Balzac Honore de - biography, facts from life, photographs, background information. The life and creative path of Honore de Balzac, biography The composition of the “Human Comedy”

Balzac. Balzac. Biography Balzac. Balzac. Biography

Balzac Honore de (1799 - 1850)
Balzac. Balzac.
Biography
French novelist, considered the father of the naturalistic novel. Honore de Balzac was born on May 20, 1799 in Tours (France). Honore de Balzac's father, Bernard François Balssa (some sources indicate Vals's surname), is a peasant who became rich during the revolution by buying and selling confiscated noble lands, and later became an assistant to the mayor of Tours. Having entered the service in the military supply department and finding himself among officials, he changed his “native” surname, considering it plebeian. At the turn of the 1830s. Honore, in turn, also modified his surname, arbitrarily adding the noble particle “de” to it, justifying this with the fiction of his origins from the noble family of Balzac d’Entregues. Honore Balzac’s mother was 30 years younger than his father, which, in part, was the reason for her betrayal: the father of Honore's younger brother, Henri, was the owner of the castle.
In 1807-1813 Honore studied at the college of Vendôme; in 1816-1819 - at the Paris School of Law, while serving as a clerk in a notary's office. Balzac's father sought to prepare him to become a lawyer, but Honoré decided to become a poet. At the family council, it was decided to give him two years to fulfill his dream. Honore de Balzac writes the drama "Cromwell", but the newly convened family council recognizes the work as worthless and Honore is refused financial assistance. This was followed by a period of material adversity. Literary career Balzac's work began around 1820, when he began publishing action-packed novels under various pseudonyms and composing morally descriptive "codes" of secular behavior. Later, some of the first novels were published under the pseudonym Horace de Saint-Aubin. The period of anonymous creativity ended in 1829 after the publication of the novel “Chouans, or Brittany in 1799.” Honore de Balzac called the novel “Shagreen Skin” (1830) the “starting point” of his work. From 1830 under"Scenes of Private Life" began to publish short stories from modern French life. In 1834, Balzac decided to connect the works already written since 1829 and future ones with common characters, combining them into an epic, later called “The Human Comedy” (La comedie humaine). Honoré de Balzac considered Moliere to be his main literary teacher. Moliere., Francois Rabelais and Scott Walter. Twice Balzac tried to make a political career, nominating his candidacy for the Chamber of Deputies in 1832 and 1848, but failed both times. In January 1849 he also failed in the elections to the French Academy.
In 1832, Balzac began corresponding with the Polish aristocrat E. Hanska, who lived in Russia. In 1843 the writer went to visit her in St. Petersburg, and in 1847 and 1848 to Ukraine. The official marriage with E. Ganskaya was concluded 5 months before the death of Honore de Balzac, who died on August 18, 1850 in Paris. In 1858, Honoré de Balzac’s sister, Madame Surville, wrote a biography of the writer - “Balzac, sa vie et ses oеuvres d"apres sa correspondance.” The authors of biographical books about Balzac were Zweig Stefan. Zweig (“Balzac”), Maurois Andre ( Maurois) ("Prometheus, or the Life of Balzac"), Wurmser ("Inhuman Comedy").
Among the works of Honore de Balzac are stories, novellas, philosophical studies, novellas, novels, plays (5 plays were published); about 90 works made up the epic “The Human Comedy” (La comedie humaine): “The Chouans, or Brittany in 1799” (Les derniers Chouans; 1829; novel), “The Shagreen Skin” (La peau de chagrin; 1830-1831; novel) , “Gobsek” (1830; the original title was “The Dangers of Dissipation”, the title of the 1835 edition was “Papa Gobsek”, under the title “Gobsek” the book was first published in 1842; a story; plot-related to the novel “Père Goriot”), " Marriage contract"(1830), "The Unknown Masterpiece" (1831, new edition - 1837; philosophical study), "Naughty Stories" (1832-1837), "The Assignment" (1832), "The Unknown Masterpiece" (1832), "Colonel Chabert" (1832; the original title was “The Peace Deal”, the second title was “Count Chabert”, the third was “The Countess Bigamist”, the title “Colonel Chabert” first appeared in the publication of 1844; story), “The Abandoned Woman” (1832), “ Father Goriot" (Le pere Goriot; 1832; first publication - in December 1834 - February 1835 in the magazine "Paris Review"; novel; about thirty characters in the novel appear in other novels or stories of Balzac's epic "The Human Comedy"), "Eugene Grande" (Eugenie Graudet; 1833; novel), "The Marriage Contract" (1835), "Mass of the Atheist" (1836), "The Case of Guardianship" (1836), "Lost Illusions" (1837-1843; novel), "The Banker's the house of Nucingen" (1838; novel), "Eve's Daughter" (1838; novel), "Pierrette" (1839), "Albert Savaryus" (1842), "The Imaginary Mistress" (1842), "Honorine" (1843), " Provincial Muse" (1843-1844), "Peasants" (1844; novel), "Cousin Pons" (1846-1847; novel), "Stepmother" (1848; play), "The Country Doctor", "The Country Priest", "The Search for the Absolute". The number of characters in the works of Honore de Balzac reached four thousand.
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Information sources:
Encyclopedic resource www.rubricon.com (Big Soviet encyclopedia, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron)
Project "Russia Congratulates!" - www.prazdniki.ru

(Source: “Aphorisms from around the world. Encyclopedia of wisdom.” www.foxdesign.ru)

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Balzac. Balzac (Balzac) Honore de (1799 1850) French writer, novelist Aphorisms, quotes from Balzac. Balzac. Biography At fifty, a man is more dangerous than at any other age, because he has expensive experience and often wealth. ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms- (Balzac, Honore de) ONORE DE BALZAC (1799 1850), French writer

, who recreated a complete picture of the social life of his time. Born May 20, 1799 in Tours; his relatives, peasants by origin, came from southern France... ...

