PROSPER MERIMEE BIOGRAPHY – Prosper Mérimée is the author of numerous books inspired by his work on historical monuments. His style is characterized by simple and effective writing. Mérimée goes straight to the point.
Short biography of Prosper Mérimée – Prosper Mérimée was born on September 27, 1803 in Paris in a cultivated family and studied law. A follower of literary salons and social events, he rubbed shoulders with the great feathers of the time, such as Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset or Stendhal, from whom he was often inspired. Mystifier of literature, he produced theatrical pieces (the Clara Gazul Theater in 1825) then got down to writing a historical work that is closer to the adventure novel (Chronicle of the reign of Charles IX in 1829). His inspiration with a romantic tendency seems to meet no limits.
In the early 1830s, Prosper Mérimée published many short stories appreciated for their conciseness and the quality of their writing style. Appear so Removal of the redoubt, Mateo falcone or Tamango. Mérimée then deviates slightly towards the fantastic style by publishing in particular the Souls in Purgatory Where the venus of Ille. The many trips he made asinspector of historical monuments allow him to feed his imagination. Colomba and Carmen, published in the 1840s, further increased its popularity. After his death, his texts remain engraved in people’s minds and will be the subject of numerous adaptations. Mérimée is also at the origin of a famous dictation created at the request of the Empress Eugenie for the court of Napoleon III.
Prosper Mérimée serialized in “the Revue des Deux Mondes” his short story entitled “Carmen” written in 1845. He tells the story of a young man from the army who, out of love for the beautiful gypsy Carmen, becomes a smuggler and a criminal. Fatal and sensual woman, she longs for freedom and ends up rejecting her lover. The latter stabs her and immediately denounces himself. The trips made by the writer Prosper Mérimée undoubtedly fueled his imagination, prompting him to present this remarkable Andalusian painting. His work will be readapted many times, notably by Georges Bizet in 1875, in the form of a comic opera.
Prosper Mérimée: key dates
- September 27, 1803: Birth of Prosper Mérimée
- Prosper Mérimée was born on September 28, 1803 in Paris, into a bourgeois family. Inspector of French Historical Monuments, he is best known for his literary works. His style, which is characterized by an economy of content and which goes to the essentials, earned him many criticisms from his contemporaries.
- September 23, 1870: Death of the French writer Prosper Mérimée
- Death in Cannes of the French writer Prosper Mérimée, aged almost 67. Close to Stendhal, whose rigorous and linear sobriety he endeavors to copy, belonging to the generation of Romantics (born in 1803), his whims (exoticism, taste for the fantastic and fatal passions) are reflected in short novels, “La Venus d’Ile “(1837) or” Carmen “(1840), brought back from Mediterranean trips (Spain, Morocco). Appointed Inspector of Historical Monuments, he scoured the Hexagon wealthy of the young Viollet-le-Duc, from 1834, in order to identify its architectural wonders.
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