Chartreuse of Parma

Chartreuse of Parma is one of major works of Stendhal, that which gave him the celebrity. She was published in two volumes in March 1839, then remelted in 1842, that is to say little before the death of Stendhal, following a famous article of Balzac, taking in fact a turn more " balzacien" : today, it is the text stendhalien of origin that one still reads. Work will be, until the beginning of the 20th century, relatively unknown apart from some circles of esthètes, literary criticisms, or personalities visionaries (Nietzsche), which Stendhal seemed to call of its wishes, dedicating its novel " To the Happy Few". The film adaptation which was made by it in 1948 was turned partly in the town of Besancon with Gerard Philippe in the role titrates.

Why Parma

Paul Morand indicates to us, in the presentation of the Chartreuse of Parma in collection the book of pocket, the reason of the choice of this city. Stendhal explains it in an answer to Balzac: it chose Parma because into 1838 this small Grand Duchy was the least dangerous between all the executives, for an action which proceeded in Italy . The choice of Stendhal is made on Parma because of the political context suitable for the Duché of Parma and Plaisance. Parma is then under the regency of Marie-Louise, the second wife of Napoleon I {{er}}, that Stendhal calls has poor woman and will have with its death to return to the House of Bourbon-Parma. Consequently, the duchy does not constitute any more one element of competition between the great powers and it profits from a certain autonomy although Marie-Louise has evil to maintain the dashes revolutionary which are declared in its city what weakens its internal and diplomatic authority. Stendhal went on several occasions in the city which he judged enough punt . The novel is of good part imaginary, initially by the characters as by the decoration which puts in scene a citadel with an immense tower Farnèse.

Summary

The novel opens with a " Avertissement" with the turbid statute: the narrator of the novel explains there that the history that it tells was reported to him by the nephew of a Chanoine, the Borda canon, who is a character of the novel (it appears in the chapter V of book I). This " Avertissement" is not spring of the author: he follows the title of the novel, he is thus integrated there. The " Chartreuse" begin thus under the most ironic auspices, the author pretending to write a " avertissement" who would avoid to him political or legal troubles for the contents of work, but, by allotting this warning to its narrator, it scrambles all the tracks, to start with the statute of the narrator, but also the space-time tracks, which it affects to scramble. This pure Irony, this " to laugh absolu" according to Michel Crouzet, the work marks, which can never be read in a dualistic way if one wants to analyze it seriously. (see on this subject the foreword of Michel Crouzet in the edition of the Book of Pocket of the Chartreuse ).

The action of the novel begins with Milan in 1796, by the confidences of French lieutenant called Robert, who tells the arrival in Milan of the armies of the Révolution, carried out by the Bonaparte young person. These armies awake, in people lombard anaesthetized by the Austrian supervision, an old heroic bottom, and are accommodated with an insane cheerfulness by the Milaneses in their majority. The Marquis Del Dongo, savage and grotesque reactionary, in favor of Austria, sees himself constrained to accommodate the victorious French soldiers, of which lieutenant Robert forms part. With covered words, the novelist suggests a idylle between Robert and the young marchioness Del Dongo, whose fruit will be Fabrice. This one passes its youth in the Napoleonean storm. Installed in Grianta, on the Lake of Like, with all his family, the young man reinforces the links between his mother and his aunt, Gina Del Dongo, which wife an Italian general in favor of the French, who finds death in 1814. During this time, his father (official) and his brother (half-brother) are spies on behalf of the Austrian absolutism, and triumph when, in 1813-1814, the Napoleonean armies are overcome, and that Milan falls down under the cut of the emperor of Austria. Fabrice finds in an abbot named Blanès a kind of father of substitution: Blanès learns how to him to read the signs which make it possible to include/understand the future, but however it omits to learn how to him to analyze them, with the result that Fabrice will stick to a very naive report/ratio in the world. Stendhal says itself of Blanès that it " throw Fabrice on the road of Waterloo". Learning the unloading from Napoleon, fled of the isle of Elba, Fabrice, precisely pushed by favorable signs, decides to put itself at its service and leaves for France. He hopes to thus be able to become a chivalrous hero, which he dreams to be.

After first adventures which reveal it like a young naive aristocrat, and show in comparison French people (republicans included/understood, even republican above all) crafty beggar and well not very heroic, Fabrice, then old 17 years, arrives to Waterloo, the day of the battle. This one constitutes for him a kind of training, at the very least missed, as the narrator recognizes it: " it is necessary to acknowledge that our hero was very little hero in this moment". The modern war is not made for the chivalrous hero, which Fabrice will learn with its depend. It spends its time nothing including/understanding with the battle which, far from the large epic frescos, is told only point of view of Fabrice: Stendhal, which was soldier of Napoleon, shows thus better than whoever the nonsense of the modern war. It will be a question for Fabrice of being a hero differently than by the weapons.

