Sully Prudhomme

Rene Armand François Prudhomme (Paris, March 16th 1839 - Châtenay-Malabry, September 6th 1907), known as Sully Prudhomme , is a Poète French, elected with the French Academy in 1881 with the armchair 24.

Biography

Wire of a tradesman, Rene Armand Prudhomme wanted to become engineer, and made his studies with the Bonaparte College but a crisis of ophthalmia the constrained one to stop them. After having worked with the Creusot in the factories Schneider, it turns to the right and worked in a notary. The reception favorable reserved to its first poems within the “Conference the Heather”, company coed of which he is member, encourages her literary beginnings.

Its first collection, Stanzas and Poèmes (1865) are rented by Holy-Beuve and launch its career. It contains its most famous poem, the Vase broken , elegant metaphor of the heart broken by a unhappy love affair:

the vase where dies this vervain

Of a blow of range was cracked;

the blow hardly had the effleurer,

No noise did not reveal it.

But the light bruise,

Corrosive the crystal each day,

Of an invisible and sure walk

made the turn slowly of It.

Its water fresh fled drop by drop,

the juice of the flowers became exhausted;

Nobody still suspects it,

do not touch there, it is broken.

to read the continuation

With the wire of its career Sully Prudhomme is gradually diverted sentimental kind of this first collection - that one will still find in the Tests (1866) and Lonelinesses (1869) - to turn to a more personal style which combines a formal research which attaches it to the Parnassus (it contributed besides to the contemporary Parnassus of Leconte de Lisle) with an interest for the scientific and philosophical subjects. It gives in particular a verse translation of the first song of the De Natura Rerum of Lucrèce (1878 -79). Its philosophical ambition is expressed in poems like Justice (1878) or Happiness (1888). The extreme economy of the average arts persons ends up wasting poetry there without the philosophical depth gaining there.

After Happiness , Sully Prudhomme is diverted poetry to be interested exclusively in the Esthétique and the Philosophie. It published two tests of esthetics: the expression in beautiful arts (1884) and Reflections on the art of the worms (1892), a succession of articles on Blaise Pascal in the Review of the Two Worlds (1890), the Problem of the final causes in collaboration with Charles Richet (1902), an article on “the Psychology of the Free-Referee” in the Re-examined of metaphysics and morals (1906).

First author to receive the Nobel Prize of literature, the December 10th 1901, it devoted the essence of the sum received to this occasion to found a price of poetry decreed by the Société of the Men of letters. Besides he will create in 1902 the Société of the French Poets with Jose María de Heredia and Leon Dierx. He was one of the first partisans of Dreyfus.

Its health had been durably shaken by the war of 1870. On the end of its life, it forced it to live almost recluse with Châtenay-Malabry (Hauts-de-Seine), suffering of attacks of paralysis and working with the True religion according to Pascal (1905). Died suddenly on September 6th 1907, it is buried with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise to Paris.

Works

Poetry

Stanzas and Poèmes , 1865
the Tests , 1866
Lonelinesses , 1869
the Destinies , 1872
France , 1874
Vain tendernesses , 1875
the Zenith (poem), published in the Review of the two worlds , 1876
Justice , 1878 * Poetry , 1865 - 1888
the Prism, various poetries , 1886
Happiness , 1888
Stray , 1908
the cradles

Philosophy

the true religion according to Pascal: research of the purely logical ordinance of its Thoughts relating to the religion: followed by an analysis of the " Speech on passions of the amour" , Paris, F. Alcan, " Library of contemporary philosophy " , 1905.

Articles

On the terrestrial origin of life in Re-examined of Metaphysics and Morals , volume 1,1893, p. 324-345

Anecdotes

One finds an extract of the poem the Vase broken in the album Sarah Bernhardt of the series Lucky Luke, extracts that the character of Sarah likes with déclamer. Besides the horse of Lucky Luke, Jolly Jumper notices it at the beginning of the data base

One also finds a reference to the same poem in Quick and Flupke, (Volume 9, Catastrophe ), the two young imps having destroyed an Etruscan vase, change the name of the donee. The plate thus indicates from now on " Broken vase, gift of Sully Prudhomme".

The first French stamp honouring Sully Prudhomme was emitted September 15th and 16th 2007 with mention " first jour" in Paris and Ollans (Doubs, vacation resort of the poet), without mention " first jour" in Chatenay-Malabry

Internal bonds

External bonds

biographical Card on the site of the French Academy
poesies.net: Sully Prudhomme
poesies.net: The Zenith.

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