Alphonse Daudet Analysis

Alphonse Daudet began his career—as did most aspiring writers in nineteenth century France—with a small volume of poems; then he turned to writing short essays and stories (called chroniques) for newspapers as a means of livelihood. He also tried his hand at writing for the theater in those early years, sometimes in collaboration, sometimes alone. He felt his true vocation, however, was in the novel, and he began his career as a novelist with a fictionalized account of his own youth, written when he was twenty-eight years old. Thereafter he published some fifteen novels, one every other year on the average until his death. Until he was forty, some of his time was occupied by journalism, consisting of chroniques, short stories, and drama criticism, most of it collected in volumes during his lifetime. He wrote half a dozen full-length plays during his mature years, without ever really achieving a great public success. After his death, the interesting diary of his fatal illness was published, as were some fragmentary personal reminiscences, but he never wrote a formal autobiography.

Although Alphonse Daudet was one of the most popular writers of his era, the bulk of his literary work has fallen into obscurity. Some of his works, such as Lettres de mon moulin, Adventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon (1872; The New Don Quixote, 1875), and, to a lesser degree, Le Petit Chose (1868; The Little Good-for-Nothing, 1878) and Contes du lundi have been reprinted, adapted to film, and anthologized; stories such as “La Chèvre de M. Seguin” (“M. Seguin’s Goat”) have joined the corpus of household tales, and his musical drama L’Arlésienne (1872; the lady from Arles), with its accompaniment by Georges Bizet, is still performed. His present-day reputation as a storyteller, however, overshadows his nineteenth century acclaim as a novelist, just as a focus on his Provençal writings has obscured the cosmopolitan nature of his works. The diversity of genre and subjects, indeed, makes Daudet unclassifiable as a writer. His works combine elements of Romanticism, realism, and naturalism, but they evade any attempts to link him definitively with any one major movement of his time. Widely translated and read in the English-speaking world of the later nineteenth century as well as in the French, he was saluted as the “French Dickens.” His work, apart from its intrinsic literary value, reveals an ongoing awareness of the controversies and concerns of his time and thus serves as an invaluable document of the life and concerns of the nineteenth century. Although Daudet’s novel Fromont jeune et Risler aîné (1874; Fromont the Younger and Risler the Elder, 1880) was crowned by the French Academy, Daudet never submitted his name for membership in this prestigious body, seeing it as a threat to his independence. As the initial executor of the will of his friend Edmond de Goncourt, he had a hand in the establishment of the famed Goncourt Academy. His true “award” came, however, from the Parisian crowds that turned out to salute his memory as his casket was borne to the cemetery.

Alphonse Daudet (doh-DEH) was one of the most prolific authors of his generation, publishing works in several genres. His first effort was a volume of poems, Les Amoureuses (1858, 1873). Throughout his career, Daudet wrote for the theater; his best-known play is L’Arlésienne (1872; The Woman from Arles, 1930), for which Georges Bizet composed the incidental music. Other plays include La Dernière Idole (pr., pb. 1862, with Ernest L’Épine), L’Oeillet blanc (pr. 1865, with Ernest Manuell; The Last Lily, 1870), Lise Tavernier (pr. 1872; English translation, 1890), and stage adaptations of his most successful novels. Before turning to the novel, Daudet composed many short stories, sketches, and vignettes, which eventually were collected in volume form, the two most famous being Lettres de mon moulin (1869; Letters from My Mill, 1880) and Contes du lundi (1873, 1876; Monday Tales, 1927). In addition, he contributed many critical pieces, translations, and topical commentary to newspapers and journals.