Balzac

Author: Tong Yiqiu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-01
Features: Balzac (1799—1850) was a great French critical realist writer. He came from a middle-class family and lived in the first half of the 19th century, the period of French capitalism's rise from the Napoleonic Empire to the 1848 Revolution. After graduating from high school, he studied law but later defied his father's wishes and refused to become a lawyer. He once tried his hand at publishing but ended up in debt. Finally, he turned to literary creation. His thoughts were complex: although he came from a petty bourgeois family, he had strong feudal aristocratic consciousness and feudal moral views. He firmly supported private ownership but opposed the rising financial bourgeoisie. He saw and acknowledged the class contradictions of the time but simply attributed them to people's excessive development of their "private desires." As Engels said, his "great works were an endless elegy for the inevitable collapse of high society, and his entire sympathy was with the doomed class." In 1828, he published the novel The Last Chouan, based on the armed rebellion of feudal forces in Brittany, which attracted attention. In 1831, his Le Père Goriot was published, making him one of France's most celebrated writers. Over the next two decades, with superhuman talent and energy, he created over 90 interconnected novels collectively titled La Comédie Humaine, portraying more than 2,000 characters. La Comédie Humaine is divided into three parts: "Social Studies," "Philosophical Studies," and "Analytical Studies," with "Social Studies" being his primary focus. La Comédie Humaine presents a vivid picture of French social life and customs in the first half of the 19th century, especially during the Restoration period, reflecting the criminal rise of the bourgeoisie and the decline of the aristocracy. Another important aspect of the work is its realistic portrayal of the socio-economic conditions of the time. Engels once said that from this book, he learned "more than from all the professional historians, economists, and statisticians of the time combined." Additionally, La Comédie Humaine also pays attention to the portrayal of the working class, expressing the author's sympathy for their impoverished lives. Among 19th-century writers, he was one who vividly depicted how money brought endless suffering and torment to people in modern novels. Balzac named his work La Comédie Humaine clearly inspired by the title of Dante's epic poem La Divina Commedia (Chinese translation: The Divine Comedy). He intended to portray French society as a historian and himself as its scribe, meaning to reflect the French social landscape comprehensively and completely. Eugénie Grandet is one of the representative works of La Comédie Humaine, depicting the provincial life of France during the Bourbon Restoration. Through the conflicts between the two generations of the Grandet family, it reveals the criminal rise of the bourgeoisie and the naked monetary relationships between people under capitalism. Under the rule of money, even families became places where people deceived and exploited each other. The novel successfully portrays the image of a cunning, greedy, and miserly bourgeoisie. However, due to the limitations of the author's worldview, the work attributes the class nature of the old Grandet to a natural disposition, an obsession, failing to reveal the class essence of the exploiting class. Besides this novel, others like Père Goriot, La Déroute, and Les Paysans are also excellent works in La Comédie Humaine. The artistic achievements of La Comédie Humaine are immense. Engels pointed out that it was "one of the greatest victories of realism," and its artistic accomplishments are multifaceted: in character portrayal, it depicts over 2,400 characters, including more than 60 or 70 who are typical; in setting descriptions, emphasizing the realism of details is a key feature of the art of La Comédie Humaine. It is indeed a precious treasure in the heritage of human culture.