Charles Morice

Charles Morice (born with Saint-Etienne on May 15th, 1860, died with Chin on March 18th, 1919) is a French writer, poet and essay writer.

Biography

Charles Victor Marius Morice was born in a very catholic family from the middle-class Lyon is born. His/her father, captain with the 66ère of line, was knight of the imperial order of the Légion of honor. He began his schooling with Saint-Etienne, then with the small Midsummer's Day seminar of Lyon. Receipt graduate in 1878, it begins studies of right. It then meets Therese Peraldo with which it becomes in love. In front of the opposition of its family, he flees with her for Paris in 1882.

having lost the faith in these tribulations, it collaborates in the review anticlerical the New Left bank . Its activities of journalist will lead it to be interested in the literature of its time, to attend the coteries, to write in the reviews. Into 1883, the New Left bank changes orientation and under its new name, Lutèce , becomes the spokesperson of the Symbolisme until its disappearance in 1886. It meets Verlaine, Mallarmé, Coppée which finds to him an employment at the Management of primary school education, that it will leave at the end of one year. He collaborates in the contemporary Review where he publishes studies on Lamartine, Paul Le Bourget, Baudelaire, Percy Shelley and his own novel, the Spirit alone , which will remain unfinished. In prey with great material difficulties, it must be devoted to all kinds of work to survive. Thus it will be employed by Halpérine to translate Dostoïevski. It publishes poems in the Modern life , the Vogue , of the critical articles and its first tests.

To escape its financial troubles, it leaves his partner and their daughter Helene (whom it had recognized) and joins again with her family by settling in Lyon in 1887. He collaborates in the local newspaper public Safety in which he publishes an article on Verlaine. But nostalgia carries it and at the end of one year, it regains Paris.

Its writings started to draw the attention of the literary circle: “Mr. Charles Morice is very young, it belongs itself to the literature of tomorrow. It is a poet full with promises, of a learned and rare talent. It is also a méditatif, skilful spirit with the intellectual speculations. ” known as of him Anatole France. Its test the Literature of presently makes it famous: “One distinguished the creed of a generation there, the profession of faith that each one waited. Who was Charles Morice? So far an unknown; suddenly almost the heart of the movement, its conscience, a chief and that which was indicated with waiting of all like the realizer of tomorrow, as the large poet on whom one could count. ” One regards it as the brain of Symbolism, moreover, it is with him that the movement owes its name and it will frequently take the feather to defend it. He attends saturdays of the Feather , takes share with (Re) the foundation of the Mercure de France , gives conferences in Suisse and Belgium. From now on it is interested in painting, the sculpture, architecture.

In May 1896 it marries Elisabeth Fournier of Saint-Moor, widow of the count Joseph Vien and mother of Gabrielle, known as By, which under the pseudonym of Marie Jade will publish a not very pleasing novel with keys for his/her father-in-law. But its financial problems lead it to accept all kinds of works, investigations, work of secretariat, organization of exposures, and move away it from the literature. In October 1896 it settles with Brussels with his wife. It gives conferences, publishes articles in the newspapers, his wife gives piano lessons. His/her Albert son is born in 1897. Of 1899 with 1901, it teaches at the new University of Brussels. It founds with the lawyer Charles Dejongh the human Action where it will militate against the Capital punishment. In 1901 it is of return to Paris. It holds the legal heading in the Morning , the heading modern art in Mercury . Its literary activity decreased so much that the Supplément of New Larousse gives it dead in 1905. He will be secretary of Rodin and will collaborate in his book the Cathedrals . He converts, collaborates in Paris-Newspaper , made there discover Giraudoux, Alain-Baker. Patient, it leaves for the South and well only dies in Menton in 1919.

Morice and Verlaine

The November 10th 1882, Verlaine publishes, in the modern Paris of Basket maker, poetic Art composed in 1874, in the prison of Mons. The December 8th Morice, under its pseudonym Karl Mohr, gives in the New Left bank an article entitled very critical “Verlaine Boileau” towards the poem of Verlaine: “This art which he dreams, soluble in the air, gray, undecided and precise , he carried only too much out it and only can include/understand to him what he wanted to do. I thus hope that it will not have a disciple and that this poetry is not that of the future. Only one thing remains to him, in spite of him perhaps, it is the harmony. Listen rather: " They is beautiful eyes behind veils,/It is the trembling great day of midday,/It is by a sky of autumn attiédi,/blue fouilli of clear the étoiles." But one should not ask him more and we must be pleased not to hear it since it does not want to be heard. ” Verlaine answers him the December 15th by an article where it defends its point of view with as well simplicity and measurement as the arrogant young man will become his more enthusiastic admiror. This controversy contributed much to make known Verlaine: “The repercussion of the article of CH. Morice thus drawing attention to the poem of Verlaine is mainly at the origin of the glory of the poet, still unknown in 1882. ” Thanks to Morice, Verlaine can publish, in Lutèce , the cursed Poets . Morice, which had revealed Corbière with the readers of the review, had drawn the attention of Verlaine to the author of the yellow Amours . It is Morice which gives to Verlaine the idea of one second series of the cursed Poètes . During the two years that Verlaine will pass to Coulommes then in the hospitals, Morice will take care for him of multiple work, steps, sendings of reviews, requests of all kinds. It interested it in the new poetry. It was the first to devote to him a long study published by Vanier in 1888 (thus of living of Verlaine). In return, Verlaine dedicated poetic Art to him during its publication in Jadis and at one time , described it in Amour , (sonnet included in Dédicaces XXXVI ) and in Gosses XII . Morice will be also the first to publish complete works of the poet: five volumes at Messein in 1911, followed by three volumes of posthumous works.

Morice and Gauguin

Morice became acquainted with Gauguin in the workshop of the painter Armand Seguin where it accompanied his By daughter-in-law, whose painter made the portrait. Seguin was a pupil of Gauguin which often visited him and which met Morice thus. They became friendly. When Gauguin undertook to write the relation of its first stay with Tahiti, not very trustful in its qualities of writer, he asked in Morice, then in Brussels, to revise the manuscript of Noa Noa . Morice discharged this task and published the text revised in the white Review . The commentators agree to consider that the intervention of Morice denatured the work of Gauguin. When Gauguin dies in 1903, Morice pays homage in to him Mercury and it will publish in the end of its life a work which is one of the first biographies to be to him devoted.

Works

Translations

Dostoïevski, the underground Spirit
Dostoïevski, The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoïevski, That of another
Nekrassov, popular Poetries

Tests

Tomorrow, questions of esthetics , 1888
Paul Verlaine , 1888
the Literature of presently , 1889
Of the religious direction of poetry , 1893
Eugene Career, the man and his thought , 1906
It is ressuscity! , 1911

He is risen again , English transl., E. Nash, 1911

Poetries

Quincaille , 1919
Curtain of crimson , 1921

Recent edition

painting in 1905. Inquire into the current trends of the visual arts , ED. Philippe Dagen, the modern Letters, 1986

the investigation of Morice is appeared in three deliveries of the Mercure at the summer 1905

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