Collier's Encyclopedia encyclopedic Dictionary

Honore de Balzak France, 05/20/1799 – 08/18/1850 French novelist, considered the father of the naturalistic novel. Honore de Balzac was born on May 20, 1799 in Tours (France). Honore de Balzac's father, Bernard François Balssa (some sources indicate Vals's surname), is a peasant who became rich during the revolution by buying and selling confiscated noble lands, and later became an assistant to the mayor of Tours. Having entered the service in the military supply department and finding himself among officials, he changed his own surname, considering it a plebeian one. At the turn of the 1830s. Honore, in turn, also modified his surname, arbitrarily adding the noble particle de to it, justifying this with the fiction of his origins from the noble family of Balzac d'Entregues. Honore Balzac's mother was 30 years younger than his father, which, in part, was the reason her betrayal: the father of Honore's younger brother, Henri, was the owner of the castle. In 1807-1813, Honore studied at the college of the city of Vendôme; in 1816-1819, he studied at the Paris School of Law, while serving as a clerk in a notary's office. Balzac's father tried to prepare him for legal practice. , but Honore decided to become a poet. At the family council, it was decided to give him two years to fulfill his dream. Honore de Balzac writes the drama Cromwell, but the newly convened family council recognizes the work as worthless and Honore is denied financial assistance. This was followed by a period of financial adversity. Balzac's career began around 1820, when he began publishing action-packed novels under various pseudonyms and composing morally descriptive codes of secular behavior. Later, some of the first novels were published under the pseudonym Horace de Saint-Aubin. The period of anonymous creativity ended in 1829 with the publication of the novel Chouans, or Brittany in 1799. Honore de Balzac called the novel Shagreen Skin (1830) the starting point of his work. Since 1830, short stories from modern French life began to be published under the general title Scenes of Private Life. In 1834, Balzac decided to connect the works already written since 1829 and future ones with common characters, combining them into an epic, later called The Human Comedy (La comedie humaine). Twice Balzac tried to make a political career, nominating his candidacy for the Chamber of Deputies in 1832 and 1848, but failed both times. In January 1849 he also failed in the elections to the French Academy. In 1832, Balzac began corresponding with the Polish aristocrat E. Hanska, who lived in Russia. In 1843 the writer went to visit her in St. Petersburg, and in 1847 and 1848 to Ukraine. The official marriage with E. Ganskaya was concluded 5 months before the death of Honore de Balzac, who died on August 18, 1850 in Paris. In 1858, Honoré de Balzac's sister, Madame Surville, wrote a biography of the writer - “Balzac, sa vie et ses oеuvres d"apres sa correspondance.” The authors of biographical books about Balzac were Stefan Zweig (Balzac), Andre Maurois (Prometheus, or Life Balzac), Wurmser (Inhuman Comedy). Among the works of Honore de Balzac are stories, short stories, philosophical sketches, novellas, plays.

Honore de Balzac, biography

The life and creative path of Honore de Balzac

Honore de Balzac was born on May 20, 1799 in Tours. His grandfather, a farmer, had the surname Balsa, but his father, having become an official, changed it to the aristocratic one - Balzac.

From 1807 to 1813, Balzac studied at the College of Vendôme, and it was here that his love for literature manifested itself.

Having moved with his father to Paris in 1814, he studied in private institutions. In 1816, he was a free student at the Faculty of Law, at the same time he worked as a scribe for a notary, three years later he graduated from the faculty with a bachelor's degree, but, despite the wishes of his parents, he did not become a lawyer, and devoted himself to literature.

Having settled in the attic, Honore began his first unsuccessful attempt to write, it was a tragedy in verse “Cromwell”. He also wrote and published various action-packed novels and codes of social conduct under pseudonyms. Some of them were published under the pseudonym Horace de Saint-Aubren. Soon he decided to devote himself to a genre that would help him gain recognition - it became the novel.

His first novel, “The Chouans,” was published in 1829, but Balzac himself considered the novel “Shagreen Skin,” published in 1830, to be the most significant in his work. Next works were combined into the epic “The Human Comedy”, this epic brought fame to the author. Balzac was very fond of the aristocratic lifestyle. But, despite this, his “Human Comedy” describes all the classes of France at that time, and not only city life, but also the life of the provinces and villages. Honore de Balzac created a truly unique work, in which he typified the entire French society of his time. Balzac moved away from typical novels, he was not interested in history, he was not interested in the exploits of one person. He painted a portrait of real France, all of France, without embellishment or romance.

He never waited for inspiration. He was a workaholic writer, working 12-14 hours. He drank huge quantities of coffee, which he prepared for himself. His works are not the favor of a muse, but persistent research into human nature, the psychology of society, its life and culture. He himself, in the preface to The Human Comedy, draws a parallel between the development of the animal world and the human world, noting that the formation of personality and developmental features largely depend on the environment and upbringing.

In 1832, Honore de Balzac received a letter from Odessa from Evelina Ganskaya, who lived in Verkhovna near Kiev; they corresponded for 18 years. In March 1850, he married Evelina; these were the last months of his life.

Biography from Wikipedia

Honore de Balzac was born in Tours in the family of a peasant from Languedoc, Bernard François Balssa (06/22/1746-06/19/1829). Balzac's father became rich by buying and selling confiscated noble lands during the revolution, and later became an assistant to the mayor of Tours. No relation to the French writer Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654). Father Honore changed his last name and became Balzac. Mother Anne-Charlotte-Laure Salambier (1778-1853) was much younger than her husband and even outlived her son. She came from the family of a Parisian cloth merchant.

The father prepared his son to become a lawyer. In 1807-1813, Balzac studied at the College Vendôme, in 1816-1819 - at the Paris School of Law, and at the same time worked as a scribe for a notary; however, he abandoned his legal career and devoted himself to literature. The parents did not do much with their son. He was placed at the Collège Vendôme against his will. Meetings with family were prohibited there all year round, excluding Christmas holidays. During the first years of his studies, he had to be in a punishment cell many times. In the fourth grade, Honore began to come to terms with school life, but did not stop ridiculing the teachers... At the age of 14, he fell ill, and his parents took him home at the request of the college authorities. For five years Balzac was seriously ill; it was believed that there was no hope of recovery, but soon after the family moved to Paris in 1816, he recovered.

The director of the school, Marechal-Duplessis, wrote in his memoirs about Balzac: “Starting from the fourth grade, his desk was always full of writings...”. Honore was fond of reading from an early age, he was especially attracted by the works of Montesquieu, Holbach, Helvetius and other French educators. He also tried to write poetry and plays, but his children's manuscripts have not survived. His essay “Treatise on the Will” was taken away by his teacher and burned before his eyes. Later, the writer would describe his childhood years at an educational institution in the novels “Louis Lambert”, “Lily in the Valley” and others.

After 1823, he published several novels under various pseudonyms in the spirit of “frantic romanticism.” Balzac strove to follow literary fashion, and later he himself called these literary experiments“sheer literary disgusting” and preferred not to remember them. In 1825-1828 he tried to take up publishing activities, but failed.

In 1829, the first book signed with the name “Balzac” was published - the historical novel “The Chouans” (Les Chouans). Balzac's formation as a writer was influenced by the historical novels of Walter Scott. Balzac's subsequent works: "Scenes of Private Life" (Scènes de la vie privée, 1830), the novel "The Elixir of Longevity" (L"Élixir de longue vie, 1830-1831, a variation on the theme of the legend of Don Juan); the story "Gobsek" ( Gobseck, 1830) attracted the attention of readers and critics. In 1831, Balzac published his. philosophical novel“Shagreen Skin” (La Peau de chagrin) and begins the novel “The Thirty-Year-Old Woman” (French) (La femme de trente ans). The cycle “Mischievous Stories” (Contes drolatiques, 1832-1837) is an ironic stylization of Renaissance short stories. In part autobiographical novel“Louis Lambert” (Louis Lambert, 1832) and especially in the later “Seraphîta” (Séraphîta, 1835) reflected Balzac’s passion for the mystical concepts of E. Swedenborg and Cl. de Saint Martin.

