In the Land of the Black Lilies: Memories of Youth and Maturity

Retté, Adolphe, 1863-1930Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0

Word count: 356K words
Chapters: 36

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Au pays des lys noirs: Souvenirs de jeunesse et d'âge mûr by Adolphe RettéAuthor: Retté, Adolphe, 1863-1930,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Oct 10, 2005

Editor's review

This is a memoir-like work by the French writer Adolphe Retté, whose title translates literally as "In the Land of Black Lilies," with the subtitle identifying it as recollections of youth and maturity. Retté was born in 1863, and his life spanned the intellectual currents of French Symbolist literature and the Catholic revival; this book links the atmosphere of the era through personal recollection and has value both as literature and as intellectual-historical source material. It is written in French and belongs to the category of French literature; the Project Gutenberg electronic edition makes it easily accessible. The reading highlights are the author's retrospective account of his spiritual journey and the sense of immediacy of late-nineteenth-century French literature and religious thought intertwined. It is not suitable as a systematic history textbook, but rather as a supplementary text for understanding individual intellectual transformation and the atmosphere of the era. Readers are advised to pay attention to the narrator's perspective and emotional tone, and to note the problem of selective memory inherent in the memoir genre.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in French literature and the memoir genre
Scholars studying late-nineteenth-century French thought and religious currents
Readers with French who enjoy personal narrative and spiritual autobiography
Literature lovers interested in the life of writers in the Symbolist era

Not a good fit for

Beginners seeking a systematic history of French literature
Readers who cannot read French and need the convenience of a Chinese translation
Those who prefer tightly plotted novels and lack patience for the memoir genre

Reading tips

First learn about Retté's era and the Symbolist background, then read the memoir proper; understanding will be fuller.
Compare the personal narrative with major events of the era to distinguish private memory from public history.
Note the key turning points in the author's thought; afterward you can trace his spiritual trajectory.
If reading French is difficult, start with Chinese introductions to the relevant period, then return to passages in the original.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a memoir?

Judging from the subtitle, it is a memoir of the author's youth and maturity, belonging to personal narrative rather than fiction. When reading, focus on the narrator's firsthand perspective while also noting the selectivity and subjectivity of the memoir genre.

What does the black lily in the title mean?

The title has symbolic coloring; its specific meaning needs to be understood in the context of the main text. It is advisable not to speculate from the title alone, but to note while reading how the author uses this image and how it relates to personal experience and the atmosphere of the era.

Can I read this book without knowing French?

This book is in the original French, and reading it without French will be quite difficult. You can first use Chinese or English background materials on the relevant period, or look for excerpts and reviews to understand the content, then decide whether to delve into the original.

Is this book suitable as a textbook for French literary history?

It is not suitable as a systematic textbook. It is a personal memoir with limited coverage and subjective coloring. It is better as supplementary reading for studying literary history, to experience the atmosphere of the era and individual experience.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Retté, Adolphe, 1863-1930 Author · French · 1863–1930

Adolphe Retté (1863–1930) was a French Symbolist poet and writer. Active in French literary circles in the late nineteenth century, he wrote early works marked by a clearly Symbolist character, emphasizing the musicality and suggestiveness of language in ways that resonated with the artistic aims of Symbolist poets of his time. In his later years he underwent a change of faith, converting to Catholicism, and this shift also shaped the orientation of his writing, giving his works a tone of religious reflection and spiritual self-examination. His representative work, Au pays des lys noirs: Souvenirs de jeunesse et d'âge mûr, traces memories of youth and mature years and combines the qualities of memoir and literary essay; its delicate, introspective prose makes it an important text for understanding the evolution of his thought. Publicly available information about him is currently limited, and details of his life and the full range of his work remain to be further studied; this entry relies only on reliable information now available, focusing on his identity as a Symbolist poet, his turn to Catholic faith, and the characteristics of his memoir writing.