Alfred de Musset

Barine, Arvède, 1840-1908Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 255K words
Chapters: 26

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.Alfred de Musset by Arvède BarineAuthor: Barine, Arvède, 1840-1908,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Feb 27, 2009

Editor's review

This biography of Alfred de Musset by Arvède Barine offers French-literature enthusiasts a window into the life of a nineteenth-century French Romantic poet. Writing at the end of the nineteenth century, Barine brings the elegance and restraint of the humanist essay of her era, sketching the poet's life while preserving her own perspective on his work and character. Published free by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain electronic text, it costs nothing to obtain and is especially suited to French reading practice or as supplementary material for a course on Romanticism. Note that it is not a critical biography in the modern academic sense: its methods and use of sources bear the marks of its time, and readers should treat it as a warm historical document rather than an authoritative verdict. Reading it alongside Musset's own poems and plays is recommended.

Who it's for

A good fit for

French majors using it as source reading for nineteenth-century literature
General readers interested in French Romantic poets
Literature enthusiasts studying Musset's life and early biographical writing
Readers seeking free public-domain ebooks

Not a good fit for

Researchers needing the latest scholarship and critical annotation
Beginners unable to read French and without a parallel translation
Literary-theory students expecting systematic analysis of the works

Reading tips

Read a few of Musset's representative poems first, then the biography, to link works with life.
Read alongside a chapter on nineteenth-century French Romantic literary history for period context.
Take brief notes on unfamiliar names and events to keep track of relationships.
Read it as an essayistic text rather than insisting on word-by-word verification.

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 in Chinese or French?

According to the Project Gutenberg record, the book is in French and is a public-domain electronic edition of the original text. No Chinese translation is included, so readers need some French reading ability.

Who is Arvède Barine?

Arvède Barine (1840–1908) was a French writer and biographer, and she wrote this book. The available information offers no further biographical detail; she may be regarded as one representative of late-nineteenth-century French literary biography.

Is this book suitable as a main reference for Musset studies?

Not as the sole or main scholarly reference. It is an early biographical text whose perspective and use of sources reflect its period; it is better used as supplementary reading alongside modern scholarly biographies and collected works.

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About the author

Barine, Arvède, 1840-1908 Author

Arvède Barine (1840–1908) was a French writer and literary critic known for her biographical and historical writing. Four of her works are held in this collection: Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652–1693; La Grande Mademoiselle, 1627–1652; Alfred de Musset; and Bernardin de St. Pierre. These works show her interest in the seventeenth-century French court and the fate of aristocratic women, as well as her skill in portraying figures from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French literature. Her writing draws on historical and biographical sources, with a clear style that combines character study with attention to the wider context of the period. Public information about her nationality, education, and personal life is limited, and no inferences are made here. Her works remain useful for the study of French classical literature and historical figures.