His hope of becoming rich had not yet been realized (he was weighed down by debt - the result of his unsuccessful business ventures) when fame began to come to him. Meanwhile, he continued to work hard, working at his desk for 15-16 hours a day, and publishing 3 to 6 books annually.

The works created during the first five or six years of his writing career depict the most diverse areas of contemporary life in France: the village, the province, Paris; various social groups- merchants, aristocracy, clergy; various social institutions- family, state, army.

In 1845, the writer was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor.

Honore de Balzac died on August 18, 1850, at the age of 52. The cause of death was gangrene, which developed after he injured his leg on the corner of the bed. However, the fatal illness was only a complication of several years of painful illness associated with the destruction of blood vessels, presumably arteritis.

Balzac was buried in Paris, at the Père Lachaise cemetery. " All the writers of France came out to bury him." From the chapel where they said goodbye to him, and to the church where he was buried, among the people bearing the coffin were Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo.

Balzac and Evelina Ganskaya

In 1832, Balzac met in absentia Evelina Ganskaya, who entered into correspondence with the writer without revealing her name. Balzac met Evelina in Neuchâtel, where she arrived with her husband, the owner of vast estates in Ukraine, Wenceslaus Hansky. In 1842, Wenceslav Gansky died, but his widow, despite a long-term affair with Balzac, did not marry him, as she wanted to pass on her husband’s inheritance to her only daughter (by marrying a foreigner, Ganskaya would have lost her fortune). In 1847-1850, Balzac stayed at the Ganskaya Verkhovnya estate (in the village of the same name in the Ruzhinsky district, Zhitomir region, Ukraine). Balzac married Evelina Ganskaya on March 2, 1850 in the city of Berdichev, in the Church of St. Barbara; after the wedding, the couple left for Paris. Immediately upon arriving home, the writer fell ill, and Evelina looked after her husband until his last days.

In the unfinished “Letter about Kyiv” and private letters, Balzac left references to his stay in the Ukrainian towns of Brody, Radzivilov, Dubno, Vishnevets, visiting Kyiv in 1847, 1848 and 1850.

Creation

The composition of "The Human Comedy"

In 1831, Balzac conceived the idea of creating a multi-volume work - a “picture of the morals” of his time - a huge work, which he later entitled “The Human Comedy”. According to Balzac, The Human Comedy was supposed to be the artistic history and artistic philosophy of France - as it developed after the revolution. Balzac worked on this work throughout his entire subsequent life; he includes most of the already written works and reworks them specifically for this purpose. The cycle consists of three parts:

"Etudes on Morals"
"Philosophical Studies"
"Analytical Studies".

The most extensive is the first part - “Etudes on Morals”, which includes:

"Scenes from Private Life"

"Gobsek" (1830),
"Woman of Thirty" (1829-1842),
"Colonel Chabert" (1844),
"Père Goriot" (1834-35)

"Scenes of Provincial Life"

"Turkish priest" ( Le curé de Tours, 1832),
Evgenia Grande" ( Eugenie Grandet, 1833),
"Lost Illusions" (1837-43)

"Scenes from Parisian Life"

trilogy "The Story of Thirteen" ( L'Histoire des Treize, 1834),
"Caesar Birotto" ( Cesar Birotteau, 1837),
"Banking House of Nucingen" ( La Maison Nucingen, 1838),
“The brilliance and poverty of courtesans” (1838-1847),
"Sarrasine" (1830)

"Scenes of Political Life"

"An Incident from the Time of Terror" (1842)

"Scenes of Military Life"

"Chouans" (1829),
"Passion in the Desert" (1837)

"Scenes of Village Life"

"Lily of the Valley" (1836)

Subsequently, the cycle was replenished with the novels “Modesta Mignon” ( Modeste Mignon, 1844), "Cousin Betta" ( La Cousine Bette, 1846), "Cousin Pons" ( Le Cousin Pons, 1847), as well as, in its own way, summing up the cycle, the novel “The Wrong Side” modern history» ( L'envers de l'histoire contemporaine, 1848).

"Philosophical Studies"

They represent reflections on the laws of life.

"Shagreen Skin" (1831)

"Analytical Studies"

The cycle is characterized by the greatest “philosophy”. In some works - for example, in the story “Louis Lambert”, the volume of philosophical calculations and reflections many times exceeds the volume of the plot narrative.

Balzac's innovation

The end of the 1820s and the beginning of the 1830s, when Balzac entered literature, was the period of greatest flowering of the work of romanticism during French literature. Great romance in European literature By the time Balzac arrived, he had two main genres: the novel of the individual - an adventurous hero (for example, Robinson Crusoe) or a self-absorbed, lonely hero ("Suffering young Werther"W. Goethe) and a historical novel (Walter Scott).

Balzac moves away from both the novel of personality and historical novel Walter Scott. He strives to show an "individualized type." The center of his creative attention, according to a number of Soviet literary scholars, is not a heroic or outstanding personality, but modern bourgeois society, France of the July Monarchy.

“Studies on Morals” unfolds the picture of France, depicts the life of all classes, all social conditions, all social institutions. Their leitmotif is the victory of the financial bourgeoisie over the landed and clan aristocracy, the strengthening of the role and prestige of wealth, and the associated weakening or disappearance of many traditional ethical and moral principles.

In the Russian Empire

Balzac's work found recognition in Russia during the writer's lifetime. Much was published in separate publications, as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg magazines, almost immediately after the Paris publications - during the 1830s. However, some works were banned.

At the request of the head of the Third Department, General A.F. Orlov, Nicholas I allowed the writer to enter Russia, but with strict supervision..

In 1832, 1843, 1847 and 1848-1850. Balzac visited Russia.
From August to October 1843, Balzac lived in St. Petersburg, in Titov's house on Millionnaya Street, 16. That year, the visit of such a famous French writer to the Russian capital caused a new wave of interest in his novels among local youth. One of the young people who showed such interest was 22-year-old engineer-second lieutenant of the St. Petersburg engineering team Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was so delighted with Balzac’s work that he decided to immediately, without delay, translate one of his novels into Russian. This was the novel "Eugenia Grande" - the first Russian translation, published in the magazine "Pantheon" in January 1844, and the first printed publication of Dostoevsky (although the translator was not indicated during publication).

