetries)
Hercules (Ancient Poetries)
Hylas (Ancient Poetries)
It is not thus any more hope, and my lost complaint (Elegies)
It is to only be a king to be happy in the world (Elegies)
I were a weak child who it was large and beautiful (*Antic Poetries)
I know, when midday their fact of wishing the shade (Ancient Poetries)
Young girl, your heart with us wants to keep silent (Elegies)
America (Poems)
the love deadened (Ancient Poetries)
the love and the shepherd (Ancient Poetries)
the love plowman (Ancient Poetries)
art, of transport of the heart is a weak interpreter (Elegies)
the young prisoner (Last poetries)
the young L

Works of art inspired by its poems

the young person Tarentine by Alexandre Schoenewerk , marble sculpture, 1871,171 cm X 74 cm X 68 cm. Coll Museum of Orsay, Paris (France).
Twisted of the Young Prisoner by Rene Iché , marble sculpture, 1932, H. 64 cm. Coll Funds municipal of contemporary art of the Town of Paris, Paris (France).
the Young person Tarentine by Rene Iché , marble sculpture, 1932-34, L. 85 cm. Coll private, New York (the USA).

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