Meanwhile beautiful Gina, become widowed since the assassination of the Pietranera general, made the meeting of the count Mosca, Prime Minister for prince de Parme, settled with him in this last holiday, and, by convenience and despizing suitabilities, married the duke of Sanseverina without seeing it twice more. This way, Fabrice, driven out paternal house because of its engagement, joined his/her aunt at the court of Parma. The military career being closed him, it is turned on the side of the ecclesiastical businesses and becomes Coadjuteur of the Landriani archbishop. For as much its impetuous naturalness the top begins again, and the young coadjutor implies himself in some intrigues in love. One among it the growth to kill the poor comic actor Giletti, who attacks it in first, close to the Austrian border. This benign act in a monarchical State (an aristocrat is defended and pourfend a " coquin"), as that will be often recalled in the novel, revêt an major importance because it confirms the prediction of the Blanès abbot, and dedicates Fabrice with the prison (the tower of Parma), his fate being fixed by the political intrigues of the court.

The Cabale assembled by the adversaries of the count Mosca and beautiful Gina seizes occasion. Vague promises of legal immunity are made in Fabrice, who fled. Promises which it makes the error to take with the serious one: it is found then imprisoned in a fortress, at the top of the Farnèse tower. Although death threat, it draws from its imprisonment a particular softness while falling in love with Clélia Conti, girl of the governor of the prison (two young people communicating by means as clever as varied). With the assistance of Clélia and that of Sanseverina, Fabrice manages to escape. But the amount of laudanum managed with the governor of the prison to allow the escape appears too strong, and this one seems in danger of death. Corroded by the remorse, Clélia makes a wish with the Madonna, that never again not to re-examine Fabrice, and to marry the rich person marquis de Crescenzi, union wished by his/her father. This one recovers, and Clélia follows its wish. Meanwhile the prince of Parma dies officially of a disease. A death somewhat " aidé" by the poison which managed to him the republican revolutionary poet Shoeing Palla, sent by Gina.

The successor of the late prince, Ernest-Ranuce V, is under the control of the count Mosca, which feels from now on rather extremely to bring back Gina and Fabrice to Parma, but also of Gina itself, with which it is madly in love. Fabrice having learned the marriage from Clélia, voluntarily delivers himself to the prison of the Farnèse tower, instead of the prison of the city, in order to be able to find Clélia. He is again threatened of poisoning, and Gina must promise to be given to the young prince if he intervenes to save Fabrice. This last is saved, the confirmed attempt at poisoning, which leads to the exile of the Conti general, governor of the citadel.

Gina and Mosca marry, while Fabrice becomes a famous preacher. Its love for Clélia is however always alive. Both end up being found, always in the darkness, to respect the wish of Clélia more to see Fabrice, and a son, Sandrino, are born from their union. Fabrice, it to more often see, the fact of removing and of passing for death, but the child falls really sick and dies a few months later, followed soon by his mother. Fabrice withdraws himself then in a Chartreuse, where he dies soon him too. Mined by its death, Gina dies in its turn. Among the main characters of the novel, only Mosca survives, in an end in the form of hecatomb and relatively disillusioned irony on the future prospects in Europe of the Congrès of Vienna (the richness and the policy dominate).

Analyzes

Let us note, according to the common opinion, the end, considered to be dispatched, even arbitrary, which would be a defect of work. The last loves of Clélia and Fabrice would miss credibility indeed. No doubt this defect is characteristic of Stendhal, which tests difficulties of finishing its works (one finds it inter alia in the Rouge and the Black ). However, the main character of its novel dies in a relative clause, literary performance which, for much, plank the genius, and plays for much in the modernity of " Chartreuse". The greatest characteristic of Chartreuse, according to the Dictionary of works published at Robert Laffont, is " the setting with the service of the adventure, omnipresent in this action-packed novel, with a poetic and literary ideal ". Good, bah I cracked, I made a change to restore what seems to me just (and seems with all the serious critics contemporary on Stendhal). Irfan. -->

Characters (by order of appearance)

the lieutenant Robert
the marquis del Dongo
Gina del Dongo - the Pietranera countess, the Sanseverina duchess, the countess Mosca
the marchioness del Dongo
Fabrice del Dongo
His older brother, Ascagne del Dongo
the abbot Blanès
the cantinière
Fabio Conti
Clélia Conti
the count Mosca
Fausta
the tax general Rassi
Ernest-Ranuce IV
archevèque Landriani
Marietta
the actor Giletti
Shoeing Palla, the republican poet (" man of the bois" who balances between the genius and the madness)
Ernest-Ranuce V

External bonds

a sight of Chartreuse de Paradigna, which asserts the name of Chartreuse of Parma
the book in various formats on Ebooks Libres and Free
rather complete Site and comprising many bonds towards thorough studies

Adaptations

1948 : Chartreuse of Parma , film of Christian-Jaque, with Gerard Philippe, Maria Casarès
1987: Certosa di Parma, film TV directed by Mauro Bolognini.

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