Memory

Cinema

Filmed about the life and work of Balzac feature films and television series, including:

1968 - “The Mistake of Honore de Balzac” (USSR): director Timofey Levchuk.
1973 - “Balzac’s Great Love” (TV series, Poland–France): director Wojciech Solazh.
1999 - “Balzac” (France–Italy–Germany): director Jose Dayan.

Museums

There are several museums dedicated to creativity writer, including in Russia. In France they work:

house museum in Paris;
Balzac Museum in the Chateau Sachet of the Loire Valley.

Philately and numismatics

Postage stamps from many countries around the world were issued in honor of Balzac.

Postage stamp of Ukraine, 1999

Postage stamp of Moldova, 1999

In 2012, the Paris Mint, as part of the numismatic series “Regions of France. Famous People”, minted a silver 10 euro coin in honor of Honoré de Balzac, representing the Center region.

Bibliography

Collected works

in Russian

Collected works in 20 volumes (1896-1899)
Collected works in 15 volumes (~ 1951-1955)
Collected works in 24 volumes. - M.: Pravda, 1960 ("Library "Ogonyok")
Collected works in 10 volumes - M.: Fiction, 1982-1987, 300,000 copies.

in French

Oeuvres complètes, 24 vv. - Paris, 1869-1876, Correspondence, 2 vv., P., 1876
Lettres à l’Étrangère, 2 vv.; P., 1899-1906

Works

Novels

Chouans, or Brittany in 1799 (1829)
Shagreen Leather (1831)
Louis Lambert (1832)
Eugenia Grande (1833)
History of the Thirteen (Ferragus, leader of the Devorantes; Duchess de Langeais; Golden-Eyed Girl) (1834)
Father Goriot (1835)
Lily of the Valley (1835)
Banking house of Nucingen (1838)
Beatrice (1839)
Country Priest (1841)
Screwtape (1842) / La Rabouilleuse (French) / Black sheep (en) / alternative titles: “Black Sheep” / “A Bachelor’s Life”
Ursula Mirue (1842)
Woman of Thirty (1842)
Lost Illusions (I, 1837; II, 1839; III, 1843)
Peasants (1844)
Cousin Betta (1846)
Cousin Pons (1847)
The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans (1847)
MP for Arsi (1854)

Novels and stories

The House of the Cat Playing Ball (1829)
Marriage contract (1830)
Gobsek (1830)
Vendetta (1830)
Goodbye! (1830)
Country Ball (1830)
Conjugal Consent (1830)
Sarrasine (1830)
Red Hotel (1831)
The Unknown Masterpiece (1831)
Colonel Chabert (1832)
Abandoned Woman (1832)
Belle of the Empire (1834)
Involuntary Sin (1834)
The Devil's Heir (1834)
The Constable's Wife (1834)
Salvation cry (1834)
The Witch (1834)
Perseverance of Love (1834)
Bertha's Repentance (1834)
Naivety (1834)
The Marriage of the Beauty of the Empire (1834)
Forgiven Melmoth (1835)
Mass of the Atheist (1836)
Facino Canet (1836)
The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan (1839)
Pierre Grassu (1840)
The Imaginary Mistress (1841)

Film adaptations

The brilliance and poverty of courtesans (France; 1975; 9 episodes): director M. Cazeneuve. Based on the novel of the same name.
Colonel Chabert (film) (French Le Colonel Chabert, 1994, France). Based on the story of the same name.
Don't touch the ax (France-Italy, 2007). Based on the story "The Duchess of Langeais".
Shagreen leather (La peau de chagrin, 2010, France). Based on the novel of the same name.

Data

In K. M. Stanyukovich's story "A Terrible Disease" the name of Balzac is mentioned. The main character Ivan Rakushkin, an aspiring writer who has no creative talent and is doomed to failure as a writer, is consoled with the thought that Balzac, before he became famous, wrote several bad novels.

LECTURE 12-13

THE WORK OF HONORE DE BALZAC

1. Life path writer.

2. The universality of the concept, thematic and genre composition, the basic principles of constructing the epic “The Human Comedy” by O. de Balzac.

3. Ideological artistic analysis works “Eugenie Goandet”, “Shagreen Skin”.

1. The writer’s life path

The first half of the 19th century did not know a more striking figure than HONORE BALZAC (1799-1850), who has rightly been called “the father of modern realism and naturalism.” His life is a living embodiment of the conditions in which the European, and especially the French, found themselves. writer XIX century. Balzac lived only 51 years, leaving the reader 96 works. He planned to write about 150 of them, but did not have time to complete his grandiose plan. All his works are interconnected by cross-cutting characters, who in some novels acted as the main characters, and in others as secondary characters.

With Balzac, everyone finds their own. Some were impressed by the completeness and coherence of the picture of the world that he outlined. Others were concerned about the Gothic mysteries included in this objective picture. Still others admired the colorful characters that the writer’s imagination created, raised above reality by their greatness and their baseness.

Honore Balzac (he added the particle “de” to his surname later and quite arbitrarily) was born on May 20, 1799 in the city of Tours. His father Bernard Francois, a peasant son who struggled to become a man for a long time, married only at the age of fifty, taking a young girl from a wealthy family (she was 32 years younger than him). The mother hurried to sell the firstborn from her hands. The baby was given to a nurse in the village, where he spent 3 years. Mother did not visit often. Social life and love affair with one of the local aristocrats completely absorbed her. Even after returning to parents' house, the mother saw her son only on Sundays. Honore's childhood was difficult and joyless. The family did almost nothing to raise him.

Parents considered themselves educated people, so they did not spare money for the education of their children. At the age of 8, Honore was sent to study at the College of Vendôme, which became a “spiritual prison” for him, because strict supervision over the students reigned here; they were not even allowed to go home for the holidays. All letters were re-read by the censor, and even corporal punishment was resorted to. Young Balzac felt abandoned and oppressed in college, apparently because he studied mediocrely and among his teachers had a reputation as an unfocused and untalented student. Here he first began to write poetry and became interested in literature.

Having received secondary education, with great difficulty, Balzac enrolled as a free student at the Paris School of Law. In November 1816, he entered the Faculty of Law of the Sorbonne, became seriously interested in philosophy and fiction. And at the same time he had to work as a clerk in a notary's office. The experience gained during the service became the source of many plot collisions in the works of The Human Comedy.

In 1819, Balzac graduated from the Faculty of Law and received a bachelor's degree in law. However, Honoré had no desire to vegetate in a notary’s office; he wanted to become a writer (this happened in 1819, when Napoleonic escapades ended irrevocably and the country was already ruled by the restored Bourbons). The mother did not want to hear about such a dubious career, but old Bernard Francois unexpectedly agreed to provide his son with something like a two-year-old probationary period. I even made a kind of deal with him on this, which provided for meager financial assistance; after all, as A. Maurois wrote, “Balzac was born into a family where money was idolized.”

