Jacques Vingtras

Jacques Vingtras is the main character of the trilogy Jacques Vingtras written by Jules Vallès between 1876 and 1885. It includes/understands three Romance: the Child (published in 1879), the Graduate (published in 1881), and the Insurrectionist who was only one draft with died of the author in 1885. It will be published only in 1886 after a development of Severine, disciple and mistress of Vallès.

It is at the same time of a Romance autobiographical and about a kind of large social novel, “history of a sacrificed generation, overcome in June 1848, humiliated the December 2nd, 1851 then crushed in May 1871” ( Gaston Gille ). Major work of Jules Vallès, Jacques Vingtras is today still read and translates in several languages throughout the world.

The mixture of the kinds

Jacques Vingtras was born from a kind of fusion between two projects of novels:
  1. an autobiographical project, outlined in the will of a joker, account unfinished writes in 1869, and which concerned in the beginning only the first fifteen years of the life of the author.
  2. a project of large impersonal social novel, history of a generation disappointed by the failure of June 1848, famished by the Second Empire, sharing the experiment of the Common of Paris.
Circumventing the censure by inventing a double, Vallès will mix its Autobiographie and its social novel, creating an original novel and polemic.

A work with autobiographical dimension

Jacques Vingtras is not strictly speaking a Autobiographie. Indeed, the author is not exactly the main character of the trilogy. Moreover, there exist differences between Vallès and the main character: in the Child, Jacques Vingtras is only sons, whereas Jules Vallès had four brothers and sisters. Indeed after Jules Jean-Emile came then a girl in 1835: Marie-Louise-Julie, then Thomas-Jean-Louis Jules called Louisou, which points out the child that Jules sees dying in 1836 and finally in 1838 was born Elsa-Josephine-Emma. The two last died very quickly. His/her first Marie-Louise-Julie sister was persecuted by the father, it mourrut at 24 years in boarding school.

Nevertheless, Vallès is inspired largely by lived sound and delivers its feelings to us through the main character. This is why work is often classified in the autobiographical kind.

A prevalent social character

Jules Vallès militated all its life for the introduction of a “social” republic and for the improvement of the working condition at the 19th century, particularly during the Second Empire. In the same way, Jacques Vingtras fights at the sides of the socialist leaders like Blanqui for the establishment of a new social order, especially in the Graduate and in the Insurrectionist .

A particular style

Emile of Girardin will say Vallès which it has a language which is clean for him. Its writing indeed fast and is ignited, full with Métonymie S and unexpected Métaphore S, and with sometimes disconcerting syntax. Its animated style, sometimes near to the revolutionary Lyricism, is very modern. The satire and the irony are present even in the tragic passages, Vallès being defined itself as a “joker”, with the direction where it at the time was heard, i.e. like an ironic character and mocker. The violent realism of its writing, associated with a permanent humor, creates an original atmosphere in which its novels bathe.

External bonds

  • friends of Jules Vallès
  • Another interesting site on Jules Vallès

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