Alain-René Lesage

Alain-René Lesage (May 8, 1668, Sarzeau – November 17, 1747, Boulogne), also spelled Le Sage was a French novelist and playwright born at Sarzeau, in the peninsula of Rhuys, between the Morbihan and the sea, Brittany.

Life

Youth and education

Rhuys was a legal district, and Claude Lesage, the father of the novelist, held the united positions of advocate, notary and registrar of its royal court. His wife's name was Jeanne Brenugat. Both father and mother died when Lesage was very young, and his property was wasted or embezzled by his guardians. Little is known of his youth except that he went to school with the Jesuits at Vannes until he was eighteen. Conjecture has it that he continued his studies at Paris, and it is certain that he was called to the bar at the capital in 1692. In August 1694 he married the daughter of a joiner, Marie Elizabeth Huyard. She was beautiful but had no fortune, and Lesage had little practice. About this time he met his old schoolfellow, the dramatist Danchet, and is said to have been advised by him to betake himself to literature. He began modestly as a translator, and published in 1695 a French version of the Epistles of Aristaenetus, which was not successful. Shortly afterwards he found a valuable patron and adviser in the abbe de Lyonne, who bestowed on him an annuity of 600 livres, and recommended him to exchange the classics for Spanish literature, of which he was himself a student and collector.

Related Topics:
Jesuits - Vannes - Paris - 1692 - 1694 - Danchet - 1695 - Aristaenetus - Abbe de Lyonne - Spanish literature

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First literary efforts

Lesage began by translating plays chiefly from Rojas and Lope de Vega. Le Traitre puni and Le Point d'honneur from the former, Don Felix de Mendoce from the latter, were acted or published in the first two or three years of the 18th century. In 1704 he translated the continuation of Don Quixote by Avellaneda, and soon afterwards adapted a play from Calderon, Don Cesar Ursin, which had a divided fate, being successful at court and damned in the city. He was, however, nearly forty before he obtained anything like decided success. But in 1707 his admirable farce of Crispin rival de son maitre was acted with great applause, and Le Diable boiteux was published. This latter went through several editions in the same year, and was frequently reprinted till 1725, when Lesage altered and improved it considerably, giving it its present form. Notwithstanding the success of Crispin, the actors did not like Lesage, and refused a small piece of his called Les Etrennes (1707). He thereupon altered it into Turcaret, his theatrical masterpiece, and one of the best comedies in French literature. This appeared in 1709.

Related Topics:
Rojas - Lope de Vega - 18th century - 1704 - Don Quixote - Avellaneda - Calderon - 1707 - 1725 - 1709

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Prose writings

Some years passed before he again attempted romance writing, and then the first two parts of Gil Blas de Santillane appeared in 1715. Strange to say, it was not so popular as Le Diable boiteux. Lesage worked at it for a long time, and did not bring out the third part till 1724, nor the fourth till 1735. For this last he had been part paid to the extent of a hundred pistoles some years before its appearance. During these twenty years he was, however, continually busy. Notwithstanding the great merit and success of Turcaret and Crispin, the Theatre Francais did not welcome him, and in the year of the publication of Gil Bias he began to write for the Théatre de la Foire, the comic opera held in booths at festival time. This, though not a very dignified occupation, was followed by many writers of distinction at this date, and by none more assiduously than by Lesage. According to one computation he produced, either alone or with others, about a hundred pieces, varying from strings of songs with no regular dialogues, to comediettas only distinguished from regular plays by the introduction of music. He was also industrious in prose fiction. Besides finishing Gil Blas he translated the Orlando innamorato (1721), rearranged Guzman d'Alfarache (1732), published two more or less original novels, Le Bachelier de Salamanque and Estevanitte Gonzales, and in 1733 produced the Vie et aventures de M. de Beauchesne, which is curiously like certain works of Defoe. Besides all this, Lesage was also the author of La Valise trouvee, a collection of imaginary letters, and of some minor pieces, of which Une journee des parques is the most remarkable. This laborious life he continued until 1740, when he was more than seventy years of age. His eldest son had become an actor, and Lesage had disowned him, but the second was a canon at Boulogne in comfortable circumstances. In the year just mentioned his father and mother went to live with him. At Boulogne Lesage spent the last seven years of his life, dying on the 17th of November 1747. His last work, Melange amusant de saitties d'esprit et de traits historiques les plus frappants, had appeared in 1743.

Related Topics:
1715 - 1724 - 1735 - Theatre Francais - Théatre de la Foire - 1721 - 1732 - 1733 - Defoe - 1740 - Boulogne - 1743

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