When the military intendant Bernard-François Balzac was dismissed, the family settled in Villeparis, and Honore remained in Paris, where he experienced creative pangs, sitting in his attic in front of blank slate paper. He wanted to become a writer, without having the slightest idea what he would write about; and took up heroic tragedy - a genre most contraindicated for his talent. Inspired by hopes, the young man worked on the tragedy "Cromwell", but the work came out weak, secondary, focused not on life, but on the canons art XVII V. The tragedy was not recognized even in the family circle.

In 1820 - 1821 Balzac began work on the novel in his letters “Stenies, or Philosophical Wanderings,” focusing on the work of J.-J. Rousseau and I. V. Goethe, as well as on the experience of personal experiences and impressions. However, this work remained unfinished: the writer lacked skill and maturity.

The spring of 1822 brought him a meeting with a woman who played an important role in his future fate. Lara de Bernis, goddaughter of Louis XVI, was married and 22 years older than Balzac. This is the angel of friendship who accompanied Honoré for 15 years. She helped him with money and advice, and was his critic. She became for him the maternal principle that he had been looking for from his mother throughout his childhood. Balzac thanked her with love, but this did not mean that he remained faithful. Young girls rarely became his passions. It is no coincidence that in his work, exploring evolution female soul from a young age to a very old age, the writer paid attention specifically to the 30-year-old, “Balzac” age. After all, it is at this time that a woman, in his opinion, reaches the peak of her physical and spiritual capabilities and is freed from the illusions of youth.

Honoré Balzac was the tutor for Madame Bernie's children. “Soon the Balzacs begin to notice something. Firstly, Honore, even when he is not giving lessons, goes to Bernie's house and spends days and evenings there. Secondly, he began to dress carefully, became friendlier, more approachable and much more welcoming.” When the mother found out about Madame Bernie’s relationship with her son, a feeling of jealousy arose in her, and soon rumors began to circulate in the city about Honore’s frequent visits. To protect her son from this woman, his mother sent him to her sister.

From 1821 to 1825, Honore de Balzac, first in collaboration with others, and then independently, began to write and publish novels full of secrets, horrors and crimes. He settled down in an attic on Ladyg'er Street and, cheering himself up with coffee, wrote novels one after another: “The Big Heiress” (1822), “The Last Fairy, or the New Magic Lamp” (1822), etc. The young prose writer signed various pseudonyms and later he refused to include his works in the collection. However, his work brought neither fame nor fees for a comfortable life.

In 1836, already famous, he republished some of them, but under the pseudonym Horace de Saint-Aubin. Although the pseudonym was nothing more than a secret, Balzac never decided to publish these books as his own. He wrote in 1842 in the “Preface to the Human Comedy”: “... I must draw the attention of readers to the fact that I recognize as my own only those works that were published under my name. Besides “The Human Comedy,” I only own “One Hundred Playful Stories,” two plays and several articles - but by the way, they are all signed.”

Researchers have often been tempted not to take the writer’s early works into account at all. And it’s hardly worth giving in to this temptation. Without them, the image of the writer would not be complete. In addition, they became a kind of testing ground for him.

For some time, Honore Balzac generally turned into a literary day laborer, and did not disdain any order that brought money. And that money was considerable at that time (especially for an aspiring writer, unknown and anonymous), and the family stopped believing that Honore was wasting his time on stupid things. He himself, however, was dissatisfied, because he hoped that literary work would immediately bring him pennies, fame and power. And young Balzac, pushed by ardent impatience, resorted to commercial speculation: he began publishing classics, bought a printing house, and then a foundry. He devoted almost three years to this activity - from 1825 to 1828, and as a result - bankruptcy and a huge debt, which was partially covered by his already middle-aged mistress Madame de Berni. But Honore never completely got rid of his debt until the end of his days, for over time he only increased it.

“For Balzac,” wrote another of his biographers, Stefan Zweig, “Midas, on the contrary (for everything he touched turned not into gold, but into debt) - everything always ended in financial collapse...” He repeatedly embarked on adventures (publishing newspapers and magazines, buying shares in abandoned silver mines, working for the theater to earn money), and all with the same result: instead of gold - debts, which gradually grew to truly astronomical figures.

In the second month. 20s XIX century In the Parisian press, articles and essays by Balzac appeared, which were talented sketches of typical characters and scenes from the life of different strata of French society. Many of them became the basis for images and situations in the works of The Human Comedy.

“The Last Chouan, or Brittany in 1800” (1829) - Balzac’s first work, signed with his last name (he generally called this novel his first work) - was published a year before Stendhal’s “Red and Black”. But "Red and Black" is a masterpiece, big monument new realism, and “The Last Chouan” is something average, immature.

Undoubtedly, Stendhal and Balzac are very different artistic individuals. The work of the first is, first of all, two peaks: “Red and Black” and “Parma Monastery”. Even if he didn’t write anything else, he would still remain Stendhal. Balzac had some things that worked out better for him, and some things that worked out worse for him. And yet, first of all, he is the author of the “Human Comedy” as a whole. He knew and spoke about it himself: “The work on which the author is working will receive recognition in the future, primarily due to the breadth of its concept, and not the value of individual details.”

Balzac's real creativity began on the threshold of the 1830 revolution, which the writer accepted, but very quickly realized that the people had been deceived. And yet, a significant part of his works revealed the theme of the Restoration (“Gobsek”, “Shagreen Skin”, “Colonel Chabert”, “Père Goriot”, “Museum of Antiquities”, “The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans”).

In 1833, the novel “Eugenia Grande” was published, which defined a new era in creative development O. de Balzac. The subject of the image in the new work was bourgeois everyday life with its external and real flow. Immediately after the publication of the book, Balzac came up with the idea of combining all his works into an epic.

In 1834, Jules Sandot found temporary shelter in Balzac’s apartment, and Aurora’s companion Dupin was rejected. The writer offered him the position of secretary. Sando witnessed dinner parties. But after a year and a half he ran away from Balzac, because he believed that it was better to die of hunger than to work like that.

After 30 years, Balzac began to dream of marriage with a noble, beautiful, young and rich woman, which would help him resolve his financial and personal problems.

