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George Sand (1804-1876) - Pseudonym of Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin | |
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French Romantic writer, who questioned the sexual identity and gender destinies in fiction. Outside the literary world, Sand was noted for her numerous love affairs with such prominent figures as Prosper Merimée, Alfred de Musset (1833-34), Frédéric Chopin, (1838-47), Alexandre Manceau (1849-65), and others. The painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) did not take Sand very seriously, but her work inspired Alexander Herzen and Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand. Widespread critical attention accompanied the publication of most of her novels, starting from INDIANA (1832), a story of a naive, love-starved woman abused by her much older husband and deceived by a selfish seducer. "We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire. " (from Mauprat, 1837) George Sand was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin in Paris and brought up in the country home of her grandmother. Hr father, Maurice Dupin, was a military officer; he died from a riding accident in 1808. Sand received education at Nohant, her grandmother's estate, and at Couvent des Anglaises, Paris (1817-20). In 1822 she married François Casimir Dudevant, to whom she bore one son, Maurice, and one daughter, Solange. Casimir Dudevant was the illegitimate son of baron Jean-François Dudevant. In 1821 Sand inherited Nohant after the death of her grandmother. Because of her unhappy marriage, she left her family in 1831 and returned to Paris. In 1831 Sand started to write for Le Figaro. She contributed Revue des Deux Mondes (1832-41) and La République (1848), and was a coeditor of Revue Indépendante (1841). During these years she had acquaintance with several poets, artists, philosophers, and politicians. With her lover Jules Sandeau she wrote in a few weeks a novel, ROSE ET BLANCHE, under the pseudonym Jules Sand. The second novel Indiana (1832), published under the pseudonym G. Sand, was written by herself and gained an immediate fame. It was followed by VALENTINE (1832), and LÉLIA (1833). After reading Indiana the poet Alfred de Musset sent an admiring letter to Sand which marked the beginning of their passionate relationship. At the age of 33 she started an affair with Chopin. The composer, however, did not first consider her attractive. "Something about her repels me," he said to his family. Their relationship ended in 1847 when Sand started to suspect that Chopin had fallen in love with her daughter, Solange. It is also possible, that behind the breakup was Sand's treatment of Solange; she had married the sculptor Auguste Clésinger in 1847 and turned against her mother with him. Chopin was on Solange's side. Sand's early writings show the influence of the writers with whom she was associated. In the 1830s several artists responded to the call of the Comte de Saint-Simon of cure the evils of the new industrial society, among them Franz Listz and Sand who became friends, not lovers. On a personal level, Michel de Bourges, who preached revolution, was more important for her view of society. After de Bourges came Pierre Leroux, who was against property and supported the equality of women, and wanted to rehabilitate Satan. When François Buloz refused to publish her novel in Revues des Deux Monder, Sand founded in 1840 with Pierre Leroux and Louis Viardot a new review, La Révue indépendante. From the 1840s Sand found her own voice in novels, which had roots in her childhood's peasant milieu. For the rest of her life, Sand was committed to ideal of Socialism, which his friend Flaubert rejected in their dispute. Sand's positive review of Flaubert's novel Salammbô (1862) had led to correspondence and friendship between these two very different writers, but eventually Sand's idealism and Flaubert's pessimism brought them into a collision. After the 1848 revolution in France failed, Sand settled disappointed at Nohant. From 1864 to 1867 she lived in Palaiseau, near Versailles. Besides writing, Sand also enjoyed traveling. "Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward and his strength, his glory and his pleasure." George Sand died on June 8, 1876, in Nohant. Sand played an important, if long underestimated, role in the evolution of the novel. Her books, although popular, awoke also controversy: the French Senate recognized its opposition to the presence of Sand's works in public libraries. Partly because of affairs with well-known celebrities, she was accused of lesbianism and nymphomania. In her mid-life autobiography, HISTOIRE DE MA VIE (1854-55, Story of My Life), Sand displaced conventional distinctions separating male from female, fact from fiction, and public from private life. "Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness." In CONSUELO (1843) the musically gifted heroine defies the tragic destiny depicted in Madame de Staël's Corinne (1807). Sand's best works include her countryside novels LA MARE AU DIABLE (1846), in which Germain, a young widower, must choose between a rich woman and a poor girl, FRANÇOIS LE CHAMPI (1847-48), LA PETITE FADETTE (1849), and LES MAÎTRES SONNEURS (1853). In LUCREZIA FLORIANI (1846) Sand depicted her relationship with Frédéric Chopin (Prince Karol de Roswald in the book). HORACE (1842) was an examination of the young generation enthused by the ideals of Romanticism. She also wrote memoirs, short stories, essays and fairy tales. ELLE ET LUI (1859), a triangle drama, reflected her romance with Musset, who answered with Lui et elle, in which he defended his brother. Louise Colet continued the literary battle with Lui (1860). In 1842, the English critic George Henry Lewes said that Sand was ''the most remarkable writer of the present century.'' However, Sand's literary reputation started to decline after her death, and in the beginning of the 20th century, her work did not attract much attention. "The world will know and understand me someday," Sand once wrote to her critics. "But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women." For further reading: Family Romances: George Sand's Early Novels by Kathryn J. Crecelius (1987); George Sand: A Brave Man, the Most Womanly Woman by Donna Dickenson (1988); George Sand by David Powell (1990); Le Personnage sandien: Constantes et varitations by Anna Szabo (1991); George Sand: Writing for Her Life by Isabelle Hoog Naginski (1991); Poétiques de la parabole by Michèle Hecquet (1992); George Sand and Idealism by Naomi Schor (1993); Romantic Vision by Robert Godwin-Jones (1995); George Sand et l'écriture du roman by Jeanne Goldin (1996); De l'être en lettres by Anne McCall Saint-Saëns (1996); George Sand by Nicole Mozet (1997) - See also: Lélia ou la vie de George Sand by André Maurois (1952) - Note: Diane Kurys's film Enfants du siècle (1999), starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, depicted the love affair of Alfred de Musset and George Sand. Selected works:
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