In 1832, he received a letter with an Odessa stamp, which was signed “Stranger”. The secret correspondent turned out to be Countess Evelina Ganskaya (from birth Rzhevusskaya), who belonged to a famous Polish family and was only a year younger than Honore. She was married to Venueslav Gansky, a wealthy landowner in Volyn. The correspondence soon grew into love, which was destined to continue until the death of the writer. At first glance, Ganskaya did not occupy a special place in Balzac’s life. In the intervals between meetings with his beloved, which took place in Switzerland, then in Germany, then in Italy, Balzac courted women, wrote novels... However, everything changed when in 1841 Evelina became a widow. They spent more and more time together. Balzac often traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and Evelina’s estate. In 1845, he was very shocked by the news of her pregnancy. In his dreams, the writer saw himself as a father, without any doubt that he would have a son. The artist even named him Victor-Honoré and began making plans for the future. But the dreams were not destined to come true, because the child was born at 6 months old and died. On March 14, 1850, Balzac and Ganskaya got married in Berdichev. She knew very well that she was faced with caring for her sick husband and the position of the writer’s widow, and yet she agreed to the marriage.

In 1835, after the publication of the novel “Father Goriot,” real fame and recognition came to the writer. Short stories and novels appeared one after another. Early 30s marked not only by Balzac's intense literary activity. His successes opened the doors of aristocratic salons for him, which pleased his vanity. Material affairs stabilized, old dreams of a house, a carriage, a shoemaker came true. The artist lived widely and freely.

When fame came, when he became the ruler of thoughts, his huge fees could no longer change anything. The money disappeared before it even appeared in the wallet; devoured by debts, they fell as if into an abyss, not satisfying even a small part of the creditors. The great Balzac ran away from them like a frivolous rake, and once (albeit for a short time) even ended up in a debtor's prison.

All this radically changed his life. To pay off his debts, he had to work at feverish speed (in about two decades he wrote 74 novels, many short stories, essays, plays, articles), and in order to maintain the fame of a solvent dandy spoiled by success, he had to go into debt again and again.

However, Honore did not look for a way out of this vicious circle. Apparently, the eternal rush, the atmosphere of an ever-increasing number of falls and adventures were the indispensable conditions of his existence, and only under such circumstances, probably, Balzac’s genius could manifest itself. So, at first Balzac quite soberly set himself the goal of becoming a writer and only then, “after ten years of searching at random...discovered his true calling.” He wrote 12 to 14 hours a day without a break in an almost somnambulistic state, turning night into day and fighting sleep and fatigue with giant portions of black coffee; coffee ultimately brought him to his grave.

40s of the XIX century. - the last period of Balzac’s work and no less significant and fruitful. 28 new novels by the prose writer have been published. However, since the autumn of 1848, he worked little and published almost nothing, because his health condition had deteriorated sharply: heart disease, liver disease, severe headaches. The powerful organism of the creator of The Human Comedy was broken by backbreaking labor. Balzac actually burned out in labor, living to almost 50 years. This happened on August 18, 1850. However, its conclusion creative activity and mastery became the “Human Comedy”, which brought him real recognition and immortality throughout the centuries.

In his funeral speech, V. Hugo said: “This powerful and tireless worker, this philosopher, this thinker, this genius lived among us a life full of dreams, struggles, battles - a life that all great people live at all times.”

2. The universality of the concept, thematic and genre composition, the basic principles of constructing the epic “The Human Comedy” by O. de Balzac

The range of literary interests of O. de Balzac was evidence that he felt the need to develop his own reasoned view of the world. The result of such searches was the formation of the philosophical foundation of Balzac's future grand epic: the concept of the world and man, realized in The Human Comedy even before he approached its creation.

"Congratulate me. After all, it has only gone bad that I am a genius,” - so, according to the memoirs of Balzac’s sister Surville, the writer himself announced the emergence of a new idea, which had no analogues in world literature. In 1833, he openly declared his desire to combine his novels into one epic. A peculiar feature that symbolized the beginning of the creation of a new book was the novel “Père Goriot,” which the author completed in 1835. Starting with this work, Balzac began to systematically take the names and characters of the characters from his previous works.

The power of gold has become one of the cross-cutting themes of world literature. Almost all outstanding writers XIX-XX centuries addressed her. The outstanding French prose writer Honore de Balzac, the author of a series of novels under the general title “The Human Comedy,” which he wrote for more than 20 years, was no exception. In these works, the writer sought to embody an artistic generalization of the life of French society in the period 1816-1848.

The connection between the artist's prose and the real life of France during the Restoration era is complex and numerous. He skillfully intertwined references to historical details and real events with the names of the heroes of “The Human Comedy” and the events described in it. But Balzac did not intend to recreate an exact copy of reality. He did not hide the fact that the way France appeared in The Human Comedy was influenced by his ideas about the meaning and content of human life and the history of civilization as a whole. But we can say for sure that he consistently implemented in his work a humanistic view of the history of civilization. The story of morality that Balzac wrote is a story seen through people with all their dreams, passions, sorrows and joys.

The writer decided in his works to show the widest possible panorama of the life of France of his era, but later became convinced that this could not be accomplished within the framework of one novel. This is how a cycle began to take shape, which in 1842 received the name “Human Comedy”.

"The Divine Comedy" by Dante	Balzac's "Human Comedy"
In form, this work is a kind of journey into the other world, carried out by the poet in artistic imagination, vision	In form - a depiction of the life of France in all its manifestations
The purpose of the work is to show medieval man and all humanity the path to salvation	The purpose of comedy is the desire to explain the patterns of human reality
Called a comedy because it started out sad but had a happy ending.	Called a comedy because it showed the concept of the human world from the very beginning different sides
Genre - poem	It's difficult to define a genre. Most often there are two definitions: a cycle of novels and an epic.
Divided into three parts (“Hell”, “Purgatory”, “Paradise”) - these are the three worlds where Dante lived: real life, the purgatory of internal struggle and the paradise of faith	Divided into three parts, each of which included specific works

Since the plan for Balzac's epic matured gradually, the principles of classification of the works that were included in it changed many times. Initially, the artist planned to call main job his life “Social Studies”, but later “The Divine Comedy” gave him another idea regarding the title of the work. A grandiose work required a majestic name. It did not come to the writer immediately, but much later (by analogy with Dante’s “Divine Comedy”). Tragedy of the 18th century. was replaced by comedy of the mid-19th century. The writer himself explained the chosen title: “The enormous scope of the plan, which simultaneously covers the history and criticism of society, the analysis of its shortcomings and the discussion of its foundations, allows, I think, to give it the title under which it will appear - “The Human Comedy.” Or is he pretentious, but correct? The readers themselves will decide this when the work is finished.”

The first step towards the “Human Comedy” was Balzac’s appeal to the genre of “physiological essay,” which had nothing to do with physiology in the medical sense of the word. It was a unique study of certain social phenomena. “Physiological Essay” - artistic journalism touching on modern themes and developed rich material of social, everyday and psychological observations.

The first sketches of a grandiose work appeared in 1833 (“Shagreen skin”), work on last pages ended shortly before the death of the author (“the wrong side of modern history”, 1848). In 1845, the writer compiled a list of all the works of The Human Comedy, which included 144 titles. But he did not have time to realize his plan in full.

In a letter to Madame Carreau, he wrote: “My work must incorporate all types of people, all social conditions, it must embody all social changes so that not a single life situation, not a single face, not a single character, male or female, not a single way of life, not a single profession, not anyone’s views, not a single French province, not even anything from childhood, old age, adulthood, politics, law or military affairs were not forgotten.”

Balzac gave everyday phenomena - both secret and obvious - as well as events in personal life, their causes and fundamental principles, no less weight than historians gave to events in the social life of peoples. “It is not an easy task to describe 2-3 thousand people who stand out in some way from the background of their era, because in the end there will be approximately the same number of types that represent each generation, and “L. To." will contain them all. So many faces, characters, so many destinies needed a certain framework and - forgive me for this statement - galleries.”

The society that became the fruit of the writer’s creative energy had all the signs of reality. “Common characters” passed from one work to another, which, along with the universality of the creative method and the author’s concept, strengthened the writer’s plan, giving it scale architectural structure. Gradually, Balzac acquired his own doctors (B'yanchon, Desplein), detective (Corentin, Peyrade), lawyers (Derville, Desroches), financiers (Nusingen, the Keller brothers, du Tillet), moneylenders (Gobsek, Palme, Bidot), nobility ( Listomeri, Kergarueti, Monfrignesi, Granlie, Ronqueroli, Rogani), etc.

Comprehend the enormity general plan Balzac allowed "Preface to the Human Comedy." “The initial idea of the “Human Comedy” appeared before me like a dream, like one of those vague ideas that you grow, but cannot clearly imagine...”

The main provisions of the “Preface...”

The idea for this work was born as a result of comparing humanity with the animal world.

The desire to find a single mechanism in society, since, in his opinion, it is similar to Nature.

The writer identified three forms of human existence: “men, women and things.”

main idea The idea is to give a huge panorama of society based on the law of egoism.

Balzac did not profess Rousseau's ideas about the “natural goodness of man.”

The “Human Comedy” is divided into three parts, each of which Balzac called etudes (vivennas): “Etudes on Morals”, “Philosophical Etudes”, “Analytical Etudes”. The central place in it was occupied by “Studies on Customs”, which the writer divided into different scenes of life. This scheme was conditional; some works moved from one section to another. According to the scheme, the author arranged his novels in this way ( most important works):

1. "Etudes on Morals".

A) Scenes of private life. “The House of the Cat Playing Ball”, “Ball in So”, “Matrimonial Consent”, “Back Family”, “Gobsek”, “Silhouette of a Woman”, “30-Year-Old Woman”, “Colonel Chabert”, “Abandoned Woman” , “Père Goriot”, “The Marriage Contract”, “Mass of the Atheist”, “Eve’s Daughter”, “Beatrice”, “First Steps into Science”.

B) Scenes of provincial life. “Eugenie Grande”, “The Illustrious Gaudissard”, “Provincial Muse”, “The Old Maid”, “Pierrette”, “A Bachelor’s Life”, “Lost Illusions”.

B) Scenes of Parisian life. “The Story of Thirteen”, “The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans”, “Facino Cane”, “ Business man", "Prince of Bohemia", "Cousin Betta".

D) Scenes of political life. “The Underside of Modern History”, “Dark Affair”, “Episodes from the Age of Terror”.

D) Scenes of military life. "Chouany", "Passion in the Desert".

E) Scenes of rural life. “Village Doctor”, “Village Priest”, “Peasants”.

2. "Philosophical Studies".

“Shagreen Skin”, “Forgiven Melmoth”, “An Unknown Masterpiece”, “ Cursed child", "Search for the Absolute", "Farewell", "Executioner", "Elixir of Longevity".

3. "Analytical Studies".

“Philosophy of Marriage”, “Small Troubles of Married Life”.

“Studies on Morals” constituted a general history of society, where all events and deeds were collected. Each of the six sections corresponded to one of the main ideas. Each had its own meaning, its own meaning and covered a certain period of human life:

“Scenes from private life depict childhood, adolescence and the mistakes inherent in this age.

Scenes of provincial life convey the passions of their adulthood, describing calculations, interests and ambitions.

Scenes of Parisian life paint a picture of the tastes, vices and irrepressible manifestations of life associated with the customs that flourish in the capital, where one can simultaneously find unique good and unique evil.

Scenes of political life reflect the interests of many or all - that is, we are talking about life that does not seem to flow in the general direction.

Scenes of military life show a grandiose picture of Society in a state of highest tension, when it goes beyond the limits of its existence - when it defends itself from enemy invasion or goes on campaigns of conquest.

Scenes village life- it's like evening have a long day. In this section the reader will meet for the first time the purest characters and will be shown how the highest principles of order, politics and morality must be put into practice.”

It is difficult to name all the themes in the works of Honore de Balzac. The author took into account seemingly anti-artistic themes: the enrichment and bankruptcy of a merchant, the history of the estate changing hands, speculation in land plots, financial scams, the struggle over the will. In the novels, it was these main events that determined the relationships between parents - children, women - men, lovers - mistresses.

main topic, which united Balzac’s works into one whole, is the desire to explain the patterns of reality. The author was interested not only in specific topics and problems, but also in the interconnection of these problems; not only individual passions, but also the formation of a person under the influence of the environment.

These methods allowed the writer to draw certain conclusions in the book about human degradation in bourgeois society. However, he did not absolutize the influence of the environment, but led the hero to an independent choice of his life path.

Such a huge number of works and characters were united by the following: Balzac developed an important motive for human actions - the desire to get rich.

The internal structure of the “Human Comedy” is such that great novels and stories alternated in it with “crossroads” short stories - “The Prince of Bohemia”, “Business Man”, “Comedians Unknown to Themselves”. These are, rather, sketches written involuntarily, the main value of which is a meeting with a good known to the writer characters who are a short time intrigue united again.

The writer built the “Human Comedy” on the principle of cyclicity: most of the characters moved from work to work, acting as the main actors in some and episodic in others. Balzac boldly abandoned the plot, where the biography of this or that hero was given in full.

Thus, an important compositional principle of the “Human Comedy” is the interaction and interconnection of various parts of the cycle (for example, the actions of “Gobsek” and “Père Goriot” took place almost simultaneously, they also had general character- Anastasi de Resto - daughter of Father Goriot and wife of Count de Resto).

It is very problematic to accurately and unambiguously determine the genre of this work. Most often, two definitions are given: a cycle of novels and an epic. They can hardly be classified as a “Human Comedy”. Formally, this is a cycle of novels, or more precisely, works. But many of them lack means of communication with each other - for example, neither the plots, nor the problems, nor the common characters connected the novels “Shuany”, “The Peasants”, “The Splendor and Poverty of the Courtesans” and the story “Shagreen Skin”. And there are many such examples. The definition of “epic” also only partially applies to the “Human Comedy”. The epic, in its modern form, is characterized by the presence of core characters and a general plot, which Balzac did not have.

Most difficult option cyclical unity is the unification within one concept of works of different genres (novels, short stories, short stories, essays, stories). In this case, the huge life material, the huge number of characters, the scale of the writer’s generalizations also made it possible to talk about an epic. As a rule, in this context, people first of all remember Balzac’s “Human Comedy” and E. Zola’s “Rugon-Maccari”, created under the influence of Balzac’s masterpiece.

3. Ideological and artistic analysis of the works “Eugenie Grande”, “Shagreen Skin”

In 1831, Balzac published the novel Shagreen Skin, which “was supposed to formulate modernity, our life, our egoism.” The main theme of the work is that of a talented but poor young man who has lost the dreams of his youth in a clash with a selfish and unspiritual bourgeois society. Already in this book the main feature of the writer’s work was outlined - fantastic images did not contradict the realistic reflection of reality, but, on the contrary, added special intrigue and philosophical generalizations to the stories.

Philosophical formulas are revealed in the novel using the example of the fate of the main character Raphael de Valentin, who is faced with the dilemma of the century: “to wish” and “to be able”. Infected by the disease of time, Raphael, who initially chose the path of a scientist, abandoned it for the sake of brilliance and pleasure social life. Having experienced a complete collapse in his ambitious intentions, rejected by the woman he was so passionate about, and left without minimal means of subsistence, the hero was already ready to commit suicide. It was at this time that fate brought him together with an amazing old man, an antique dealer, who handed him an all-powerful talisman - shagreen leather, for the owner of which desire and possibilities became reality. However, the price for all desires was Raphael’s life, which very quickly began to emerge along with the decrease in the size of the shagreen skin. There was only one way out of this situation for the hero - to satisfy all desires.

Thus, the novel reveals two systems of existence: a life full of pleasures and passions, which led to the destruction of man, and an ascetic life, whose only pleasure was knowledge and potential power. Balzac depicted both strong and weak sides both of these systems using the example of the image of Raphael, who at first almost did not destroy himself in the mainstream of passions, and then slowly died in a “vegetative” existence without desires and emotions.

"Raphael could do everything, but did nothing." The reason for this is the hero’s selfishness. Wanting to have millions and having received them, Raphael, previously filled with desires and dreams, was immediately reborn: “a deeply egoistic thought entered his very essence and swallowed up the universe for him.”

All events in the novel are strictly motivated by a natural combination of circumstances: Raphael, having received shagreen skin, immediately wished for entertainment and orgies, and at the same moment came across his old friend, who invited him to “a luxurious party at Taillefer’s house; there the hero accidentally met with a notary, who had already been looking for the heir of the deceased millionaire for two weeks, and it turned out to be Rafael, etc. So, fantastic image shagreen leather acted as “a means of purely realistic reflection of experiences, moods and events” (Goethe).

In 1833, the novel “Eugenie Grandet” was published. The subject of the image in the new work was bourgeois everyday life with its usual course of events. The setting is the typical French provincial town of Saumur, which is revealed against the backdrop of the rivalry between two high-born families of the city - the Cruchons and the Grassenives, who argued for the hand of the heroine of the novel Eugénie, the heiress of the multimillion-dollar property of “Father Grande”.

The main character of the novel is Eugenie's father. Felix Grande is the image of a provincial rich man, an exceptional personality. The thirst for money filled his soul and destroyed all human feelings in him. The news of his brother's suicide left him completely indifferent. He did not take any family part in the fate of his orphaned nephew, quickly sending him to India. The miser left his wife and daughter without the most necessary things, even saving on doctor’s visits. Grande changed his habitual indifference to his dying wife only after he learned that her death threatened the distribution of property, since Eugenie was the legal heir of her mother. The only one to whom he was not indifferent in his own way was his daughter. And that was only because he saw in her the future guardian of accumulated wealth. “Take care of the gold, take care! You will give me the answer in the next world,” these are the last words of the father addressed to the child.

The passion for accumulation not only dehumanized Felix Grande, it also caused premature death wives and lost life Eugénie, to whom his father denied the natural right to love and be loved. Passion also explained the sad evolution of Charles Grandet, who came to his uncle’s house as an unspoiled youth, and returned from India cruel and greedy, having lost best features your "I".

Building a biography of Grande, Balzac analytically exposed the “roots” of the hero’s degradation in a wide exposition, thereby drawing a parallel with bourgeois society, which asserted its greatness with the help of gold. This image was often compared with the image of Gobsek. But Gobsek’s and Grande’s thirst for profit was of a different nature: if Gobsek’s cult of gold was invested in philosophical understanding the greatness of wealth, then Grande simply loved money for money's sake. The realistic image of Felix Grande is not endowed with romantic features that alone made their way into Gobsekova. If the complexity of Gobsek’s nature in some way impressed Balzac, then Father Grande in his primitiveness did not awaken any sympathy in the writer.

The Saumur millionaire is opposed by his daughter. It was Eugenie, with her indifference to gold, high spirituality and desire for happiness, who decided to come into conflict with her father. The origins of the dramatic collision lie in the heroine’s love for her young cousin Charles. In the fight for Charles - beloved and in love - she showed rare persistence and audacity. But Grande took a cunning path, sending his nephew to distant India for gold. If Eugenie’s happiness never came, then the reason for this was Charles himself, betraying youthful love for the sake of money and social status. Having lost the meaning of life with love, the internally devastated Eugenie continued to exist at the end of the novel, as if fulfilling her father’s behest: “Despite the 800 thousand livres of income, she lives the same way as poor Eugenie Grandet lived before, she lights the stove in her room only when days when her father allowed her... Always dressed like her mother dressed. The Saumur house, without sun, without heat, is constantly filled with melancholy - a reflection of her life.”

This is how sad the story of Eugenie appeared - a woman created by nature for the happiness of being a wife and mother. But due to her spirituality and difference from others, for her despot father she “...received neither a husband, nor children, nor a family.”

Creative method writer

Balzac's heroes were introduced: bright, talented, extraordinary personalities;

Tendency to contrasts and exaggeration;

Balzac worked on the character in three stages:

I sketched an image of a person, based on someone I knew or from literature,

Collected all the material into a single whole;

The character became the embodiment of a certain passion, an idea, which gave him a certain form;

Everything that happened in his works is the result of numerous causes and consequences;

A significant place in the works was given to descriptions.

Questions for self-control

1. Why is Honoré de Balzac called “the father of modern realism and naturalism”?

2. Reveal the main idea of the writer of The Human Comedy.